Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE To the Editor. A young reader! I am a nineteen-year-old college student at Mt. St. Mary's University, an appreciative beneficiary of Commonweal's College Subscription Program, and...
...But let me mention the major charges...
...Instead of converting to any Protestant church of their choice, they try to "reform" the Catholic Church-the outcome of which would be a colorless and boring "basic Christianity" that holds no interest whatsoever...
...I am about one-third of the way through Elaine Pagels's Beyond Belief (Random House) and I do not find it at odds with my firm belief that each of us has been made in the image of God, and that our obligation is to know, love, and serve him...
...Is this choosing a "culture of life...
...Instead, orthodox Christianity emerged victorious primarily because of its acceptability to Roman order in the days of Con-stantine...
...What do these guys know about being pregnant for nine months...
...What do these males know about giving birth...
...The church has forgotten what she knew, what she was capable of...
...And all of this in the service of a visionary scheme which, at its clearest, doesn't seem to me all that different from Social Darwinism...
...One has only to do the math to figure that in fifty years Europe will have a religious re-vitalization via Islam...
...These are mere symptoms...
...Teilhard's historical significance will be as an ideological figure whose writing served to sanctify the cultural politics of Catholic intellectuals intent, especially during the cold war, on joining in American celebrations of Progress, Science, and Technology...
...The author replies: This isn't the place to outline the bill of indictment I'd enter against Teilhard...
...It has been my honor to contribute various times over the years to this amazing publication...
...To be sure, if one's own definition of Christianity is, as Obuck puts it, "that each of us has been made in the image of God, and our obligation is to know, love, and serve him," then church is scarcely required at all, and there really is no crisis...
...And I do not know what can change this movement of history...
...I find it troubling that, even now, church leaders and scholars are unprepared to engage in a serious, dispassionate, and informed discussion of these texts...
...There are others, however, who have sought wisdom outside the Gospels who should not be considered part of the Gnostic tradition...
...Is this compassion...
...What characterizes the Gnostic vision is a rejection of the unity of the human person and a com-(Continued on page 4) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 2) plete dismissal of all human institutions as a means to sanctification...
...While struggling toward "freedom," they are unaware that they are undermining the very foundations of Catholicism...
...In the wake of Vatican II there was much enthusiasm for reform in the Catholic world...
...IRVING LOUIS HOROWITZ Piscataway, N.J...
...Mary's University, an appreciative beneficiary of Commonweal's College Subscription Program, and a double major in theology and political science...
...Thomas Merton and his writings on Asian monastic practices come to mind...
...Robert geroux Spokane, Wash...
...This is a most important distinction that is not made in Johnson's article...
...I look forward to reading many more special pieces by a special, much-needed, publication...
...Yet Johnson's article has too many accusatory and blanket statements to aid me in my studies...
...I have found Teilhard's writing to be thought provoking, optimistic, and imaginative...
...Ad multos annos Let me offer my personal and professional congratulations on the eightieth anniversary of Commonweal (November 5...
...Obuck seems to think that scholars have not engaged in a "serious, dispassionate, and informed discussion of these texts...
...Because it is women and girls who have to go through the nine months of pregnancy-discomfort, morning sickness, body distortion, urinary problems, and reduced enjoyment of sex...
...And I use the word amazing exactly...
...The author replies: I appreciate the fact that two readers, completely without coaching or encouragement, volunteered to extend my argument by providing such perfect examples of the point I was trying to make...
...Gnostics redux Luke Timothy Johnson presents an intriguing study of the parallels he sees between ancient and contemporary Gnosticism ("The New Gnosticism," November 5...
...PETRA MIHALY Vienna, Austria Judging Teilhard In reading Eugene McCarraher's review of The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004 ("Passion & Obedience," November 5), I was puzzled by his observation that Teilhard de Chardin was a "charlatan who can't be ridiculed too often...
...peter j. riga Houston, Tex...
...Publications such as Commonweal remind me that the beauty of our faith lies in its ability to be so relevant to the world around us...
...As one Muslim cleric told me, "We don't need bombs...
...This magazine has been such a blessing to me as I seek to grow intellectually and spiritually through my college years and beyond...
...However, I disagree with him on several points...
...anne obuck Ossining, N.Y...
...Have we Catholic voters lost our marbles...
...When I studied in Rome way back when, less than 5 percent of Romans ever went to Mass and the only reason there were so many priests around was because, well, it was Rome...
...But many advocates of reform have tended to throw out the baby with the bath water...
...I am eager to find out why the Gnostic gospels were considered heretical...
...The Nag Hammadi materials, the basis of Pagels's research, survived because they were hidden away once the Christianity we know today, instead of being a persecuted cult, became the only sanctioned religion of the Roman Empire...
...Many of these developments have been extremely fruitful and liberating...
...is an excellent example of the fair-minded equilibrium with which you have approached even the hottest of hot-button issues...
...If the Gnostic gospels can help us in this quest, we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss them...
...Scholars have been engaging these texts for decades, and most of them have concluded, as I have, that they really do represent a construal of Christianity distinct and often opposed to that found in the canonical texts...
...The Catholic vote A number of recent articles in Commonweal argued for the primacy of abortion in the 2004 election...
...While that would seem to make Teilhard a peculiarly generational phenomenon, the fact that he continues to elicit devotion, even among intellectuals who really ought to know better, is a sign that those ideological needs are as strong and beguiling as ever...
...They question the role of the pope, the standing of the clergy, sometimes even the fundamentals of Christianity such as the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth...
...McFerran puts forward the authorized new Gnostic version of Christian origins, which reduces orthodoxy to a political, indeed, imperial victory, rather than the most faithful witness to God's work in Christ...
...Contemporary writers like Carlos Castaneda and James Redfield are definitely in keeping with this old Gnostic vision...
...EUGENE MCCARRAHER A woman's voice I was shocked that the editors of Commonweal printed eight letters from men and not a single letter from a woman in response to the exchange between Kenneth Woodward and Mario Cuomo ("Catholics, Politics & Abortion," September 24...
...Beyond belief Luke Timothy Johnson's article on Gnosticism begs the question: Why should a church with a rich tradition be reduced to "a crisis of identity and even of survival" by people, like me, who are interested in the Gnostic gospels...
...Because mothers and grandmothers know that there has to be an option if their child or grandchild is raped or abused...
...There is, I agree, a new Gnosticism of sorts, but I do not think that any spirituality that seeks to transcend acceptance of the Gospels as factual accounts should be classified in this way, although that is the impression Johnson leaves...
...Worst of all, she has forgotten where she stands...
...The average Muslim family numbers anywhere from six to ten children compared to 1.4 per woman in Italy...
...Your editorial in the same issue ("A Catholic President...
...LUKE TIMOTHY JOHNSON 'We have the wombs' I thoroughly enjoyed "The Mass Bells of Maremma" (November 5) by Eamon Duffy...
...Because it is girls and women who can be raped by boyfriends, daddies, uncles, strangers, ministers, priests...
...RACHEL CONRAD WAHLBERG Austin, Tex...
...In one breathless clause, he manages to reduce the defense of the canonical Gospels to a defense of their factual accuracy, rather than of their true witness and interpretation, while simultaneously suggesting (as I argued) that what is at stake is a "spirituality" that transcends Christianity's particu-(Continued on page 35) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 4) larity...
...Do we really want the Body of Christ divided in this way...
...It's time to wake up and see beyond the machinations of those who would use abortion to divide us against ourselves...
...November 2 simply provided further evidence of the Protestantization of what was formerly a rich and valuable Catholic counter-discourse in favor of justice in the fullest and most comprehensive sense of the word...
...I am a lifelong Catholic, educated by religious from grade school through college...
...Colorless & boring Regarding Eamon Duffy's article on the de-Christianization of Europe: the main problem of the Catholic Church is not only the diminishing number of priests and faithful...
...And he defends the search for a "spirituality that seeks to transcend the Gospels as factual accounts...
...To those interested, I recommend Garry Wills's discussion in Bare Ruined Choirs...
...Teilhard's work has always struck me as a fusion of woolly-headed theology, half-digested evolutionary biology, and just plain bad, even ugly writing: terms like "cephalization" and "complexifica-tion" are landmarks in the history of jargon...
...Douglass mcferran Los Angeles, Calif...
...We have the wombs...
...The main problem is with the church's self-esteem...
...She is wrong...
...I echo Maurice Timothy Reidy's desire to bring Commonweal to our generation ("Young Blood," November 5...
...Here are my reasons why women won't change their minds about abortion: Because women alone live in fear and worry about their next period and what it could mean...
...Being the founding editor in chief of Society, I have some idea of the highs and lows that go with the turf...
...A more ominous challenge to the future of Christianity in Europe is the influx of young Muslims...
...What is perhaps even more shocking is that we elected him instead of a Catholic candidate who is personally against abortion, but who has refused to re-criminalize it...
...The argument put forth by Elaine Pagels and others is that Gnostics were a vibrant community that sought refuge from Roman power in cults that endorsed personal revelations...
...That priority has borne fruit: we have reelect-ed a president who engaged in an aggressive and unjustified war (according to the Vatican), who openly favors the wealthy, who supports the death penalty, and who has hardly any common cultural or theological ground with most Catholics...
...MARTHA MCNEILL PROTOMASTRO Albuquerque, N. Mex...
...They were not, according to an older version of history that Johnson appears to accept, merely heretics reacting against an established orthodoxy...
...KATIE SCHMIDT Emmitsburg, Md...
...Is this kind of co-optation what we Catholics want...
...I'd be interested in McCarraher's reason for his negative opinion...
...Right-wing Catholics need to come to their senses and understand that by obsessing on a single issue they implicitly supported state murder, rampant social inequality, economic exploitation, and most important, an aggressive and unjustified conflict that has taken an estimated one hundred thousand Iraqi lives...
Vol. 131 • December 2004 • No. 21
