Correspondence
Editing the creed After reading the editorial and related articles in your issue of August 14, I propose the following addendum to the Nicene Creed: "We believe that the fullness of truth has...
...Having worked with him in Kentucky, I have often told him how I wish I could clone him to a few other states...
...That's the number of American bishops who voted against adoption of the two most significant teaching documents issued by the NCCB in recent years: The Challenge of Peace (1983) and Economic Justice for All (1986...
...But, as our editorial argued, there is little sign of such a trend, either in the anemic worldwide Synod of Bishops or in local sees, where ordinaries are subject to curial supervision, including inquiries, threats, and other forms of intimidation as they seek to exercise "the Christgiven rights of the local bishops...
...To give due weight to those who do such heavy theological lifting on our behalf, we need a new category...
...Catholic bishops eligible to cast votes on such occasions, but if the requirement of unanimity laid down in Apostolos suos had been in place in 1983 and 1986, those nine negative votes--or just one of them--would have put the two pastoral letters on hold until they could be reviewed, and possibly revised or rejected, by the Vatican curia...
...Should the government cover my choice of what to put in the collection basket every Sunday...
...GINO DALPIAZ, C.S...
...Arizona found that its housing trust fund generated about $4 million in recurring property taxes and another $1 million in personal income taxes from construction labor receipts...
...Similarly impressive numbers are registered by each of the thirty-three states that have created housing trust funds...
...Modest proposals Since this is the season for making changes in canon law, I suggest one more: Let it be amended to incorporate the concept of due process, applicable at all levels in the church...
...I hope not, but you never know...
...BILL BRODERICK Arlington, Va...
...It cannot reprove, much less remove, a diocesan bishop----or for that matter, an assistant pastor...
...Why couldn't Robert Imbelli or Commonweal have written these insightful words instead of the religion editor of a secular newspaper...
...A horror story...
...On average, state housing trust funds have been able to leverage more than $9 for every $1 that the fund provides for a housing project...
...I couldn't believe the editorial on school vouchers ["Good Exercise," July 17], but I shouldn't have been surprised...
...Reviewer reviewed If Sinead O'Connor portrayed Martin Luther King, Jr.'s mother saying "the f-word" in a movie, would Commonweal print the same glowing review Richard Alleva gave O'Connor [June 5] for portraying the Virgin Mary saying the same word in The Butcher Boy...
...My view may be biased, but I don't see promulgation of these documents as life-giving...
...REV...
...Nobody knows or ever will know, but we'd guess it would be at least nine...
...What excites most states is that their housing trust funds not only address critical housing needs but are also good for local economies...
...Stone Park, IlL The editors reply: Father Dalpiaz may well be right that "more than one" American bishop welcomed Apostolos suos...
...great God, free at last from the the tyranny of the bishops' conference...
...Finally, there is the phenomenon of those in the Vatican who are not the pope but give the appearance of wanting to be...
...Under the Wisconsin law, parents can determine whether their children will participate in any religious activity in the schools the parents have chosen...
...The Catholic church now worships the same god as the rest of America, the almighty dollar...
...To say that because vouchers go to parents, it is not the government but the taxpayers who do the choosing is ridiculous...
...I suggest the term, "just barely fallible...
...Seduced by...
...In a column published July 31, Steve Kloehn, religion editor of the Chicago Tribune, wrote: "So while the pope's latest letter, Apostolos suos, has been widely interpreted as Rome's attempt to grab back power given to national bishops' conferences by the Second Vatican Council, the letter itself relies heavily on Vatican II documents, citing its teachings thirty times in eight pages...
...Or it will be revealed to a future pope at some later date...
...KRIS JARANTOSKI Chicago, Ill...
...Commonweal 4 September25,1998...
...Whether I'm in the minority or majority usually doesn't faze me much...
...Talk about Pavlovian kneejerk reactions...
...Is that why today's Catholics don't see the need to support the Catholic school system as our parents did...
...There are approximately four hundred U.S...
...The National Association of Home Builders estimates that housing construction accounts for nearly 10 percent of domestic employment...
...May it be a gigantic figure of my imagination...
...It began by listing the distasteful aspects of the film, including the one noted by Father Brice, and it dearly registered the reviewer's own ambivalent response to the movie: "Out of the wrong side of the mouth, through tears, with a sick sensation at the pit of the belly, but laugh we do," Alleva wrote...
...But even the church, it seems, will compromise for money...
...As a priest, I've been saddened by the retreat from Vatican II reforms, which now resembles a march back to the Stone Age...
...The children of this world are more shrewd than...are the children of light...
...DONALD BRICE Washington, D.C...
...So what is the purpose of Catholic schools...
...Housing is key factor Representative Jim Wayne's article on the use of housing trust funds to create more affordable housing [August 14] reflects his insightfulness about housing needs in his own state and across the country...
...To regard the new requirement as constituting a defeat for bureaucracy and a step toward decentralization strikes us as passing strange...
...NANCY SULLIVAN MURRAY Syracuse, N.Y...
...It may be helpful to note that, although housing trust funds have not yet generated enough funds to replace what the federal government has withdrawn, they have had significant impact all over the country...
...From the editors: We suggest that our correspondent has misread Richard Alleva's review...
...MARY BROOKS Frazier Park, Calif...
...The state of Washington estimates that it has generated 11,867 jobs through its $159 million investment in housing...
...MARK FRANCESCHINI, O.S.M...
...Still a relatively new response to urgent housing needs, they have committed more than $1.5 billion toward building and preserving some 200,000 units of housing for low-income households...
...That doesn't strike us as "glowing...
...The affirmation that conferences can do so if there is unanimity among the bishops or with the recognitio of the Holy See when there is widespread but not unanimous agreement clarifies a situation that has been under discussion for more than a decade...
...More important, these funds represent an ongoing commitment by local and state governments to continue addressing critical housing needs...
...REV...
...Like Jim Wayne, they have found that investing in trust funds is investing in their states' citizenry...
...That's what you call even-handedness...
...These extra dollars come from other public and private sources---and they are dollars we may very well never have seen but for the housing trust funds...
...The concept is alien to the thought processes and procedural practices of the Vatican curia, but it is totally consistent with the teaching and practice of Jesus Christ...
...I'm sure that after reading Apostolos suos, more than one American bishop exclaimed: "Free at last...
...As an American I believe that asking the public to support private religious schools, whether Christian, Jewish, or Islamic, is wrong, no matter how you rationalize it...
...Our correspondent may also believe that in imposing the requirement of unanimity the apostolic letter struck a blow for the autonomy of bishops, making them, as he says, "free at last...
...As sure as day follows night, Commonweal gleefully pounced on the pope's recent apostolic letters, Ad tuendam fidem and Apostolos suos...
...It was to individual bishops, not to episcopal conferences, that Christ entrusted the sheep of his flock...
...The writer is director of the Housing Fund Project of the Center for Community Change...
...A second suggestion: Could all of us, bishops and nonbishops alike, who have spoken American English all our lives, be told the names and linguistic backgrounds of those Roman residents who are empowered to tell us how to use our language in the liturgy...
...Westminster, Colo...
...Amen...
...But you are on the wrong side of history, and you sense it...
...Knee-jerk reactions I knew it...
...Kloehn adds: "While one popular analysis has a tyrannical pope curbing the freedom of bishops' conferences, the letter itself suggests [a] very different possibility--that it is protecting the rights of individual bishops from the potential tyranny of bishops' conferences...
...Maine estimates that a $4.2 million investment helped create or sustain more than 900 jobs in construction, banking, real estate, and other work related to housing, paying an estimated $19.4 million in wages...
...Commenting on the lettter, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput was right on target when he said, "I do what I believe my vocation as bishop obligates me to do before God and his vicar...
...At last there's an issue on which most people in the church can agree, because it involves money...
...When you accept money from the government, you are beholden to the government...
...It seems that Commonweal prefers the centralization and bureaucracy of the bishops' conference to the Christ-given rights of the local bishops...
...In contrast, the NCCB lacks the tools needed for tyranny...
...Editing the creed After reading the editorial and related articles in your issue of August 14, I propose the following addendum to the Nicene Creed: "We believe that the fullness of truth has been revealed to the pope...
...In another such comment, Archbishop Anthony Pilla, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, "I am happy to see that the Holy Father has indicated the conditions under which episcopal conferences can exercise an appropriate teaching authority...
...Pumping dollars into local construction industries provides jobs, generates increased household incomes, creates a growing property tax base, and yields other secondary economic benefits...
...It's passing strange that the articles by Richard McCormick, James Coriden, and Robert Imbelli, as well as Commonweal's editorial, were all on one side against the pope's position...
...The Pope's Hard Sayings" (Ad tuendam fidem and Apostolos Suos) and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's explanations will be cause for rejoicing by some, weeping by others, from the hierarchy to the laity...
...Continued on page 4) Commonweal 2 September 25, 1998 (Continued from page 2) Witch hunts ahead...
...Exactly how many welcomers were there...
...Or not...
...To train our young people in academics while listing religion as an option...
...I fear loyalty oaths for priests will be followed by new-millennium versions of witch hunts...
...Any and every expression on matters religious, from liturgy to education, that is not 110 percent orthodox will have to be defended once it has been reported and denounced...
...When I attended Catholic schools (for twelve years), we were there to be instructed in the Catholic faith, to take part in regular religious activities, and to learn how to live in harmony with Catholic ideals...
...An unlikely ogre...
Vol. 125 • September 1998 • No. 16
