Correspondence 'Buffy' & more
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editors Bushisms I have a small quibble with your editorial in the November 21 issue. You say President George W. Bush can be eloquent. No, Bush's speechwriters can be...
...This is authentic Christian realism...
...She retained her strong sense of stewardship, as shown by her love of God's critters...
...I was surprised to learn that it was possible for anyone below the rank of archbishop to be sympathetic to Cardinal James Mclntyre...
...In her book, Caspary is very critical of Cardinal James Mclntyre...
...After reading the article, my response was to spend a fairly hilarious hour considering other commercial TV heroines who embodied the spirit of the New Woman long before Buffy came on the scene...
...In the very next sentence he claims that "At the same time the pope stresses there is 'real power' flowing from Christ's death and Resurrection which enables us to gradually reclaim Christ's original plan for man and woman...
...I lingered for some time on Alice Kramden of The Honey-mooners, but she was ultimately rejected as too bitter...
...Your November 7 issue, like so many others I have read during the past half-century, contains so much that invites response that I wonder how your Correspondence editor gets through the day...
...The odd thing about the show is that Buffy eventually surrenders to some of the forces of darkness in our culture...
...I fear that they are the functional equivalent of the fine print at the bottom of advertisements for weight loss or hair restoration in supermarket tabloids...
...As far back as the fourth century St...
...This is not "idealism...
...But if Kaveny had spent sufficient time evaluating my work, she could not possibly have drawn some of the conclusions she did...
...Weet dogies," Uncle Jed used to advise poor Cousin Jethro after Elly May had bested him in a rasslin' contest, "you don't want to go makin' that little girl mad...
...For instance, in the beginning of the series crosses and holy water worked against vampires...
...What is the mud...
...Buffy started out that way in the movie on which the TV series was based...
...Cyril of Jerusalem explained to catechumens that demons are put to flight at the sign of the cross...
...We must certainly avoid all false hopes of restoring paradise on earth...
...I do not deny either the truth or the importance of the central insight of the theologians of the body-that human sexuality is a great gift from God...
...And it seems to me that sort of accounting should be left to the likes of Arthur Andersen...
...At least, I know I often abstain from writing for that very reason...
...During just eleven or twelve years, he opened about thirty parishes and twenty-five elementary schools, and built fourteen diocesan high schools...
...No, Bush's speechwriters can be eloquent...
...Buffy symbolized this struggle, and that is what appealed to people...
...In what seems a reproach aimed directly at me, Kaveny writes: "We are not called to retreat to Eden, but rather to move forward in pilgrimage toward the New Jerusalem...
...This is true enough...
...That job is left to Spike, the reformed vampire who does his manly duty by sacrificing himself...
...This is faith in the reality of redemption...
...The problem disappeared when Willow converted from Judaism to Wicca-and witchcraft turned out to be more effective against vampires than Christianity...
...I acknowledge that I've made my share of mistakes along the way...
...The author replies: I don't deny that Christopher West's writings (and the writings of others who make the pope's theology of the body available for general consumption) include statements affirming both the reality of sin and the need for a redemption that cannot replicate the Garden of Eden...
...Theology of the body I read Cathleen Kaveny's article on "Buffy, the Pope & the New Feminists" with interest...
...Cummings must have been born too late to have heard of the cardinal's near-legendary temper tantrums brought on by the slightest challenge to his authority...
...JOE MARTIN Seattle, Wash...
...While Elly May's natural charms, my husband assures me, were considerable, she nonetheless resisted the types of temptation weaker women (Continued on page 23) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) fall prey to...
...Too bad the show's creators lost sight of that...
...In my view, however, they would do well to place the pope's thought in conversation with the rest of the Christian tradition, rather than treating it as a free-standing body of work...
...John Paul II's teaching is clear that redemption does not restore us to our prelapsarian state...
...Unfortunately, her insight into my work as a promoter of John Paul II's "theology of the body" was not as fine...
...I finally hit on Elly May Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies...
...The touchstone for the theologians of the body," Kaveny writes, "is the relationship of men and women before the Fall...
...DONALD W. MONTROSE Stockton, Calif...
...She never had a boyfriend, didn't artificially enhance her beauty, didn't dumb herself down (though I argued that this might not have been possible), or cave in to popular opinion when she thought she was right...
...julian irias Davis, Calif...
...MOST REV...
...That's where John Paul II's theology of the body meets us-in the midst of our real humanity...
...cathleen kaveny Hail Postman Thanks to Peter Kavanagh for a thoughtful encomium to the late Neil Postman and his legacy of erudite social criticism ("Why Postman Matters," November 7...
...His crisp writing and his perspective will be sorely missed...
...This bothered her Jewish friend Willow...
...Los Angeles was still in a state of growth when he was appointed...
...I would only add that, as the Catechism states, young people are certainly "able to 'receive' the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ...
...Left to his own devices, Bush can't string together more than three words at a time...
...I appreciated her ability to mine some fine insights from the "Buffyverse...
...Confidential," November 21), Kathleen Sprows Cummings writes that the book "provides a necessary counterbalance to discussions of the crisis that are overly sympathetic to Cardinal Mclntyre...
...I agree with Kaveny that redemption "does not erase sin...
...Cardinal & tyrant In her review of Anita M. Cas-pary's Witness to Integrity ("L.A...
...In the "Elly-verse," being a moron was considered laughable but preferable to the money-grubbing milieu of Beverly Hills (swimming pools, movie stars) in which the puzzled Clampetts found themselves plunked as sudden millionaires...
...She is the one Clampett who frequently gave craven banker Milburn Drysdale a whup upside the head...
...He writes "John Paul II's teaching is clear that redemption does not restore us to our prelapsarian state...
...Sprightly dactyls...
...jean raber Ovid, Mich...
...When I became superintendent of Catholic high schools in Los Angeles, I studied at Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood, which was run by the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary...
...But in the final episode of the series she decided that all that talk about duty was a trap set by a bunch of men-so she gets her witch friend Willow to release the inner slayer in girls all over the world...
...That sequence is only possible if the iamb reuses the last syllable in the second dactyl...
...CHRISTOPHER WEST Denver, Colo...
...Couldn't resist...
...We all have our own vocations to fight evil (in ourselves and elsewhere)-and the sacraments and the sacramentals aid us in that fight...
...My worry is that those affirmations do very little work, either rhetorically or substantively, in the vision of human sexuality they invite their audiences to adopt...
...It offers us a living hope of progressing- one step at a time-on the fragile journey of restoration...
...it transfigures it" and that encouraging "young people to believe...they too can have a relationship like the one between prelapsarian Adam and Eve is deceptive and cruel...
...He variously sounds ignorant ("nuculer"), or like a schoolyard bully ("Bring 'em on...
...In the real world, forms of witchcraft have left people only more afraid of demons, and people stopped fearing demons only when they came to believe that Christ conquered once and for all on the cross...
...What would a life-a marriage, a vocation-that escaped the mud look like...
...Yet I make precisely the same point in my book Theology of the Body Explained when I write that we "cannot return to the state of original innocence...
...The hubris of of Cardinal Bernard Law pales before the towering ego of the cardinal of the west...
...Yet the flood of mail would doubtless be far greater were it not for the inertia which the richness of choice must induce in many potential correspondents...
...Drysdale was the embodiment of all that is worst in Beverly Hills, itself the symbol of our consumerist society...
...As John Paul II states, the "first man and the first woman must constitute...the model of that communion for all men and women who, in any period, are united so intimately as to be 'one flesh.'" But this does not, as Kaveny asserts, constitute "the mistake of eliding the original state of grace with the state of redemption...
...Finally, many thanks to Jean Raber...
...At the same time the pope stresses that there is "real power" flowing from Christ's death and Resurrection which enables us to gradually reclaim God's original plan for man and woman...
...Betrayed by Buffy Contrary to the cover of your November 7 issue, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is no longer, "A girl with a vocation...
...Yet it doesn't leave us wallowing in the mud...
...Translating John Paul's carefully nuanced scholarship for a popular audience is tricky business...
...He goes on to say that the pope's theology of the body "doesn't leave us wallowing in the mud...
...Having come this far, I will just point out to Michael Garvey ("A True Believer") that "Madalyn Murray O'Hair" lacks the syllables needed for "two sprightly dactyls trailed by a gentle iamb...
...The Catechism says as much: "By coming to restore the original order of creation disturbed by sin, [Christ] himself gives the strength and grace to live marriage in the new dimension of the reign of God...
...Her natural femininity was nicely balanced with her willingness to stand up for herself, as demonstrated by her talent for outperforming the show's male characters in feats of strength and skill...
...Elly May's vocation I have never seen Buffy, and there may be much to what Cathleen Kaveny says of the show...
...A good man I am writing to comment on your review of Anita M. Caspary's Witness to Integrity...
...He was also a financial genius...
...CHRISTINE MILLER, CDR, USN, RET...
...Hence, the redemption [man] experiences in Christ is more aptly a partial participation in the future resurrection...
...In my opinion, the cardinal was an outstanding man...
...1615...
...What does it mean to escape the mud...
...As Kaveny notes, the way real men and women appropriate Christ's redemption in their lives is "gritty" business...
...What, concretely, is the difference between gradually reclaiming the original plan and being restored to our prelapsarian state...
...DON SCHENK Allentown, Pa...
...Some of my concerns are exemplified in West's letter...
...Not that that saves the world...
...He also found religious sisters, brothers, and priests to work in those schools...
...I am happy to hear that West "can't agree more that authentic holiness is achieved in the midst of this 'grit' [of real life], not despite it...
...Aquinas, Luther, and even the wonderful and maddening Augustine still have much to teach us about the relationship of sex, friendship, and marital commitment east of Eden, and on the way to the new Jerusalem...
...She served as a foil to the hapless Jethro, who fell for every new fad he encountered, from Mickey Mouse watches to Double Naught Spy attache cases...
...My apologies to Buffy fans...
...I can't agree more that authentic holiness is achieved right in the midst of this "grit," not despite it...
...In my opinion, Mclntyre was right about the Immaculate Heart Sisters...
...I am quite sure that in any rasslin' match against the forces of darkness, Buffy would have been honored to have Elly May Clampett fighting at her side...
...The writer is bishop emeritus of Stockton...
...We must also avoid the trap of "holding the form of religion" while "denying the power of it" (2 Tim 3:5...
...Between going to their college, and visiting their high schools, I came to know these sisters fairly well...
...Waldorf, Md...
...Therefore, "by following Christ, renouncing themselves, and taking up their crosses...spouses will be able to 'receive' the original meaning of marriage and live it with the help of Christ" (n...
...Bush is the cowboy that the world feared Reagan was...
...GERALD M. SANDE New Brighton, Minn...
...REV...
...I rejected Ginger and Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island (too glamorous/gullible), June Cleaver and Harriet Nelson (too wrapped up in housework), and Lisa from Green Acres (too flakey...
...The four-color picture promises perfect bliss, the tiny legal disclaimer cautions "results not typical...
...In an era when we are awash in distractions from multiple forms of electronic media, when our public spaces are invaded by inane cell phone chatter, when our collective political acumen seems to be devolving with every passing year, Postman's observations are needed more than ever...
...Elly May alone seemed able to navigate this new world, drawing on values inculcated in the hills of Tennessee...
...Though praise from younger readers might be more welcome, since it would promise a bright future for Commonweal, they cannot attest to its consistent excellence as well as we old-timers can...
...Like other American religious communities, they are only a shadow of what they were in the past...
Vol. 130 • December 2003 • No. 22
