Correspondence Confessions, Cuomo, etc
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Better than his party Regarding Mario Cuomo's "Faith & Government" (December 6,2002): I have long admired Governor Cuomo, both for his open Catholicity and his...
...No Catholic I know expects to "impose" Catholic morality on others...
...Thank you for sharing this view by Father McLaughlin, and giving support to those of us who see our mission as helping people to be healed in a holistic way and not allowing them to continue to suffer under the fear of "confession" as we practice this sacrament now-even if the name has been changed to rite of reconciliation...
...I did like Nicene Christianity very much...
...Slavery was evil prior to as well as after the Emancipation Proclamation, just as abortion on demand continues to be evil after Roe v. Wade...
...The culture in general has changed, and the culture of confession specifically has changed radically...
...But we should be able to expect that Catholic politicians will not comfortably acquiesce in what we Catholics find morally reprehensible...
...We minority Catholics would always lose out in that contest...
...PEGGY ROACH Waukegan, III...
...More dissent needed Mario Cuomo is quite right to point to the need in a pluralist society to respect the majority decision of a legislature...
...He makes a compelling case philosophically, regarding the balance a Catholic politician must maintain between his beliefs as a Catholic and his obligations to the common good in a pluralistic society...
...That sacramental form is being challenged by ordinary, holy people, not liberal agitators...
...I apologize for the mistake...
...Why can't we simply offer the healing Jesus came to bestow by celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation in this way on a regular basis...
...On the national level, I call to mind the refusal of the Democratic Party to allow Governor Robert Casey to speak at the national convention in Los Angeles, and the lame excuses later made to his two sons...
...Certainly, I wish Steinfels sweet dreams and the best in all future endeavors...
...JAMES FRIEDEL, O.S.A...
...Would the effort be helpful...
...I always use general absolution, and have reconciled many, many patients over the years...
...General absolution II As I read "Forgive Us Our Sins," I wanted to shout with joy and say "Halleluiah...
...He is so lucid, so reasonable, so persuasive-so wrong...
...And as a partner in tikkun olam (Hebrew for G-d's injunction for repair or improvement of the world), let me express a heartfelt hope that we will hear more, much more, of this dear lady's dignifiedly expressed, though laser-targeted, views...
...But all political philosophy finds its validity in practice, not merely in theory...
...As a registered Democrat, I contend that the Democratic Party's practice at this time largely voids the hope expressed by Mario Cuomo...
...We were a modestly sized blue-collar parish (about thirteen hundred households...
...We need to talk about this issue, priests, people, and bishops, and not just be given instructions about preaching and orders to use reconciliation as presently structured...
...But he cannot have his political bread buttered on both sides...
...michael bauch, Flushing, N.Y...
...CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Better than his party Regarding Mario Cuomo's "Faith & Government" (December 6,2002): I have long admired Governor Cuomo, both for his open Catholicity and his integrity in handling the affairs of government...
...If the person who borrowed my copy reads this, please return it...
...L'chaim, Margaret...
...Whatever happened to the "sense of the faithful" (sensus fidelium...
...I, too, can use a nap...
...What Cuomo seems to be arguing for is morality dictated by the majority...
...Or does this go the way everything seems to be going in our church these days: decisions made by a few curialists, most of whom have seldom sat in a parish reconciliation room, let alone taken part in a communal celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation...
...Thanks all the same for a supportive review of Nicene Christianity, which deserves a wide reading...
...They will not be supported in any way by the state Democratic Party-financially or otherwise...
...It made so much sense that we as a community celebrated the sacrament together, for our sins had offended not only God but each other...
...At the same time, however, when there is a legislative bill that offends one's deepest moral convictions, religious or secular, it would be appropriate to register dissent (short of a veto) based on a proposed alternative view...
...General absolution III As a former member of Father McLaughlin's parish, I can attest to the reverent and prayerful services that he and his staff prepared for our parish community...
...On the other hand, a sentence from my own piece, "Confessing Christ Coming," is attributed to one of the other authors, John Webster...
...At times, as McLaughlin said, Form I, the private form, may be more helpful to a penitent, but it is the forgiveness of sin, the healing of a person's heart that is important, not mere legalism...
...Christianity calls us to evangelize, to propose reasonable moral alternatives, not to "impose" them...
...It was fitting that we engage together in the process of reconciliation...
...Unfortunately, Catholic politicians in the United States and in Canada have failed to propose alternative views...
...JOHN R. KIDWELL Manitowoc, Wis...
...The piece was in fact written by Reverend Thomas Smail...
...All three forms of the sacrament can be offered...
...Rather, I see myself as healer, one called to give hope to people who are in pain...
...SYLVESTER D. RYAN Monterey, Calif...
...Each celebration was an hour and twenty minutes long, marked with dignity, reverence, and meaning...
...For twenty-three years, I have been chaplain of the Washington Hospital Center, the largest and most active hospital in D.C...
...L'chaim' As a non-Catholic and sometime reader of Commonweal, and of Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's writing in other venues, I am somewhat saddened by her decision to step down, in order, as she so memorably put it, to "take a nap...
...Are not the people of God telling the church something...
...MOST REV...
...It is not a case of either/or-either Form III or nothing...
...REV...
...They will in fact have to face the fierce opposition of traditional Democratic support groups which supply significant funds for Democratic candidates who must espouse one position only...
...The difficulty and the flaw can be found in the position the Democratic Party takes toward any public member's judging that some prolife stances might fulfill those criteria...
...To say that people were healed, that many were welcomed back to the church, that families experienced forgiveness, is an understatement, at best...
...I have been a diocesan priest for forty years in the Archdiocese of Washington...
...His appeal to the Catholic "prudential" (again, his word) acceptance of slavery is entirely unper-suasive...
...Olympia Fields, III...
...Cuomo's reflections work on the assumption of fairness, and as he points out, there are times when specific teachings of the Catholic faith come under the rubric of "Should I try...
...JOHN S. WINTERMYER Washington, D.C...
...I do not need to hear the specifics or the kinds of sins involved...
...If I may say so as an outsider, the Catholic Church, and all G-d-seeking minds of whatever faith, can only be the better for it...
...I can well understand the need...
...I think it is precisely where Cuomo stopped that he, and those who believe his is a legitimate stance for a Catholic or any religiously committed politician, must go boldly and thoroughly with this discussion, and challenge the present categories laid down for being an acceptable Democrat in public office...
...I am also a professional writer and editor, and have been doing what I do for more than twenty years...
...LAWRENCE S. CUNNINGHAM General absolution I It was with delight that I read Robert McLaughlin's insightful and pastoral-ly sensitive article on the use of the communal rite of Reconciliation, Form III ("Forgive Us Our Sins," December 6, 2002...
...Now I do not wish to approach the sacrament of penance in any other way...
...Where credit is due In his "Religion Booknotes" (November 8,2002), Lawrence S. Cunningham credits me with having written a fine piece in Nicene Christianity on the fil-ioque problem...
...Would it produce harmony and understanding...
...The writer is bishop of Monterey...
...When I was pastor of a parish on the southwest side of Chicago, we celebrated Form III of the sacrament of reconciliation during the seasons of Advent and Lent...
...Someone agrees with me...
...I choose to believe Cuomo is above such rigid applications of his philosophy, but until there is a change in the culture of the Democratic Party regarding issues of pro-abortion versus right-to-life or the complex issues of stem-cell research, his strong convictions about guaranteeing freedom of conviction and judgment are one-sided...
...DOUGLAS FARROW Montreal, Quebec (Continued on page 6) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) The reviewer replies: I wrote my remarks from the entries in my reading journal after having lent the book to someone and may well have misread my own notes...
...I ask only one question: "Are you sorry...
...Often that pain is spiritual, and people need to know that they're all right because God loves them...
...E. J. MCCULLOUGH Calgary, Alberta Prudential thinking Thank God for Mario Cuomo's willingness to traverse the "slippery slope" of politics and belief...
...But McLaughlin uses the legal term of judge to describe the role of priest confessor, and that terminology is far from my mind when I give absolution...
...Let us keep hearing your voice...
...Still, if given the choice between Cuomo and Ronald Reagan, or Bob Dole and a bushel basket full of Bushes, I'd take Mario every time...
...Racial discrimination, capital punishment, and stem-cell research should inspire principled counterproposals by Catholic politicians, rather than simple acceptance of the current fashions...
...In California, for instance, you will not find any Catholic Democrat in state offices of the Senate or the Assembly, or any candidate for a national office in the Congress, who can commit to such a stand...
...He is the most brilliant luminary still active on our political stage...
...He ended his measured essay by saying, "With that I will stop, before proceeding any further down the slippery slope...
...We would often have two or three celebrations of Form III each season to accommodate the more than twelve hundred people who came...
...Isn't the church primarily about the business of offering the healing presence of Christ to wounded people...
...Mario Cuomo, practicing "prudential, practical" politics, appears to have shifted his position on abortion on demand from one of tolerance-which is clearly within American Catholic political practice-to one of advocacy...
...I am flattered to have my work confused with that of these two more excellent fellows, but the degree of confusion in this particular edition of "Booknotes" does not flatter Commonweal...
Vol. 130 • January 2003 • No. 1
