LETTERS
Letters A Lesson on Jesse Your article about Jesse Jackson [“I Am Somebody!” by Clarence Page, February] is an exercise in journalistic confusion. Jackson promises to motivate students;...
...1 did not interview his fellow bishops...
...Only “religious” priests, members of the orders and institutes, do...
...Catholic Conference has only one “genuinely important project,” the Campaign for Human Development...
...His identification of lack of support and rapport between bishops and their priests and his fingering “toadyism” as the method of men on the fast track could not be more correct...
...In fact, it has many...
...the latter implies that seminarians do not pursue degrees, which is, of course, ludicrous...
...His one error involves the common misconception that secular priests take a vow of poverty...
...Biship Kelly left the priesthood because he wanted to protest injustice and his superiors didn’t like it...
...Most American parishes, for instance, have one or two priests on the staff...
...Finally, with respect to the U.S...
...Making It in the Church” not only stretches a truism to vulgar lengths, but errs in so many points of detail that even its trite thesis is weakened...
...The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself...
...Is it too much to expect the schools, and not Jackson, to build on this motivation by educating students...
...If Ryan spent less time hanging around with bishops and more time in the company of the parish priests of Washington, he might have noticed the same thing...
...Baum is not known for his general love of the good life, as Nocera claims...
...In most large dioceses, a man will become a pastor only after many years as a curate in many parishes...
...If that were true, there wouldn’t be any priests left in the average diocese to staff the parishes...
...His evaluation of the state of the priesthood is accurate and critically sympathetic...
...What a simplisticview of life this is...
...I took up Nocera’s “Making It in the Church” with appropriate skepticism...
...according to Page, he does...
...Whatever the value, or lack thereof, of Jackson’s political statements, just because he proposed PUSH-Excel he should not be automatically restricted to one particular role...
...Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same...
...The accompanying piece on Marva Collins [“Those Who Can Teach, Do” by Magda Krance] describes another in a long history of remarkable black female teachers who educated students privately against the odds...
...To lay the blame for poor teaching solely on the teachers’ unions is preposterous...
...Canon law is an advanced specialization...
...My thanks for printing the piece...
...They do not...
...Slusser feels that I didn’t get my facts straight, but it seems to me more a matter of interpretation...
...Where Baum fails is not in his relations with other men of his ilk, but his ability to lead his subordinates-to “inspire and invigorate a religious community,”as I wrote...
...Letters A Lesson on Jesse Your article about Jesse Jackson [“I Am Somebody...
...Pastors are called “parish priests” in some Eastern dioceses...
...The former is like saying someone who went to Pembroke could never cross the street and pursue a speciality at Brown...
...But this does not excuse administrators from their responsibility to weed out those teachers who are sliding by before they become tenured...
...their junior colleagues are known as “associates,” “curates,” or “assistants...
...Does he know anything about the real Cardinal Baum...
...An average chancery will employ fewer than ten priests...
...Nocera says “a few hundred...
...After any de-frocking, there may be the appearance of chaos and the like...
...MARY F. BERRY Washington, DC Ms...
...Preliminary evaluations indicate he can do just that, which is why Joe Califano pressed for long-term HEW funding of Jackson’s organization, PIJSH-Excel...
...WILLIAM LYLE PERLMAN Chicago, Illinois “Making It in the Church” reminds me of George Orwell’s discussion of the Communist Party in 1984: “The essence of oligarchical rule is not fatherto- son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain worldview and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living...
...The complaint that the North American College does not grant degrees in canon law, or that seminarians do not pursue such degrees, seems to me an extreme bit of nit-picking...
...Ryan makes a more serious charge, that my characterization of Baum is unfair...
...It’s been my experience that many administrators are too insecure or too busy to take the time and trouble that firing someone requires...
...I appreciate his defrocking of myths...
...I did not give Jean Jadot enough credit for taking steps to circumvent the usual ladder of success in the American church...
...RODNEY WRIGHT St...
...Catholic Conference...
...Those who know him consider him a compassionate pastor and brilliant theologian...
...Nocera goes on to make, by my count, 18 errors of simple fact...
...Berry is former assistant secretary of Education at HEW...
...Perhaps I should have made a larger point of the fact that the church is a diverse institution...
...The church in Minneapolis and the church in New York are as different as, well, Minneapolis and New York...
...I did talk to parish priests, nuns, and lay people in the diocese...
...Catholic Conference’s Migration and Refugee Services, I was wrong...
...The North American College in Rome does not give degrees in canon law, as Nocera claims, and seminarians do not pursue such degrees...
...The only thing this indicates to me is that the future Pope saw something in Baum that Nocera didn’t...
...Dinter works in the office of the Counselor to Catholic Students at Columbia University...
...Their attitude toward him is far less than laudatory...
...Again, it is a matter of interpretation...
...Cardinals are not “allowed to join the College of Cardinals” any more than cabinet secretaries are “allowed” to join the cabinet...
...Nocera says the U.S...
...Louis, Missouri “Making It in the Church” is such a shoddy collection of Andrew Greely-like shibboleths about the Catholic church that one scarcely knows where to begin, but its incredible simplemindedness would be a good starting point...
...A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors...
...He has gone to extraordinary lengths to bring at least some measure of new and vital leadership to the church...
...Collins should be appreciated, but the comparison to Jackson is disjointed...
...A Lesson on Unions In reply to January’s “Tilting at Windmills,” I admit it is ridiculous for a union to forbid administrators from observing potential teachers in action...
...Ultimately, any institution worthy of the agreement which gave it birth in the first place will be strengthened by de-frocking, and aided in performing the task for which it was created...
...I mentioned, for example, that Baum has a reputation as a brilliant theologian...
...In the cities of the East Coast with which I am familiar, the numbers I listed are accurate...
...Catholic Taste I enjoyed “Making It in the Church” by Joseph Nocera [January...
...of course advancement in the Catholic church depends on ability, knowing people, and being in the right place at the right time...
...I would like to congratulate him for a crisp, honest, and sincere piece of journalism...
...If I were a member of that union, I would work diligently to do away with such a rule...
...Ryan is a public affairs officia1,for the U.S...
...But that leads precisely to the point I was trying to make...
...Cardinal Baum is successful because he’s an ordinary sort of person who doesn’t rock the boat...
...THE REVEREND PAUL E. DINTER New York, New York Rev...
...Slusser also complains about my terminology...
...He complains that I assign too many priests to the parish and chancery levels...
...The education bureaucracies and the teachers’ colleges share responsibility for the decline of teaching...
...He promises to create a climate in which teaching can take place...
...THE REVEREND MICHAEL SLUSSER Minneapolis, Minnesota The author replies: My chief regret about the article turns out to be a flaw none of the letter writers mentioned...
...It was not an article about whether Baum has won the respect of his peers-of course he has-but about whether he has won the respect of his subordinates...
...WILLIAM RYAN Washington, DC Mr...
...Nocera has done a service to the church that reared him...
...Jackson has never, to my knowledge, pretended to be a teacher...
...Does Nocera know that in 1971, the year Kelly left, Baum visited Philip Berrigan in federal prison in Missouri...
...Its Migration and Refugee Services, for example, has since World War I1 found homes and jobs in this country for more than one million displaced persons from all over the from Southeast Asia in the last five years...
...It seemed to me appropriate-indeed, necessary-to simplify language whenever possible and use lay terms that both Catholics and others would understand...
...LUCINDA FISHER Mullan, Idaho m e editor replies: I don’t blame the unions alone...
...And what’s wrong with the fact that Baum became friends during Vatican Council I1 with a Polish priest named Wojtyla...
Vol. 12 • April 1980 • No. 2
