TO THE EDITORS.

Heresy As a young Catholic man in the process of discerning a call to a priestly vocation, I found your coverage of Maryland seminarians to be particularly interesting [Editorial, April 23]. Interesting from the perspective that Commonweal chooses to identify itself as a "Catholic" magazine. How can a magazine that claims such an identity denounce these young seminarians for their fidelity to the magisterium on artificial birth control, belittle the authority of the Holy Father, and make the outrageous claim that the church lacks the ability to define irreformable doctrine? I suspect many of these positions would be supported by an appeal to the "spirit of the council"-under the grave misconception that Vatican II documents can be twisted to attack the very church that brought them forth. This agenda should sound very familiar to those with an understanding of church history-it has been associated with names such as Marcion, Arius, and Luther. Christopher Roberts Cambridge, Mass.

Condescension 101 I marvel at your restraint in printing, without comment, the Reverend Wayne Sattler's letter [Correspondence, May 21] about your coverage of seminarians at Mount Saint Mary's, in which he states: "My love for the church is paralleled and complemented by the love I bear for my parishioners...." His parishioners are not the church? Only the clergy are the church? I wonder: (1) What's become of fundamental theology in seminaries these days? Has it been replaced by "Condescension 101"? (2) Did Vatican II really happen, or was it just an illusion? (Rev.) Robert J. Sullivan Vestal, N.Y. The writer is the Catholic chaplain at Binghampton University.

Got it wrong Let's see now, according to Rand Richards Cooper ["Tom Wolfe, Material Boy," May 7], A Man in Full reveals Wolfe as a believer in "radical materialism." Thorstein Veblen's clever but limited ideas about status- seeking and conspicuous consumption form the "complete blueprint" for Wolfe's novel. For it turns out that Wolfe is "in dedicated thrall" to "one big idea": that the human person is literally nothing more than what he "owns and covets" plus his "muscles and hormones."As a result, Wolfe's characters can have "by definition, no inner life."

The only problem with this analysis is that A Man in Full is a book about religion. Specifically, the plot centers on a religious conversion. The whole point of the novel (what we might call its "one big idea") is to reject, on explicitly spiritual and religious grounds, a view of life that is reductionist and materialistic. One would imagine that this fact would interest Commonweal readers, but it seems to have escaped Cooper's notice entirely. David Blankenhorn New York, N.Y. The writer is president of the Institute for American Values.

The author replies: David Blankenhorn raises an issue worth addressing, namely, what to make of the last turn of Wolfe's novel, in which Charlie Croker reads Stoic philosophy under the guidance of an ex-employee, renounces his worldly possessions, and breaks through to a new mission and sense of self.

While it's stretching it to say a plot "centers" on roughly the last 80 pages of a 742-page novel, it is true that Wolfe ends his hero's odyssey in-well, in some kind of conversion, anyway. But what kind? An overweening real estate developer at the brink of bankruptcy sees the error of his ways, hits the road to preach a gospel of stoic renunciation-and ends up a syndicated televangelist with a big contract from Fox. Is this really, as Blankenhorn claims, a rejection of materialism?

The bigger problem with the conversion section (and the reason I skipped over it in my essay) is that it's by far the weakest part of the novel. The awkward shifts in point of view, frantic plot twists, and the Epilogue that piles up all fates in a heap of expository dialogue.... Are we really to believe that Charlie's notorious contempt for ideas suddenly melts into callow eagerness at the feet of his teacher? Or that this bluff, blunt ex-football player-hardly a snazzy conversationalist- becomes a brilliant televangelist?

My point is that the convictions of a novel are carried in the body of its best writing: Charlie belligerently wielding his power, or (later on) caught in impotent rage at the bitter diminishments of aging and its inroads on status. In comparison, the new, "spiritual" Charlie isn't much of a character at all, spouting Epictetus at press conferences, babbling dialogue-"Tranquillity is a mind in accord with nature"-that sounds like it was lifted from old "Kung Fu" reruns. Some readers may call this a conversion. I call it bailing out. Rand Richards Cooper

Gould standard After reading Phillip Johnson's review of Rocks of Ages [April 23] I wasn't sure if we had read the same book. Of course, maybe we didn't since the title was misprinted in the review as Rock (singular) of Ages.

I think the distinction that Stephen Jay Gould was trying to make in the book is that science and religion have different bases of knowledge: For example, science is based on observable and measurable matter that is understood through reductionist thought processes, and religion is based on revelation that is understood and interpreted through experiential knowledge and philosophical thought processes.

Further, what Gould is saying is that religion cannot speak authoritatively in the realm of science and that science cannot speak legitimately in the areas of belief and values.

I think that most of us would agree with that. We cannot scientifically prove that Jesus is divine or that we are "divinely infused with a soul." Those are matters of belief, beliefs that I happen to accept and try to live by. At the same time, scientists who say that human beings are an accident of chemicals, physics, and evolutionary processes should say so only within the context of their scientific frame of reference. They should not move beyond that to say that religious beliefs about the soul and the resulting dignity and value of the individual based on experiential and philosophical knowledge are without basis and value.

That doesn't mean that some scientists don't stray into areas of religion, philosophy, and values. Gould admits that they do, but strongly urges them not to. He gives several examples of scientists who have made such leaps from science to religion and philosophy, and the deleterious effects such leaps have often had on society.

At the same time, Gould says that religious thinkers cannot dismiss or contradict the factual findings of science. (Here, of course, a distinction must be made between fact and theory. Splitting the atom is a fact. Evolution is still a theory, but one that seems to be pretty solid as the result of "the convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently," as stated by the pope.)

What Gould does say is that many important issues, for example those raised by biogenetics, require a positive dialog between science and religion so that a valueless scientific frame of reference does not set the parameters for the use of this advancement in scientific knowledge.

There are other points that I think Johnson misinterpreted or misrepresented, but this is only a letter to the editor, not a full- blown review. However, I think it is telling that throughout the review article, Johnson doesn't appear to exhibit an open mind to the ideas of Gould. He gets in a little dig at the outset by calling the book "a heavily padded version of an essay." He uses confrontational terms like "checkmate" to indicate that the battle should continue rather than a mutual peace, dialogue, and continued exploration of ideas take place.

When I finished the review and saw the title of Johnson's book and his profession, I understood why I thought I read a different book. Confrontational and ad hominem arguments are lawyerly approaches to winning a case. Johnson appears to have an axe to grind. Maybe Commonweal could find a more open-minded theologian and/or scientist to rereview this book. Robert Beezat Glendale, Wisc.

The author replies: Here's the axe I have to grind: Does Christianity make any factual claims, or doesn't it? If the soul does not exist, and if Jesus was just a human teacher whose followers invented the idea of his divinity, and if an undirected, purposeless process of evolution was our true creator- then Christianity ought to go out of business as a myth that is not worth defending. As Gould makes clear, we can do moral philosophy just as well without introducing fairy tales about the supernatural. Gould does not think that "science and religion have different bases of knowledge." He thinks that science has knowledge, and religion has comforting fantasies. I haven't the slightest fear that Gould will contradict me, because he would destroy his won reputation in the Darwinian community if he did. But for tactical reasons he will try to encourage trusting Christians to believe that he doesn't mean any harm. Phillip Johnson

Papal evolution As a Catholic, I'm not much interested in what Stephen Jay Gould thinks of Pope John Paul's statement that independent research constitutes "a significant argument in favor of the theory" of evolution, but I am very interested in what the pope himself thinks his statement does to the traditional view of salvation history.

If we accept evolution, the present state of humankind results from a gradual increase in complexity from single-cell life, not a fall from the perfection of Eden as a result of Adam's sin. In other words, we rose to this point from the bottom; we did not fall to it from the top.

Also, what does evolution do to our understanding of Christ's mission? Heretofore, we've been taught that Christ came to redeem us from Adam's sin. But with evolution, it seems more reasonable that Christ's mission was to teach us how to live to achieve an aspiration for immortality which awakened in our species with the infusion of a human soul.

It seems that some of our basic teachings need an update. Indeed, we may need a pope who rediscovers the work of Teilhard de Chardin, the way Pope Pius V (1504-72) embraced the work of Thomas Aquinas. George E. Ward Plymouth, Mich

O Jerusalem Having just returned from overseas, and catching up on back issues of Commonweal (hence the delayed nature of this letter), I was overwhelmed by the article of Alane Salierno Mason [March 26] on her experience of visiting Jerusalem. She captured and expressed so well the experience I had on my recent first visit to Israel. The mixture of the sacred and the profane, the sublime and the ridiculous which is modern day/ancient Israel/Palestine truly struck me. I will never refer to that area as "Holy Land" again. The people who lived/live there may, indeed, be holy. The sites and the earth, however, are the same mixture of holy and unholy that marks all human places and events. As Mason points out, these sites both edify and scandalize in equal measure.

Thanks to her for giving voice to a profound truth: "He is not here; he is risen." (Rev.) David J. Norris Hilmar, Calif.