Correspondence
Smug, sneering, snide I was saddened by the tone of many of the articles in CommonweaI's issue of August 14. The editorial on recent papal pronouncements was smug. The comment by Richard...
...Newman ended by adding: "I don't say this to everyone--I suppose we must be worse, before we are better-because we do not recognize that we are bad...
...Newman's struggles & ours Regarding your editorial ["Tests of Faith," August 14], I offer by way of comfort an excerpt from a letter written by Cardinal Newman [May 19, 1863] to Miss Emily Bowles: "This age of the church is pecul i a r - i n former times, primitive and medieval, there was not the extreme centralization now in use...
...Long's account of his visit to Mother Angelica's headquarters was snide...
...Long made me chuckl e - - a bit ruefully but enough to relieve my gloom...
...I never thought I would read in Commonweal an "I-visited-your-liturgy-and-here's-what's wrong-with-it" review like Long's...
...In the development of institutional power, be it political or religious, authority enhances itself unless checked...
...Now, if I, as a private priest, put anything into print, Propaganda answers me at once...
...THOMAS J. SHELLEY Bronx, N.Y...
...Newman prefaced these remarks by saying: "And your cut and dried answers out of a dogmatic treatise are no weapons with which the Catholic Reason can hope to vanquish the infidels of the day...
...The articles by Richard A. McCormick and James A. Coriden expanded my knowledge of the letter's content and its possible consequences...
...Why was it that the Medieval Schools were so vigorous...
...Because they were allowed free and fair play--because the disputants were not made to feel the bit in their mouths at every other word they spoke, but could move their limbs freely and expatiate at will...
...This is a way of things which, in God's own time, will work its own cure, of necessity...
...And the "Last Word" by J.V...
...The comment by Richard McCormick, S.J., on the same topic was sneering...
...ROBERT J. MILLER, O.P...
...The editorial, "Tests of Faith," eloquently expressed my distress about the apostolic letter, "To Defend the Faith...
...The Holy See was but the court of ultimate appeal...
...Is Commonweal now the Wanderer of the Left...
...Hope & humor renewed Thank you, thank you for the whole wonderful issue dated August 14...
...The quotations are from Newman's Letters and Diaries, London, 1970, VoI...
...If a private theologian said anything free, another answered him...
...Now it seems that Commonweal is forging a new "siege mentality...
...It is like the Persians driven on to fight under the lash...
...That lesson has relevance to church government as well...
...J.V...
...How can I fight with such a chain on my arm...
...Then, when they went wrong, a stronger and truer intellect set them down-and, as time went on, if the dispute got perilous, and a controversialist obstinate, then at length Rome interfered--at length, not at first...
...There was true private judgment in the primitive and medieval schools--there are no schools now, no private judgment (in the religious sense of the term), no freedom, that is, of opinion...
...When Thomas Jefferson said that democracy depends upon an educated public, I think he meant that vigilance is needed to offset the tendency of authority to become dictatorial...
...River Forest, I1l...
...Acquiescent bishops As a professor of history, including church history, I'd like to comment on the articles in your issue of August 14 dealing with "the pope's hard sayings...
...The collegiality of the bishops, a (Continued on page 42) Commonweal 4 September 11, 1998...
...XX, pp...
...I used to be able to count on Commonweal to stand above the fray...
...My faith is indeed being tested by the apostolic letter and other hierarchical pronouncements, but with your help I have renewed hope that I will muddle through...
...More from Newman In his fine article [August 14], Robert Imbelli asks: "How, then, is truth determined...
...If the controversy grew, then it went to a bishop, a theological faculty, or to some foreign university...
...The loving memoir of Isaiah Berlin and the assessment of his work by David McCabe introduced me to someone about whom I want to learn more, especially since he saw diversity as wondrous and not frightening...
...ANNE M. REYNOLDS Pearl River, N.Y...
...REV...
...As far as I can make out, this has ever been the rule of the church till now, when the first French Revolution having destroyed the Schools of Europe, a sort of centralization has been established at headquarters--and the individual thinker in France, England or Germany is brought into immediate collision with the most sacred authorities of the Divine Polity...
...That is, no exercise of the intellect of former times...
...What concerns me is the lack of response from the bishops---or, worse yet, their agreement to mute or still their own voice in the meetings of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops...
...John Henry Newman, who had experience in the nineteenth century of the papal strategies that your editorial deplores, gave the following advice to a friend, Robert Ornsby, shortly before the appearance of the Syllabus of Errors: "Truth is wrought out by many minds, working together freely...
...425-6...
...ALBERT SCHORSCH III Chicago, I1l...
Vol. 125 • September 1998 • No. 15
