Correspondence
A chance encounter I was just killing time in a magazine store, when I picked up the March 22 issue and read the Correspon-dence column and Robert Krieg's "Who Do You Say I Am?" Though I am not...
...There is much that can be done with articles on Christology, and I hope that Commonweal will someday do more than flash a few buzzwords and pretend they have dealt with this serious subject...
...It would be helpful for me, at least, to have footnotes for those Scholastic Latin terms I once knew that have drifted from my memory RICHARD RUSZKAY Newark, Del...
...It is more like a hunter who, lost in the wilderness for many days and on the brink of starvation, must decide whether or not to shoot what in the distance appears to be a game animal, but could just as well be another lost hunter, or even a member of a rescue party...
...I understand potency and act, matter and form, substance and accident...
...One may assume that the "pork barrel," referred to later in the editorial, is perceived as need by those sponsoring such legislation...
...Need, like beauty, is often in the eye of the behold-er...
...Nonetheless, I was ready to admit that perhaps I had not been suf-ficiently charitable in my estimate of Pope John Paul II...
...This scenario is no longer analo-gous to the classic case of a hunter not being permitted to shoot what ap-pears to be a deer but could reason-ably be a fellow hunter in camouflage...
...We all need spiritual discipline to counter our biases...
...As long as there is some reasonable doubt about the precise ontological status of the human embryo (specifi-cally of its personhood) in the course of its development, the ethicist/deci-sion maker must fall back on the prin-ciples of probability...
...Would it not then be too late...
...Dueling popes In the mind of this Presbyterian minis-ter, Pope John XXIII was a magnificent human being as well as an excellent model of what it means to be a pastor, not only to his own flock, but to the world...
...After hearing Buchanan's endorse-ment of Karol Wojtyla I decided to keep good Pope John XXIII as the only pope in my pantheon of modern gi-ants...
...I still believe that prevention is the best policy...
...Progressives tend to have the opposite bias...
...Perhaps the only practical course in the face of such dilemmas is to pray: "and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one" (Mt 6:13...
...That, however, was a long time ago...
...Though I am not easily impressed, I'm im-pressed...
...DAVID CARLOS Swabsea, Mass...
...The church hierarchy favors the "from above" model because they are afraid to focus on the true origins of Christianity...
...I have been most disap-pointed in the editorials since Septem-ber 11, except for early on, and even then you were severely criticized...
...I was willing to do this in spite of Ruddy's demeaning re-mark about Protestants, in which he describes Cahill's ecclesiology as "a mishmash of egalitarian and turn-of-the-twentieth-century Protestant dia-tribes against the institutionalism of 'early Catholicism.'" Admittedly, we Protestants are outsiders to Ruddy and perhaps even inferior Christians, but Angelo Roncalli's heart, a heart that reached out to us Protestants, would have been grieved by such a re-mark...
...Many of your articles and letters in re-sponse to articles contain those Latin phrases that I barely recollect, such as rationalis naturae individua substantia, rationalis naturae individua existentia, and terminus ad quern...
...Christology tends to be a wonderful revealer of one's own blind spots...
...It is, however, one thing to pro-pose such a metaphysical specula-tion...
...Then I heard Pat Buchanan in a television talk show...
...John Paul II is a significant leader, no question about it, but the greatest of the centu-ry...
...So, rather than pondering where to draw precise theological lines, it would profit most of us more to identify our biases, take inventory of whether and how they distort our views (with a healthy skepticism toward our proclivities to rationalize...
...Upon reading Christopher Ruddy's review ("Good Pope, Bad Pope," March 8), which praised John Paul II, I was almost persuaded to take a second look at the current occupant of the papal see...
...Or Chalmers Johnson's, Blowback: The Costs and developments in the area of praxis...
...And I'm not easily embarrassed...
...And while it is generally permissible (sometimes even mandatory) to choose the "safer" course-to treat the zygote in all its stages as if it were a fully entitled per-son (both Evangelium vitae, 60, and the catechism, 2270-75 and 2323, opt for this course)-this may well not be the ethically correct choice when the po-tential rights of the zygote are consid-ered not merely by themselves, but are pitted against the rights of beings who undoubtedly are human persons...
...ROBERT J. MCBRIDE Ridgefield, Conn...
...What a disappoint-ment...
...And vice-versa...
...They are wrong...
...Since 1924?-I am embarrassed...
...These biases have practical moral implications in our lives and often contribute to habits of sinfulness because they undergird our habits of self-delusion...
...As a new subscriber, I was very in-terested when I received my first issue and found that the cover article was about Christology...
...In other words, the church hierarchy does not believe that the faithful are capable of han-dling the truth...
...Translation, please I enjoy Commonweal for its depth of content on ethical issues...
...I hope this isn't why those of us de-spondent about the course of our na-tional policy are not being inspired by one of our favorite Catholic maga-zines...
...So, while the biological and meta-physical speculations continue, be-ware the handing down of universally binding and "irreformable" ethical edicts...
...Instead of finding anything that added a shred of enlightenment to the topic, I found a bunch of academic drivel about "Christology from above and from below" and the "contradic-tion of God's universal salvific will and the scandalous particularity of the incarnate and risen Lord...
...Even your take on Saddam Hussein in the March 22 second edito-rial ("Evildoer") leaves a lot to be de-sired...
...I will be subscribing for the next two years...
...Irreformable edicts In his answer to his critics, John Collins Harvey (Correspondence, March 22) proposes that "monozygot-ic twinning could be construed as a case of asexual reproduction," (em-phasis mine) and hence doesn't neces-sarily negate that the original cell, from which the twinned cell arose, was already a fully individualized human person...
...So I was eager to read Thomas Cahill's Pope John XXIII...
...Of course the book was intended for a more scholarly readership, but, nonetheless, I felt that it was a courageous effort to search for and expose the truth about the origin of Christianity...
...I am a graduate of a Jesuit college (1955) and have studied Aquinas and Aristotle and enjoyed those studies thoroughly...
...Should we wait until someone does attack us with a missile...
...and learn to counter them appropriately...
...I have a doctorate in engineering sci-ence and understand, to some extent, the models for conception and em-bryo and genome...
...I was not dis-appointed...
...For many who prefer to embrace lower Christology, that would entail learning to embrace higher Christology on a practical level...
...ASHUR G. CHAVOOR McLean, Va...
...Then you ask, "What other needs are we sacrificing to fund it...
...Fresno, Calif...
...I am wary of Buchanan's heroes...
...Who could possibly know the answer to that question...
...Naive assumptions Your thoughtful editorial on the "War Budget" (March 22) provoked a few questions: Would the editors really ex-pect to know "what exactly will the war cost...
...Further, the thought "given the low-tech attacks of September 11, it is still unnecessary to develop a mis-sile defense system" is simply naive...
...EDMUND F. KAL, M.D...
...Hasn't anyone there read such things as Richard Falk's thoughtful discussion of international law with regard to the Gulf War...
...In the end, this might help us to embrace the whole Christ, not just the parts we prefer...
...Reader blowback Where is the outcry against this war on terrorism...
...I hope that the next pope will share his spirit, and continue to pray that the windows John XIII threw open at Vatican II will once again be opened wide to the world...
...I think they are afraid that the exploration of the "fully man" Jesus from a truly historical perspec-tive will lead to chaos and reduce their own authority...
...Buzzwords Years ago, I read Edward Schillebeeckx's Jesus, and was fascinated with what I found...
...it is an entirely different matter to derive from it an absolutely bind-ing moral imperative: namely, the in-trinsic immorality of stem-cell re-search and applications...
...As hinted in the articles, many tradition-alists tend to embrace Christ's divine nature and give short shrift to his human nature...
...WILLIAM R. KLEIN Roanoke, Va...
...He said that John Paul II is the greatest man of the twentieth century...
...KARL SAUR Melrose, Mass...
Vol. 129 • April 2002 • No. 8
