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Regarding your editorial “Not bad for melodrama” (NCR, Nov. 24), the recent U.S. bishops’ meeting shows they continue to think the whole world of morality revolves around controlling all sexual genital activity -- celibacy for priests, for unmarried heterosexuals, and limited sexual intercourse with no birth control for married heterosexuals. Talk about preoccupied. They are like the caricature of immature teenage boys focused on body parts while thinking sex is nasty and dirty behavior. When will our bishops grow up, mature and understand God-given, loving adult relationships that integrate sexuality with spirituality?
If it’s true that 96 percent of heterosexual married Catholics don’t follow the bishops’ ideas on birth control, the bishops now are officially endorsing most non-celibate Catholics not taking part in the Eucharist. It sure would be much easier for the bishops to staff the few needed parishes if the people of God took them up on it and stayed away.
Our shepherds are lost. We need “sheep” to find them and bring them back to the flock where Christ is alive and well among, in and through the people. Sadly, our bishops truly fear the living presence of God the Holy Spirit in the church speaking through the faithful and our lived experiences.
SAM SINNETT
St. Louis
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Your editorial about the bishops’ meeting deserves a Pulitzer Prize.
LEONARD J. KAUFER
Saipan, Mariana Islands
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When I began reading the agenda for the bishops’ meeting I couldn’t believe the topics: birth control, worthiness to receive Communion, liturgical music, causes and context of clergy sexual abuse of minors, ministry to gay Catholics. Will someone please tell the bishops that the American church has long ago made decisions about birth control, in the privacy of their own homes, and couldn’t care less what the bishops say? The birth control battle has been lost. It is not within the bishops’ power to change that. Please move on.
When did the hierarchy take on the job of judging an individual’s heart? And while on that topic, we hear again the discussion from the Vatican on who will wash the dishes after Mass. Please! We can be Eucharistic ministers and receive Christ in our hands, but can’t wash the dishes? What are they thinking? Hundreds of thousands have died in Iraq. What do the bishops say about that, or about genocide in the Sudan? What are they doing about the shortage of male celibates they require for leadership in parishes?
Our church is breaking apart, our world is on the brink of nuclear disaster and our bishops select church music. Stop with the smoke screens and get to the real issues. Perhaps if the bishops were more in touch with the real world, they would spend their time discussing real issues and become the servant leaders Jesus had in mind, the kind of loving, compassionate and creative leaders our church desperately needs.
MARY THIEL
Cedar Lake, Ind.
Once again Fr. Robert Drinan in his column (NCR, Nov. 3) has helped us understand how effective American laws can be as models for international jurisprudence. His article “World law aims to protect persons with disabilities” rightly credits the Americans with Disabilities Act as an effective example of how legislation can truly benefit people whose rights are routinely ignored and denied. Fr. Drinan writes that the new proposed world law “enforces justice and mercy on behalf of 650 million people” who are disabled. Such efforts also benefit the hundreds of millions of families whose lives are impacted by the existence of disabilities. One of the most important issues is the lack of employment opportunities. Sadly, the Catholic church has demonstrated neither justice nor mercy in this area.
Tour your local chancery office; look at your parish staff or the teaching personnel at Catholic schools. Do a census of employees at universities, hospital, seminaries, Newman ministries, Catholic Charities. Outside of janitorial and cafeteria workers, how many people with disabilities work for the church? How many people with disabilities are in decision-making roles in the church? I hope the new international covenant will change attitudes and practices around the world. For the vast majority with disabilities in the church, they are still waiting.
(Fr.) JOSEPH A. MULCRONE
Chicago
Regarding “Laity must not purify vessels” (NCR, Nov. 3): So the pope says lay ministers may not cleanse Communion vessels. After distributing Communion at our local hospital, what am I to do with the pyx? Do I drive half an hour to my parish church, hope that a priest or male deacon might be available to clean up? I don’t think so. I give up my time, energy and love, not my common sense.
EMILY BOTT
Maui, Hawaii
I would like to commend Tom Beaudoin for his excellent work in writing a commentary on the tuition situation in private Catholic colleges and universities (NCR, Nov. 3). I am especially intrigued by his section titled “the high cost of tuition.” I am in my 20s and can attest to the high costs. When I went away to college in 2000, there wasn’t a savings account with $50,000 in it my parents had put away. I had to work my way through college: a small private Catholic college outside of Cleveland. The costs were unreal. The larger injustice is that I went for training as a lay ecclesial minister. I will complete my master’s degree in ministry next year. The injustice lies in the wages the church pays her employees. The church wants her ministers to have academic degrees in theology, divinity and/or ministry, but doesn’t provide the return that we need in order to pay off the massive tuition debts we incur.
I believe it’s crucial for church ministers to have academic degrees in theology; many, though, will avoid the academic part of their formation. Many will just audit classes in order to get their requirements. I am now in debt that will take years to pay off, and I often wonder how I will make that additional loan payment that I will have to begin paying off next year. In the interest of economic justice for all, a new and better way must be brought forward to finance higher education. We need to begin finding solutions for those who pursue academic degrees for service within the church.
JASON R. LEWIS
Cleveland
Colman McCarthy complained about Coach Charlie Weis’ language (NCR, Nov. 17). As a 1965 graduate of Notre Dame, as the father of a graduate, I can safely say that a good number of its professors, students and Holy Cross priests often use the same language. I’m surprised they didn’t direct it at Mr. McCarthy on his numerous visits. Most of them swear like a sailor and I know that’s true since I was also in the Navy.
Mr. McCarthy launches into a vitriolic personal attack, calling the coach a 300-pounder, “vulgar,” “boorish” and “shameless.” Let’s look at the facts. Coach Weis nearly lost his life during gastric bypass surgery in an attempt to control his weight. He devotes a major portion of his income to a foundation supporting children who suffer from the same autism-like disease as his daughter. He brings the same level of excellence to athletics as is required of any other department. He has brought dignity and honor back to Notre Dame athletics. Unlike 90 percent of college athletes, Charlie’s players graduate from college within four years with respectable grade point averages. If Colman McCarthy had bothered to check out the “60 Minutes” Web link, he would have learned that Coach Weis uses his most forceful language and aggressive feedback not when his players miss a tackle but when they miss class.
THOMAS G. MULDOON
Somers, N.Y.
The letter from Dean Hoge (NCR, Nov. 17) criticizing a family for bringing 13 children into the world discloses a lack of faith in God’s plan for humankind. I don’t recall our Creator God putting a limit on how many times human co-creators are allowed to exercise their abilities. It is the children of this world that model the trusting character and open spirit Jesus tells us we must form in order to inherit the heavenly kingdom. The world’s ecology may very well be studied and corrected by one of those children born in a developing nation. Improvements in the living conditions of our species are not dependent on family size. Such amelioration will only happen when humans with more time, money, talent and space act responsibly by sharing their abundance with their global brothers and sisters. Mr. Hoge seems to forget that God is responsible for creating and, with the help of receptive parents, nurturing a human life into being. Having a large natural family can truly be a blessed opportunity for all ages. Couples who adopt are also answering the divine call for generosity and love. May both types of families continue to model the Christian example of faith and hope.
MARY COLLINGWOOD
Shaker Heights, Ohio
John Allen’s comments (NCR, Nov. 10) on the pope’s lack or avoidance of candid critics who might have spared him a damaging blunder in his Regensburg speech makes an important point. Tactlessness is best avoided by patient submission to critics who are able, honest and friendly. But a more important point was made in Islamica Magazine’s open letter to the pope from an international group of eminent Muslim scholars. With courtesy, clarity and unanimity, they demonstrate that the pope’s treatment of Islamic material was not only ecumenically and diplomatically maladroit, but academically and intellectually incompetent. The suggestion Mr. Allen cites from a Vatican official, that everything would have been fine if the pope merely inserted a disclaimer to the effect that the Byzantine emperor’s opinion was not one he shared, is naive.
Having read Joseph Ratzinger’s work over many years, I remain unconvinced that he is or ever was an awesome intellectual. I am aware of no research or analysis that rises above the level of ordinary professorial respectability; most of his writing is careful and erudite, and most of it is trite. Moreover, his extolling of reason as preferable to force takes on a tinge of irony in view of his readiness over so many years to secure agreement with his teachings and interpretations by bureaucratic coercion rather than rational persuasion. I do not in the least blame him for having done his assigned job in the approved manner, but it is the kind of job philosophers typically abhor, and the kind of manner they typically ridicule.
JAMES GAFFNEY
St. Paul, Minn.
Finally an intelligent woman, Rosemary Radford Ruether, speaks out in favor of what so many of us believe is not just pro-choice but a woman’s choice (“Consistent life ethic is inconsistent,” NCR, Nov. 17). It is nonsense to say a fertilized egg in a petri dish knows right from wrong and has a soul. That fetus is nothing more than a potential human being. Once the fetus can exist outside the womb, usually around the fifth month, it is a human being.
Decades ago, I remember watching William Buckley’s program “Firing Line.” He had a pro-abortion guest. To back up his own position, Mr. Buckley had invited two Jesuits. To his dismay, they didn’t support him well and finally one asked him, “Do you know what is the largest group of women to have abortions?” Mr. Buckley stammered out something about teens or prostitutes. The Jesuit answered, “Good Catholic women, who are forbidden to use birth control and cannot bear the eighth or ninth child” -- forbidden by a patriarchal church, impregnated by a husband who demands his “rights.” A woman is more than a womb. She is an intelligent, believing, loving child of God. Thank you, Rosemary.
LUCILLE OLIVER
Anderson, S.C.
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National Catholic Reporter, December 15, 2006