Correspondence Jim Dwyer; rights & wrongs...
DAMON, DAN & MONAGHAN, JOHN P. & DWYER, JIM & EWENS, THOMAS & HARTMAN, MARY LOUISE & ROSENGARTEN, RICHARD & MEYER, J. THOMAS & Egan, Robert J.
CORROSPONDENCE Priceless I've been a reader for half a century, ever since coming across Commonweal at my public library as a high-schooler. As I was paying bills recently, I wrote you a check to...
...India & the bomb In close juxtaposition I read Thomas Friedman's column "India, Pakistan, and G.E...
...MARY LOUISE HARTMAN Southampton, Mass...
...DAN DAMON Plainfield, N.J...
...THOMAS EWENS Middletown, R.I...
...Although both writers were only a hundred miles apart, their contrasting observations said a lot about this trou-bled and dynamic country...
...As a former trustee in the parish, I am well aware of the diocese's efforts to correct the problem...
...What is the value of the infor-mation, ideas, and opinions you get from Commonweal's dedicated crew...
...By 1776, he was long in heaven...
...The yearning for democra-cy is not strictly American...
...Nat-urally, the parishioners went to the guys in the pointy hats to fix every-thing...
...New York Times, August 11) and Jo McGowan's "India and the United States" (Commonweal, August 16), both on the subject of our re-sponse to the recent crisis between India and Pakistan...
...most people would not consider many of them worthy of such largesse, but what he did was, unfortunately, legal...
...These rights are then discussed in sections 11 through 27, followed by a discussion of duties (sections 28 through 34...
...It was those "guys" who started the in-vestigation, called in the police, re-tired the pastor, and discussed the issue in great detail with the parish-ioners, holding multiple meetings with parish committees...
...ROBERT J. EGAN, S.J...
...As I was paying bills recently, I wrote you a check to renew my sub-scription, and said, "Wow...
...Thank God for Commonweal and the witness you have been all these years...
...He did give large sums of money to people he considered needy...
...McGowan, on the other hand, de-scribed (from her home in Dehra Doon) a similar calm acceptance and surprise at U.S...
...Our founding fathers and mothers had, among other things, the Magna Carta in mind when they considered break-ing free from England...
...A long tradition In your reply to Patrick Connor's July 12 letter on rights talk in the Catholic Church (Correspondence, August 16), you write "whatever 'rights' may lurk in canon law, to be sprung on us when they suit the Vatican's views, we doubt they are the kind of rights we enjoy as citizens of the United States, which generally seem to be the kind of rights ARCC promotes in urg-ing reform of the Catholic Church...
...Ringwald emphasizes Dwyer's "constant search for the delicate bal-ance between a journalist's sense of mission and professional detachment" and notes that Dwyer is "most com-fortable in the space between apathy and zealotry, where he can bring com-passion and an eye for the disadvan-taged to his work...
...Is the U.S...
...Get the facts Christorpher Ringwald, in his hagio-graphic essay on Jim Dwyer ("The City Is His Beat," August 16), quotes Dwyer as saying "when a monsignor in Queens can run off with a couple of million dollars in church funds...you realize how many of the Vatican II re-forms fell apart in this country...
...Isn't this the conversation ARCC and all of us should be having and carrying for-ward in the church today...
...Van Allen's scriptural arguments are useful, but the medieval history of corrupt, noncelibate bishops, until the reforms of Hildebrand, reveals clearly that a sex-preoccupied clergy can seri-ously hurt the church...
...We should have realized, they said, that India would never jeopardize their consid-erable investment in Western techno-logical services by going to war with Pakistan...
...ARCC is often criticized for not em-phasizing "responsibilities and obliga-tions" in leading the Christian life...
...The writer is president of the Associa-tion for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC...
...For this reason, we appended the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the full charter...
...It calls into question all the wonderful things said about Dwyer as a reporter in the essay...
...he had stashed $1.8 million in a secret bank account...
...Since all these rights flow "directly and simultaneously" from our human nature as such, and are therefore "uni-versal, inviolable, and inalienable," it's hard to see how they could not exist in the church or why the church could be excused from acknowledg-ing and honoring them...
...The ex-pastor gave $700,000 to three ex-convicts, and apparently was a soft touch for money...
...In fact, the monsignor in question did not "run off" with any money...
...Those early immigrants (even today's immigrants) brought with them a spirit that cries out for the recognition of the rights of individuals...
...By virtue of this, they have rights and duties of their own, flowing directly and simulta-neously from their very nature...
...ARCC is aware that in leading a truly Christian life Catholics have certain responsibilities...
...I was also renewing other subscriptions for $15.95 or $19.95...
...For example, Right 1 states that all Catholics have the right to follow their informed con-sciences in all matters...
...Also, Right 5 in the charter states, "All Catholics have the right to a voice in all decisions that affect them, includ-ing the choosing of their leaders...
...Pardon my syntax...
...Forty-seven dollars...
...Dwyer's use of "run off" and his de-scription of the "pointy hats" is a clear example of a reporter not getting the facts but using facile language to sell a personal opinion...
...You say "the kind of rights ARCC promotes in urging reform of the Catholic Church" generally seem to be "the kind of rights we enjoy as cit-izens of the United States," then go on to say that "ARCC's mission to ex-tend those kinds of rights to the Catholic Church has always seemed misconceived" (emphasis mine...
...Two centuries ago, the Unit-ed States and indeed the Catholic Church in this country were founded by refugees from tyranny...
...If marriage makes Catholic parents so sensitive and understanding, then why do 50 percent of Catholic mar-riages end in divorce...
...They may re-quire clarification, elaboration, and further development...
...We support all who focus on the specifics of leading a responsible Christian life, and continue to organize mainstream exercises in consciousness raising-in-cluding publishing newsletters, pam-phlets, and our Web site...
...Finally, please note that ARCC's vice president is Patrick Connor, not O'Connor, as printed in your reply...
...Jim Dwyer replies: I agree with everything John Mon-aghan says, and more...
...Is it the po-sition of the editors that all of this is "misconceived" or "misleading...
...In 1215 the Magna Carta granted nobles in Britain a voice in public affairs...
...Part 1 of that document begins (translation altered slightly): "First of all, it is necessary to speak of the order which should exist among human be-ings...
...The notion that a democratic church is solely an American vision is unfounded...
...JOHN P. MONAGHAN Forest Hills, N.Y...
...It is true that the language in ARCC's Charter of the Rights of Catholics in the Church sounds vague-ly similar to a document like the Bill of Rights, but the concepts are much older than this nation...
...They should be embodied in codes of law...
...I agree that canon law and corporate practice re-garding parish administration should be changed, but this misuse of money had little to do with the crumbling of Vatican II reforms, or malfeasance on the part of "guys in pointy hats...
...Spokane, Wash...
...It is human...
...Believing that optional celibacy will erase Catholic /Jansenist attitudes to-ward the body and sex and cure the present schizophrenia between Catholics' sexual practice and the church's teaching on sex is pure pipe dream...
...JIM DWYER Good copy Christopher D. Ringwald's profile of Jim Dwyer is a heart-warming and provocative reminder of what a jour-nalist's vocation can be at a time when journalism schools, notably Dwyer's own alma mater Columbia, are re-ex-amining the nature and role of jour-nalism in the contemporary cultural context...
...Thomas Aquinas was a great teacher of this truth...
...concern...
...Thank you for the wonderful article...
...Sex won't help Anyone who reads Anthony Trol-lope's Barchester novels will find in the machinations of Bishop Proudie's wife one of the best arguments against a married episcopate (Rodger Van Allen's "Bishops Should Marry," July 12...
...Then I said to myself, "Wait a minute...
...Ringwald also makes clear that Dwyer would not be the journalist he is without his deep religious roots and sensibility...
...RICHARD ROSENGARTEN Indianapolis, Ind...
...We Catholics have had too many problems as it is...
...What's wrong with rights...
...You cite two reasons: first, because of "his-torical, cultural, and structural differ-ences between the church and the United States," and second, because "'rights talk' in this country is usually short on talk about responsibility and obligation...
...One does not have to commit adul-tery, murder, or thievery to better un-derstand their nature, so arguing that a married bishop will better appreci-ate and understand married life by being married is a non sequitur...
...J. THOMAS MEYER Milwaukee, Wis...
...That sangfroid, however, was due to a fatalistic acceptance of "the violence that oc-curs daily in India...
...In any case, "rights talk" has, as a matter of fact, been in use a lot in our church for some time now, especially since the promulgation of Pacem in by John XXIII...
...in fact, he lost his own house and is almost impoverished...
...Truly, it is many times the value of those other, more secular, journals...
...The encyclical goes on to describe rights to an education and training, to assume roles and respon-sibilities in society, to share in the benefits of culture, to set up a family, with equal rights and equal duties for man and woman, the right to follow a vocation to the priesthood or the reli-gious life, to work, to safe working conditions, to a just wage, to private property, the right of assembly and association, "the right to give the soci-eties of which they are members the form they consider most suitable for the aim they have in view," the right to freedom of movement and of resi-dence, a right to juridical protection of their rights...
...I am confused by your reply to the letters from John Borst and Tom Baker (Correspondence, August 16) regarding the use of "rights talk" in the church...
...Meanwhile, the parish facilities started looking run-down...
...we don't need jour-nalists-or anyone else-using our misfortune as the basis for their hand-wringing pronouncements, es-pecially when they do not bother to get the facts straight...
...I am afraid it also calls into question Com-monweal's judgment: why is this slop-py thinker being lionized...
...kind" different from, say, the UN "kind...
...But I'm not sure how or why the United States became involved in this discussion...
...The parish in question had no finance committee of lay people...
...Friedman's Indian business and po-litical friends were surprised at our limiting travel and calling some diplo-matic personnel home...
...Any human society, if it is to be well ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely, that all human beings are per-sons, that is, their nature is endowed with intelligence and free will...
...These rights are therefore universal, inviolable, and inalienable" (emphasis mine...
...The monsignor in question gained nothing for himself...
...We assume that a ma-ture Catholic Christian is already aware of those responsibilities...
Vol. 129 • September 2002 • No. 16
