Correspondence
Bill didn't do it Your recent editorial on Bill Clinton ["The President," September 11] was excellent, but I must take issue with the notion that we need Clinton, or any president, to "manage...
...God grant us the understanding to assess circumstances realistically, the wisdom to judge the relationship between means and ends, and the courage to recognize that we have not only to practice the virtues we preach but also to suffer for them...
...These witnesses and their promise to support the couple do give "standing and authority to the utterance...
...Think of Bob Rubin as the representative of the bondholders' committee...
...Marriage is, for better or for worse, a public institution, not a "private" contract...
...The writer replies: Marian Burkhart defends her belief in a just war vigorously...
...Au contraire...
...Gene Sharp has catalogued the history of hundreds of successful nonviolent movements against powerful regimes...
...In the one instance I know of in which nonviolence actually worked-the ending of the British Raj--Gandhi was blessed in his enemy...
...10115...
...What is 'gay marriage...
...Note to Mr...
...What would be so terrible if he did...
...If she connects the phrase "dark sexual side" with a satanic condemnation, she misses the point...
...Witness the safe havens in Bosnia, a plan which turned not only the other cheeks of Muslim refugees but those as well of 850 hapless Dutch soldiers who were sent as UN "peacekeepers" to protect Srebrenica with not much more than pious hopes and slingshots...
...My family and I have enjoyed reading it so much that we've decided to extend the subscription...
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...Residential program...
...An 'a' for an 'r' Am I the only one who noticed that throughout his review of The Truman Show [August 14], Richard Alleve [sic] spelled Jim Carrey's name with one "r...
...MARIAN BURKHART New York, N.Y...
...405, N.Y., N.Y...
...ROBERT F. MIAILOVICH Washington, D.C...
...Of course he never compelled anyone to turn the other cheek because he never coerced anyone to do anything...
...There are many good reasons not to impeach Clinton...
...It can at least offer a hope of justice, a possibility of a principled peace...
...12 word minimum...
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...Judging by the review, both Lawler and Wheeler think homosexual orientation is evil...
...If he really understood what constitutes a just war, Barry McCaffery would not, for instance, have accepted leadership of the war on drugs, for there is no way such a war can be won, and a reasonable chance of success is one of the more obvious criteria of a just war...
...When we consider sowing Colombian drug fields with poison so strong that it will render the land infertile for God knows how long, we turn other people's other cheeks with a vengeance...
...Although I do not have any academic qualifications in literary criticism with which to challenge Wheeler's opinions about Hopkins's poetry, except as one who has found inspiration in it, I do want to challenge his attitude toward Hopkins's sexuality...
...Theology degrees...
...It's time for Catholic Christians to confront our homophobia and adopt a healthier attitude toward how God speaks through all experiences...
...VANESSA NeSSMITH Orange Park, Fla...
...I wish she would give an instance of a recent war in which all the required criteria for a just war are met...
...But how can Christians escape Jesus' call to love your enemies and do to others as you would have them do to you...
...The reviewer replies: Lawler's book aims at seeing Hopkins plain, that is, in context, and by avoiding any narrow vision of his work...
...Bill didn't do it Your recent editorial on Bill Clinton ["The President," September 11] was excellent, but I must take issue with the notion that we need Clinton, or any president, to "manage the economy...
...Priesthood...
...Ronald Reagan quadrupled the national debt by about 1986 and spooked the bond market...
...Saturday 10-5 Phone: 212/535-4050 _9 Toll-free: 888/311-8949 Fax- 212/535-4052 ~ E-mail: para@cybernex.net www: http://www2.cybernex.net/- para/public/ RATES: $1.10 per word...
...Ever since, bondholders have exacted strict fiscal performance standards from the government: basically, do whatever you please...
...That word, mea culpa, is mine, not Lawler's...
...When two people stand before their family and friends and in front of the assembled people of God and proclaim their union and their intention to love and care for one another, something real is happening...
...Almost as disturbing as her misattribution (to me and Lawler) of delight in Commonweal 3 6 November 6, 1998 beating up on homosexuals in print are Polen's historical distortions involved in reading something we call a gay lifestyle back into the nineteenth century...
...They take pride in the brutal dehumanization and slaughter to which they subject those they declare to be "enemies...
...It's the most perceptive review of the book I've read...
...The writer is professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...Christ on the cross suffered himself...
...SIDNEY CALLAHAN Where's the lunacy...
...Even more distressing to me is Wheeler's sympathy with Lawler's "rush of pent-up energy" as he dismantles the thought of a "dark sexual side" of Hopkins...
...The absence of civil or church recognition of the "performative utterance" between the two partners does not negate the fact that the two individuals concerned have in some way radically changed their lives...
...650) 340-7480...
...Lots of people these days, heterosexuals and homosexuals, apparently regard personal promise sharing as more than sufficient for establishing a union and may, in fact, disdain "marriage" as an outdated social institution...
...He asked his followers to turn the other cheek, but he never compelled them to, nor did he sit back clothed in moral superiority as they suffered when he withdrew his help...
...The writer is president of Dignity/ USA, an organization of homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered Catholics, and their families and friends...
...I am intent on the means to be used because I think Gandhi was correct when he said "means are ends in the making...
...When Sidney Callahan urges the use of nonviolent tactics against the likes of Mladic, Karadzic, and Saddam Hussein ["Confronting the Generals," September 25], she is adopting much the same policy...
...The notion that he or anyone else on the Washington scene is central to running the economy is not one of them...
...When we recall that matrimony has been a sacrament of the Catholic church for less than half the time of its existence, and that the sacrament of matrimony is one which two individuals confer on each other, with the priest being only a witness, we are left with considerable room for continuing debate...
...Discounts 5 percent, 3 times...
...Dennis O'grien's comments on "gay marriage" ["A Parish Dismissal," September 25] too easily dismiss the position of those who believe gay marriage can be a reality and not merely a political statement...
...CHARLES R. MORRIS New York, N.Y...
...The punishment for breaking the rules is a flight from treasuries and a spike in interest rates...
...The British in India, not to mention in their other colonies such as Ireland, did "wantonly and willfully destroy unarmed protesters, innocent civilians...
...50 minimum on phone & mail orders) Start your gift-shopping now and save...
...DENNIS O'BRIEN Imposing heroism on others A fellow teacher once described a departmental chair whom neither of us liked as being skilled at turning other people's other cheeks--a-worse-thandubious moral stance...
...Its readers should be informed that the continuities between Rawls's ideas and those of John Courtney Murray, S.J., have been illumined by Professor Leslie Griffin of Georgetown University in her article, 'Good Catholics Should Be Rawlsian Liberals," Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 5 (1997...
...You keep us talking I began receiving your publication about two years ago as a gift from Father Tim Lozier of Gainesx611e...
...Reviewing Justus George Lawler's book on Gerard Manley Hopkins [October 23], Edward T. Wheeler commends the author for "destroying the lunacies" of Hopkins biographer Robert Bernard Martin...
...otherwise there would not be the agitation from Dignity and others to establish "gay marriages...
...As a promise of fidelity, affection, and so on, it is the very model of a performative act...
...ROBERT A. KR1EG Notre Dame, Ind...
...Lawler is concerned to present Hopkins as an anima candida who knows Christ [who] "plays in ten thousand places/ Lovely in limbs...
...I see attitudinal parallels in the recent attack on a gay man in Wyoming--a violent enacting of this very "rush of pent-up energy" to eliminate the homosexual experience from our world...
...And, alas, so has the United States...
...A month-long sale at The Paraclete Book Center your source for the finest theological writing for more than 47 years...
...From the editors: In this matter, Your Honor, you're the best judge...
...Clinton's economic policies have been indistinguishable from Bush's because neither had any wiggle-room at all...
...I think I would have my doubts about just-war theory even if I were not a Christian...
...Obviously I accept the concept of a just war...
...15 percent, 12 times...
...And remember James Carville's fantasy of being reincarnated as "the bond market," the only creature in Washington, as far as he could see, that had any power...
...Wheeler is pleased that Lawler has "attempted a rescue" of Hopkins from Martin's view that the poet had homosexual desires and even an encounter...
...Spend time alone or request spiritual direction...
...Retreat RETREATS ARE NOT JUST FASHIONABLE...
...Clinton is no more responsible for the recent good performance of the economy than George Bush was for the 1991-92 recession...
...he just told us what God commands...
...If she must rely only on a just war's "hope of justice, a possibility of a principled peace," it doesn't seem enough to justify the killing...
...EDWARD T. WHEELER [LASSIFIE| Rawls & Murray Bernard G. Prusak's interview with Professor John Rawls ["Politics, Religion & the Public Good," September 25] makes a helpful contribution to current discussions about the participation of Catholics in a democratic society...
...From the editors: Apologies to Mr...
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...Keep up the great work...
...1-800-986-9585 ext 6012...
...An author strikes back I was delighted that you got John McGreevy to review The Lustre of Our Country ["James Madison, Doctor of the Church," July 17...
...Finally, Marian Burkhart's faith in the English conscience is misplaced...
...Polen looks close and distorts--in this case, my review of the book...
...Thanks for all the interesting conversations your aritcles have provoked in our family...
...Beginning October 20th, and continuing for a full month, you'll save 20% on most in-store purchases...
...The reference to the death of the Wyoming student can only underscore Polen's demonization of the experience of reading...
...Of course, the worst policy of all is one that combines a bit of nonviolence with a soupcon of sloppily reasoned just-war theory...
...These are the "lunacies" destroyed...
...Commonweal 3 _9 November 6, 1998...
...What is hidden is generally "dark...
...I assume that they do not...
...Why then are we so reluctant to pray for and bless two men or two women who find the love of God mirrored in each other...
...Surely the complexities of that age need explication if we are to derive more than corroboration of contemporary anxieties...
...Carrey from four (4) proofreaders...
...They could not wantonly and willfully destroy unarmed protesters, innocent civilians...
...Chrzanowski: Our film critic is not a painkiller...
...Martin, the biographer, argues that if Hopkins is to be seen as involved in a homoerotic encounter, the evidence for that has to be uncovered because Hopkins chose to hide it in his journal and letters...
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...My own challenge as a pacifist who believes in the need for an international police force and nonlethal legal coercion lies in devising how such peace-keeping actions can be effected...
...JOHN T. NOONAN, JR...
...She sees through a glass, darkly...
...ED CHRZANOWSKI Lockport, N.Y...
...ALL TYPES...
...Polen allows herself an easy assumption: that a forceful refutation of a "dubious theory" has to be a loss of Christian charity...
...Continued on page 36) Commonweal ~ November6,1998 I('l ;I ;I 1-1 ' J . l : _9 .! 1: [4 | (Continued from page 4) Such was not the case with Hitler, nor is it with Milosevic, with the engineers of ethnic cleansing...
...No matter how Machiavellian, exploitafive, and oppressive British policy had been, the English people still had consciences...
...The writer replies: Of course, something happens when any two people solemnly declare their union...
...Come away to the beautiful and contemplative surroundings of Mercy Center in Burlingame, California, to rest, pray and experience renewal...
...that is, made a specific promise...
...Retreats have been a source of renewal for believers long before they became au courant...
...Our church blesses animals, tools, ships, and a multitude of things...
...But a just war is something quite other than the "goody-now-Iget-to-shoot" view that Callahan's general seems to think it is...
...Christians must overcome evil by good: Thou shall not kill or do evil for the sake of good...
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...MATER DEI INSTITUTE at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99202-1849...
...Lawler's energy (which I applaud) is focused on demolishing wildly improbable literary interpretations...
...Finally, whether a same-sex union has any civil or church standing is important but not conclusive...
...Ministry Program DESIRE LAY MINISTRY...
...Jesus preached this nonviolent message to everyone in the sermon on the plain...
...Lawler's treatment of Martin is judicious and measured...
...A war to end wars doesn't work, any better than state terrorism to end terrorism...
...The question is whether such promises constitute "marriage...
...Why would it be more terrible than the experience of a heterosexual like Thomas Merton...
...10 percent, 6 times...
...Surely more clever and effective nonviolent means can be devised to outwit and defeat the thugs of the world...
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...SUZANNE POLEN Pittsburgh, Pa...
...And, by not drawing that line in the sand--by not taking action when Hitler invaded the Sudetenland, when Milosevic attacked Croatia, when the barbaric Serbian onslaught upon the Bosnians began--we turned millions of other people's other cheeks...
...If I say, "I promise" (assuming some simple conditions, for example, I am not acting in a play or reading out loud), then I have done something...
...Advance payment required...
Vol. 125 • November 1998 • No. 19
