Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Priests & prayer I appreciated John Garvey's "Sinning and Sorrowing" (July 13). His hope that priests be serious about living a life grounded in prayer as a...
...But Cavanaugh deserves the credit, and accurate citation, for his fine book (which I hope your readers will buy and read...
...McCarraher criticizes radical orthodoxy on a number of important points, but his claim that electoral politics is the "only large-scale and effective means we currently have to mitigate" the damaging conditions of contemporary American life misses the mark...
...Are we (merely) to be good citizens living in our pluralist, secular, or if McCarraher prefers, perverse system...
...One correction, however: the author of Torture and Eucharist is William Cavanaugh...
...The article calls for this new theological movement "to get into the world," but fails to mention the work of the Ekklesia Project (www.ekklesiaproject.org), an interdenominational group of scholars and church leaders founded in Chicago in 1999 to promote radical Christian discipleship and social engagement...
...How radical...
...Commonweal 4 August 17,2001...
...That said, the issues and arguments of Milbank and the others are too important to be disposed of in a brief review...
...WALTER J.KENDALL II] Chicago, III...
...The yearly parish appreciation dinner affords me the opportunity to chat with my pastor...
...I agree entirely both with his praise for "radical orthodoxy" and his well-focused and characteristically blunt criticisms...
...And we as believers should not be too quick to adopt efficiency as a measure of goodness...
...His hope that priests be serious about living a life grounded in prayer as a prerequisite to being a good confessor is admirable, but less and less likely, as the dearth of clergy leaves them little time for much else besides liturgy and business administration...
...He seems to me one of the most thoughtful and distinctive voices in a younger generation of American Catholic intellectuals...
...Someone seems to have spliced Cavanaugh's theological DNA with mine—understandable, since both of us collaborate with the authors mentioned in the article, and we were once colleagues at the University of Saint Thomas...
...They lived "as if" they were free...
...Many of the scholars mentioned in your article are among our founding members, but the project involves pastors, lay church leaders, and social activists...
...My one hesitation is about his tendency to leave too many potential allies bloody and abandoned on the battlefield...
...A correction I was happy to see Michael Baxter, Robert Brimlow, and Michael Budde getting some of the attention that has thus far been lavished primarily on the British "founders" of radical orthodoxy [July 13...
...Or are we to live "as if" the Kingdom of God had come...
...Spokane, Wash...
...The writer is professor of theology and ethics at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary...
...Too much disdain I was happy to see Eugene McCarraher back on your pages, and hope he returns often...
...First, there really is a reasonable basis for a substantial withdrawal from governmental and political activities, especially lawyering (recall, "woe unto you, lawyers...
...They lived out an "antipolitics" which renounced any claim to governmental authority...
...EILEEN YOUNG Szvampscott, Mass...
...DAVID S. CUNNINGHAM Evanston, III...
...Eugene McCarraher's review of "radical orthodoxy" ("Theology at the Barricades," July 13) raises in a temperate yet challenging way the issue for Catholics in America: As political, or at least social, creatures, how do we live out the gospel call...
...Readers deserve your help in better understanding the strengths and weaknesses of "radical orthodoxy...
...We are also about the same height, and we both do excellent home repair...
...With due respect, I don't agree that Milbank "demonstrates" that Gustavo Gutierrez and others "do nothing more than swing a thurible around a totem of 'progress.'" We need a politics that builds coalitions and cultivates friendships...
...Each year I ask, "Jack, are you getting quiet time for yourself...
...We can't sustain a redemptive social movement, pace First Things, based primarily on shared disdains...
...No, Eileen, but keep asking...
...For those less inclined to biblical literalism and more accepting of American pragmatism, and therefore efficiency, look at the alternative strategy of the European dissidents of Poland and elsewhere in the 1970s and '80s...
...ROBERT J. EGAN, S.J...
Vol. 128 • August 2001 • No. 14
