Frank McConnell, women's ordination, suffering vs. pain
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Remembering Frank I was saddened by the news of Frank McConnell's death [issue of February 12,1999]: May he rest in peace. It has motivated me to write my first...
...They were a pretty well-off lot before and have continued doing fine since...
...To think otherwise, of course, might lead someone to the absurd conclusion that our common nature is numerically the same in every individual...
...This experience didn't diminish my enjoyment of his columns, however, so last year I read Thomas Pynchon's Mason and Dixon which Frank had praised very highly (a blurb from his review was even on the book as a testimonial...
...JAMES F. MESCHIA, M.D...
...and my wife reads a great deal of it as well...
...To pick up on Shannon's point, then, the fact that each cell in a preimplantation embryo can become a separate individual or that this blastomere can divide into twins means that there cannot be two rational souls present in it...
...Would you rather he sent to represent him "naturally" Cardinal Spellman or Saint Therese...
...Finally, I was particularly delighted by Frans Jozef van Beeck's piece ["The Women in My Life"], written with such good humor and really nailing in place more theology which cries out for the priesting of women...
...It has everything to do with being human...
...Is it therefore not appropriate to eliminate the pain, even if it means eliminating the patient as well...
...Maybe Professor van Beeck ["The Women in My Life," January 29] should just stick to his real answer, "I don't know," when called upon to justify a rule based on tradition without using the tradition argument...
...SALLY CAMPBELL Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y...
...she gives a conclusive theology substantiating the right of women to be priested...
...a one-year subscription is $24.95...
...In turn then, I would like to offer a bit of personal history myself...
...It was Good Friday...
...suffering I was pleased to see Dr...
...the word wanted here is personally...
...The individual is differentiated from the group by haecceitas, "thisness," Scotus's principle of individuation...
...Women are barred from the priesthood—why...
...It's precisely because we cannot guess God's motives that we tend to cling to doing things the way we always have and to avoid making major changes without good and outstanding cause...
...Kevin P. Glynn take a public stand in favor of the principle of double effect as it applies to end-of-life medical decisions ["Double Effect," January 29,1999...
...Of especial interest to me was his mentioning that all human beings begin life as females, since the egg from which any person develops always contains only the female X chromosome...
...1312) which held that the soul can only exist in a real human body (I take that to mean "sufficiently formed") and could not be present at the moment of conception...
...In your excerpt titled "Yves Congar on Patience," Congar requires that the innovator first respect "the primacy of charity and pastoral care...
...While analgesic medications are the prescription for pain, the prescription for suffering is compassion...
...This is as true for any other nonordained person—or group of persons—as it is for me...
...Finally, that men and women are moral equals in God's eyes does not necessarily mean that they are vocational equals...
...In his reply to Sidney Callahan's letter [January, 15,1999], Shannon acknowledges this by pointing out that Scotus "is an epistemological realist, not a nominalist...
...an excellent editorial choice...
...Modern Catholic theologians need to decide whether they'd rather reject tradition outright (meaning they may start drawing conclusions the Vatican isn't crazy about) or give it its proper credit, at least for the sake of argument...
...I went through divinity school always using the line that I did not want to be ordained...that I shunned the need for that kind of official recognition or authority for my ministry...
...Mitochondria are the small bodies whose chemical reactions are the initial source of cellular energy, and therefore of any person's bodily energy...
...The individual is an entity that is not divisible into other individuals...
...The television audience recently watching "60 Minutes" was lead to believe that Jack Kevorkian (I refuse to call him a doctor, regardless of what his diploma from medical school may say) publicly executed a "patient" with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) because the patient was in unrelenting pain and there is no medication capable of treating that pain...
...This may come as news to somebody out there, but if there are positive reasons for ordaining women that are stronger than those against the practice, these should have been brought out...
...Our humanly frail church will, with such patience, evolve in truth...
...This church, warts and all, is my church, and to leave it in order to be ordained would betray something deep inside me...
...rev...
...DANIEL W. MUTH Prince Frederick, Md...
...Let's just say that I don't agree with Frank's praise (to put it mildly...
...It's a peculiarity and a strength of the Catholic church that we do not rely on a literal interpretation of Scripture to explain all our rules and actions...
...In the end, Sister Rose seems to be railing against the wind...
...It took me by surprise...
...An all-too-common clinical example of a severely painful state is the cancer patient who has metastatic bone lesions...
...It is a response to God I would make if it were within the realm of possibility...
...As soon assign men, and forbid women, traditionally female roles in child raising...
...GERALD J. WILLIAMS Basking Ridge, N.J...
...I wish to argue for the ordination of particular women, not "the ordination of women...
...JOHN E. LESCROART North Palm Beach, Via...
...Johnson: "Why yes, if the one will suffer more by your sitting down than the six will do by waiting...
...In each article the force of the message is rooted, not in the differentiation of gender, but in the personhood of the Pauline quotation, "for you are all one person in Christ Jesus" (Gal...
...Sandman if I can ever find it), and read Harold Bloom's new book about Shakespeare...
...Rose Hoover's piece addresses the confusion involved in speaking of males as "naturally resembling" Christ ["Consider Tradition...
...That, to me, is highly significant in testifying to the importance of women not only in the world but perhaps particularly in the church, where basic energy equates with Spirit...
...full of wounded ones ministering to the wounded...
...I very much enjoyed Mason and Dixon, so Frank gets extra credit from me for that review...
...I felt even a little smug about my position...
...I have often gone back to re-read a review after seeing a film Alleva has recommended, and I usually find that he has nicely grasped the key points and elements of the film...
...Second, I am an Episcopalian...
...I wasn't looking for "power...
...It's not perfect...
...Sister Rose's essay simply rehashes the fact that the case against ordaining women is not strong...
...Third, the fact that I am not ordained does not, as far as I can tell, mean in the least that I am inferior, disadvantaged, or in any way a less-than-full participant in the life of the church...
...ANDREW GAIXIGAN Tracy, Calif...
...My episcopal leadership is not going to stop ordaining women no matter how compelling I think my case against the practice...
...No one is called to represent Christ naturally...
...It is not fairness or justice that moves me to write this letter...
...I had my hopes lifted as he laid out the weakness of our case alongside the contingency story of the helpless Babe...
...Both Shannon's and the Council of Vienne's thinking, of course, run counter to the current position of the church based at least in part on the fact that the genetic completeness of the preimplantation embryo is evidence of a rational soul present from the moment of conception...
...In the case of human beings, the substantial form is the rational soul infused by God, and it is the union of body and rational soul that constitutes the human person so that if there is no rational Commonweal 2 9 February 26,1999 soul in bodily matter, there is no human person...
...I hope the pope reads the whole issue...
...Then Rose Hoover's piece was a masterful analysis of the various kinds of tradition, and how the church's true Tradition can be occlud-(Continued on page 4) Commonweal 2 February 26,1999 (Continued from page 2) ed by trivial traditions...
...Congratulations on such a tour deforce...
...Shannon rightly asserts that preimplantation embryos are genetically distinct from their parents and genetically unique...
...Perhaps I lack a sufficiently rarified sense, but I can detect no improvement whatsoever in the lot of Episcopalian women as a result of their eligibility for priestly ordination...
...As an insight, this is ponderable...
...Roy, write on and run for bishop...
...I had been working with the daughter of a patient who had some complaints about her mother's care...
...His point about individuation of the blastomere would be better served, if an appeal to scholastic tradition is relevant, by the scholastic teaching on matter and substantial form, specifically, that no material object can have more than one substantial form...
...I remember looking out the window and having a definite, simple recognition: I was (Continued on page 28) Commonweal 4 February 26,1999 (Continued from page 4) meant to be a priest...
...Out of a general level of excellence, I particularly like John Garvey's columns—he has a wonderfully clear view of so many issues— and Richard Alleva's film reviews...
...A political prisoner in solitary confinement or a child who suddenly loses his or her parents suffers even though they may not experience any physical pain at all...
...if I leave my church...
...I had wanted to write about (or to) Frank for a while, and what I had wanted to say may serve as a bit of a tribute to him...
...doubtless, they are changing (and moving, as we are told the tectonic plates of Earth are moving...
...One that is often blurred by the PAS supporters is the one between pain and suffering...
...Our church has been ordaining women for twenty-odd years...
...it would, in scholastic terminology, have a vegetative soul, but its bodily matter would not be sufficiently formed to accept a rational soul and could not, therefore, be a person...
...No, I argue on behalf of Mary, Jane, or Ginny who are called by God to the priesthood...
...rob mccann Lafayette, Calif...
...Commonweal 3 O February 26,1999...
...More of us should make a straightforward connection between our personal history and our thoughts and intuitions when we write or converse about this issue, or any other issue that brings up strong opinions or intense feeling...
...How compassionate is it to actively euthanize someone...
...It is not so simple to demonstrate that every possible non-lethal means has been taken to relieve a patient's suffering...
...These council fathers, of course, did not know what we know about genetics and embryonic development...
...Vocational equals...
...Now that was a great issue [January 29, 1999...
...I always enjoyed reading his columns, although I must agree with a previous letter writer that Frank's columns sometimes didn't seem to be inspired by a very "Catholic" sensibility...
...It is published six times a year...
...I'll miss Frank's presence in Commonweal quite a bit: His style and manner of expression were great...
...None of us has a "right" to ordination...
...In the following exchange the matter of when the members of a dinner party should finally sit down to their dinner is in question: Boswell: "Ought six people to be kept waiting for one...
...The sensory system is untouched in ALS...
...I howled as he drew blood out of our being a historical accident...
...This has absolutely nothing to do with superiority or inferiority...
...I took this as quite a recommendation, and struggled through the book diligently...
...It gets read from cover to cover by me every issue (which means I'm always behind: I just finished reading the "Fall Books" issue, although I do browse the Table of Contents as each issue falls on the stack, which is where I saw "Frank Mc-Connell, R.I.P...
...The ministry of Jesus will remain lopsided (as it must...
...To me that's a true take on Episcopalianism...
...With regard to Rose Hoover's entry in the women's ordination debate ["Consider Tradition"], the subtitle you appended seems odd since no "case for ordaining women" is made...
...Since the mitochondria present in the sperm are discarded when the egg is fertilized, it is only female energy which is passed on to every child, regardless of sex...
...And finally, couldn't the Spirit be doing something new...
...VIRGINIA M. RYAN Worcester, Mass...
...in theology, I wanted to offer a response to Father van Beeck's article...
...Shannon's argument from Scotus, while interesting, does not seem persuasive...
...I went to the room and prayed with her for about a half an hour...
...Suppose (in some improbable contest) you were to win a day's outing with the risen Christ...
...You have tempered this delightful treat of considerate dialogue with Yves Congar's cautionary words on patience...
...To begin with I admired your political insight in "The Rule of Law" [editorial...
...If we be quantitative about the sizes of the groups and the demands of charity, then what...
...ALS is a motor neuron disease...
...This is the "scientific" basis for the claim that we are all persons from the moment of conception: we have all our genetic endowment at that moment...
...if the sperm happens to provide a Y chromosome, maleness is established, but that's a second step along the way to life as a human being...
...I do not know the relative sizes of these two groups...
...That's probably why Anglicans have always felt closer to Christmas than to any other feast...
...In that sense, every individual human person "represents" our common human nature, not just preimplantation embryos...
...It has motivated me to write my first letter to you since starting reading Commonweal fifteen-plus years ago...
...While there doesn't seem to be absolute metaphysical certitude in this matter, the ultimate ground for this position is that prudence dictates that any doubt in a matter as grave as that of human person-hood and its attendant rights should be resolved in personhood's favor...
...It is relatively simple to demonstrate that every possible non-lethal means relieving a patient's pain has been taken...
...As a neurologist, I have firsthand experience with the fact that ALS patients can experience great suffering as the disease inevitably progresses...
...Maybe it's time to stop making it...
...Nor do I wish to argue that ordaining women will transform the priesthood...
...The truth is, it's something I am called to...
...Better listeners Let me get this straight...
...While I'm writing, I'd just like to reiterate what my continuous renewals should have been telling you: I love reading Commonweal...
...as human beings, we are not always great listeners in our conversations with God...
...Evolving in truth Congratulations to Commonweal on your continued search for truth, grounded in common sense, exemplified in your January 29,1999 issue with Frans Jozef van Beeck's "The Women in My Life" and Rose Hoover's "Consider Tradition...
...But it turns out that he can't make it because of some last-minute scheduling conflict...
...I rarely speak about this experience, but it always comes back to me when someone asks, after knowing about my background, if I ever thought of or wanted to be a priest...
...denis keane Evanston, III...
...to suggest that it might form even a sliver of basis for excluding women from the priesthood is ridiculous...
...Phone: 1-800-523-7964...
...Anglican to Anglican I held on to the ropes for my dear Anglican life as Roy Darcus pulled no punches in "The Church Everyone Leaves" [January 29...
...By analogous reasoning, Shannon claims, the human preimplantation embryo which is further divisible into individuals represents our common human nature, and, therefore, can't be a human person...
...He is right in pointing out that many vocal proponents of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) tend to cloud important intellectual and moral distinctions in order to champion their cause...
...I continued to feel this way until the spring of 1984.1 was a patient representative at a medical center...
...he would agree that no one has ever seen a "common nature," and that there is a real referent for the universal existing in the mind...
...At the end of the day, all the laborers are paid the same...
...His media columns and reviews have left me with a few other "to-dos": try and read several things by Neil Gaiman (especially Addendum from the editors ¦ Several readers have written asking for more information about the journal Books and Culture mentioned in "The Evangelical Mind" by James Turner [January 15,1999...
...What an issue...
...According to traditional scholastic philosophy, including Scotus, the essence of human nature is a universal concept that exists purely in the intellect and can't be predicated of any individual entity...
...A rose is a rose Rose Hoover's case for ordaining women is the most cogent and convincing use of faith and reason that I have yet seen about this weighty issue...
...Pain vs...
...Suffering can occur outside of disease...
...Patients with ALS rarely experience severe pain when receiving proper care...
...I think that I really believed that, or maybe I wanted to believe it...
...I am called to something that I can do only if I betray myself...
...In the matter of women's ordination to the priesthood there are two groups needing our charity: some traditionalists and some women...
...But there it was...
...This was likely the reasoning behind the Council of Vienne's dictum (c...
...The plain fact is that the Catholic church is not going to ordain women in the foreseeable future, period...
...As theology, that ranks right up there with children dying painful deaths to give strength to their parents...
...Because God wants men to become more feminine...
...As an Episcopalian who disagrees with my eccesiastical leaders on this matter, I am in essentially the same position and I can sympathize...
...That's how we're able to avoid the kind of tortuous explanations that van Beeck's essay displays...
...Pain is the perception by a sentient being of a noxious stimulus...
...Then ordination would become a grasping at, a need for me, and that's not what it is...
...Tradition is a good thing...
...and a Ph.D...
...Listening to the call As a Catholic laywoman with an M. Div...
...In a column from many years ago, Frank had said something to the effect that Henry James's The Golden Bowl was the best novel written in English...
...First, I appreciated his candor and vulnerability about his own life and its connection to his intuitions about celibate male priesthood and the exclusion of women from ordination...
...3:27-28...
...To euthanize a suffering patient is the ultimate form of patient abandonment...
...However, suffering is a much more complex and (as far as I know) uniquely human experience...
...He bases part of his argument against the personhood of these entitiCommonweal 28 Tebmary 26,1999 ties on Duns Scotus's idea of "common nature/' that which is common to both the group (class) and the individual...
...The mother died on Good Friday and I was called to be with the daughter as she sat with her mother's body...
...DOROTHY COLE DOMRZALSKI Albuquerque, N.Mex...
...And here's the rub...
...As further corroboration of the primacy of the female gender he might have mentioned the mitochondria in the cytoplasm of each human cell...
...Dr...
...And, speaking as an Anglican, I found Roy Darcus's "The Church Everyone Leaves" [Last Word column] wonderfully refreshing...
...Maybe it's time to accept the authority of those God has put in charge and move on...
...Pondering priesthood Your January 29 issue provoked these reflections on women and ordination: Frans Jozef van Beeck's possibly endearing but assuredly confused piece suggests that a purpose of the priesthood is to make men a little more like women, to temper men into the "consensual or convivial" creatures that women are by birth ["The Women in My Life...
...PETE GREEN Yonkers, N. Y. Soul power Thomas A. Shannon argues that because blastomeres (very early-stage preimplantation embryos) are not persons, it is morally legitimate to use them in research that may eventually produce tissue for generating new organs for transplantation as well as cells to be used in gene therapy ["Remaking Ourselves," December 4,1998...
...Jacksonville, Fla...
...Here it is: www.booksandculture.net...
...Isn't it possible that the "Tradition" is continuing its movement and growth with the calls of these particular women...
...the not-so-good as well as the really good...
Vol. 126 • February 1999 • No. 4
