To the Editors.

Sparks of joy

Time and again it is good to find an article like Valerie Sayers's "Being a Writer, Being Catholic" (May 4) in your journal. As well she must, she features novels. But before Pentecost this year I rush to mention a 1950s short story, Muriel Spark's "Come Along, Marjorie" in her Go-Away Bird and Other Stories. In it Spark's comic ironies glitter. Midway they fairly burst with Christian joy and awe amid quotidian living that does not go away. Rereading never fails to bring a tear to my eye. Others might not easily refrain from their own tears of Christian joy.

PHILIP C. FISCHER, S.J.
Saint Louis, Mo.

Jesuits & justice

In his review of Jesuit Education 21 ["How to Be Loyal to Loyola," April 20] Dennis O'Brien makes cogent points regarding the departure that was taken at the Jesuit General Council 32 of the Society of Jesus from the Christ-centered focus of Ignatius Loyola. Under the single-minded direction of Pedro Arrupe, S.J., father general of the Jesuits at the time, social justice became the defining characteristic of the Jesuit order in general and of Jesuit pedagogy in particular.

Social justice is intrinsic to the Gospels and a component of Catholic teaching, but it is derivative of both and should be taught in that context. The Arrupean model is hardly "loyal to Loyola" but is clearly a departure from the Ignatian ratio studiorum as a principle of Jesuit education.

The characterization of past Jesuit education as serving "ghetto Catholics" and teaching "Baltimore Catechism Plus" is an affront to the legions of Jesuits who have served Christ and his church for five hundred years. Perhaps this post-Arrupe attitude is why the membership in the Society of Jesus is a third smaller than it was thirty years ago.

WILLIAM DORNBURGH
Cooperstown, N.Y.

Father S. lives

You can tell Peter Feuerherd ["The Territorial Imperative," April 20] that his Father S. (for Schmidlin) is alive and well and now pastor of Saint Matthew Church in Indianapolis. He was indeed pastor of Saint Joan of Arc in Indianapolis twenty years ago when the neighboring parish, Saint Thomas Aquinas, was "a hip Catholic alternative," as Feuerhard describes it.

I sent the column to Schmidlin and he called to say that he enjoyed it--especially the sentence, "He was a prophetic priest making a point." Feuerherd got his point right, he said. Father S. didn't object, but I would, to Feuerherd's description of Schmidlin as "a perpetually disgruntled pastor" or as "a jealous grumpy old pastor." He would have been all of fifty years old twenty years ago and, although Feuerherd might have thought fifty was old then, I'm sure he doesn't today.

JOHN F. FINK
Indianapolis, Ind.

Israeli crimes

Thank you for David Burrell's commentary ["Warring Stories," April 20] on the Israeli settlers and the Palestinians. Northern Ireland came to mind, where hundreds of innocent people lost their lives to the bullets and batons of the security forces, as well as to those of hardline loyalists who were, we were told time and time again by the news media, "simply" responding to attack by rioting civilians. To my mind, there are no morally acceptable excuses for bombs set in civilian settings with total disregard for life. These kinds of outrages are deplorable and the perpetrators should be brought to justice. However, there has been a clear trend in reports and commentaries on the Israeli-Palestinian "situation," to play up the killing of one or two Jewish settlers, and totally whitewash the slaying of Palestinian children such as the nine-year-old helping his father paint their new home, or Aida Fteiha, shot dead on her way home from shopping. Equally inexcusable is the action of the bombers.

We should pray for peace in the Holy Land and for Palestinians and Israelis alike. Currently, the balance is totally out of kilter favoring the Israelis, who can indiscriminately kill with apparent impunity. Thank you, David Burrell, for speaking out.

EAMON M. MAGEE
Kensington, Md.

Burrell's errors

David Burrell's "Warring Stories" rightly indicates that there are two conflicting versions coming out of the Middle East, but he seems to have misheard one of them. Israelis were far more than "let down" by the Palestinian leadership's response to Ehud Barak's offer to Yasir Arafat at Camp David last year. The Israelis I've spoken with were shocked not that Arafat "turned it down" but that Arafat had no counteroffer. He simply walked out. What were Israel's next steps supposed to be?

Father Burrell claims that the intifada is "directed as much against the Palestinians' own leadership as releasing pent-up frustration against" the Israelis. But stones, bullets, and mortars have been aimed at Israelis. Palestinian suicide bombers have not gone to Arafat's headquarters.

Burrell also suggests that Israel has completely ignored the question of Palestinian refugees. On the contrary, Barak's proposal--the one to which Arafat had no response--included return of some refugees and compensation for others.

And as for 1967, it was not only Yeshayahu Leibowitz who advocated returning the occupied territories (which had previously been occupied by Jordan). The Israeli government offered to trade land for peace, an offer that was adamantly refused, with profound consequences for the future.

The two stories are indeed complex. Israel began to acknowledge the price Palestinians have paid for the founding of the Jewish State. It has been met with continued hatred, vitriol, and delegitimation of Jews and Judaism by Arab leaders.

(RABBI) LAURENCE EDWARDS
New York, N.Y.

The writer is associate national director of the American Jewish Committee.

The author replies:

I don't know how I would respond to the current situation if I were a Jew, but it would probably be much as Rabbi Edwards has, for it is natural to put our own people in the best light. It took most Americans a long time to recognize that our way of waging war in Southeast Asia could no longer be justified. We can debate endlessly what one group did or did not do. I am encouraging people to look at what had been happening "on the ground" while the "peace process" went on elsewhere, and what Israel has done must be called occupation. That occupation and the way it is being carried out, as well as those in Israeli society who represent its vanguard, can hardly reflect well on Judaism itself. We must then turn to look to Palestinian and Israeli people, and find ways to bring them together, rather than allow ourselves to be distracted by the "continued hatred, vitriol, and delegitimation of Jews and Judaism by Arab leaders," for these leaders care little about either people. Neither people's leadership has served them well; let us admit that and seek ways to bring them together, beginning where we live.

DAVID BURRELL, C.S.C.

Mistaken mandates

Jean Porter's article "Misplaced Nostalgia" (April 20) ends on a more hopeful note than is warranted. Ex corde ecclesiae itself and the manner in which it has been generated are inconsistent with the notion that we can achieve an "institutional integrity and flexibility" similar to the medieval university. The article did not argue, nor would I, that the medieval university is the standard to adopt. The article gently points out that even this standard is not met.

A generation from now there will be more regret about Ex corde than there is today. Things rarely are as bad, or as good, as we think they might be. But this whole approach has me deeply concerned.

My ability to influence Ex corde is limited to recommendations and comments I make about colleges and universities as well as with financial contributions. In each instance I'll "vote with my feet."

EDWARD DIRKSWAGER
Saint Paul, Minn.

Needed mandates

Jean Porter's "Misplaced Nostalgia" reminds us that the issues of accountability and episcopal oversight of universities have a long history. I fear, however, that she makes a couple of errors which may undermine some of her conclusions. First, what many theologians in late thirteenth-century universities objected to about the "philosophers" on the arts faculties was not that they used philosophical methods, but that they seemed to use them to draw conclusions on matters essential to the faith apart from the canons of theological proof. Whether they were right to do so is another matter, but it does need to be pointed out that most of the greatest and most original medieval philosophers (Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, Ockham) were, in fact, by profession theologians.

Second, while it's quite true that medieval academics jealously defended their institutions from juridical oversight by local bishops, they were able to do this and remain faithful to the magisterium precisely because most of them were committed to the truth of the fundamental doctrines of the faith. However wide-ranging their debates, they also, as Porter admits, were not at all shy about defending the purity of these basic principles against wayward colleagues (a zeal which sometimes even overflowed into groundless accusations). Members of theology faculties, it seems, were especially inclined to carry out this duty.

Are today's academics prepared to do this sort of thing (I mean, in due measure, and with charity)? That would be the ideal solution, and would obviate the need for the mandatum, but, frankly, I doubt it will happen. The dominant contemporary academic ideology (and etiquette) frowns upon it, to say the least. Given this, I believe that Porter's stated desire to have a flexible criterion of faithfulness to the church suited to our times militates for the mandatum, not against it.

PAUL J. RADZILOWSKI
Orchard Lake, Mich.

The author replies:

It is true that the thirteenth-century theologians who objected to the freedom of the philosophers did so because they feared that the philosophers were not sufficiently orthodox. But this worry cannot be separated so neatly from a concern about philosophy per se. The philosophers were willing to submit their views to the final judgment of the church, but they also argued that in order to carry out philosophical inquiry with integrity, they needed the freedom to examine heterodox claims, and even to defend them provisionally, as a way of drawing out the implications of an argument. And the theologians who objected most strenuously to their methods of proceeding did object to the application of philosophical methods to theological questions, which they believed were best handled through traditional methods of scriptural exegesis and commentaries on authoritative texts. The theologians whom Paul Radzilowski mentions were more open to philosophy, in part because most of them were trained in philosophy, as theologians in the early part of the thirteenth century often were not.

If we were to go back to the medieval model, as Radzilowski suggests, theologians would be charged with the duty of overseeing the orthodoxy of their colleagues in philosophy. But any such procedure would be inimical to the principles of free inquiry which are necessary to the health of theology as a discipline, and ultimately to the well-being of the church. Radzilowski remarks that this procedure would be an ideal solution, but I have to ask, solution to what? What is the problem (actual, not theoretical) to which the mandate would be an appropriate solution? I have to say that I have never seen a satisfactory answer to this question.

JEAN PORTER

Comfort the afflicted

From personal experience, I would like to expand on Sidney Callahan's excellent "Spiritual Symptoms" (April 20). My son had schizophrenia and died as a result at twenty, only months after being diagnosed. He was so severely ill that I can't say anything would have saved him, but it is certain that supposedly expert psychiatric care and the most up-to-date medications failed. Professional compassion did not comfort him, nor did it offer understanding companionship in his suffering.

Severely afflicted people such as my son need and deserve the attention of those who see in them the face of God and, therefore, love and honor them. Genuinely religious people can improve, and maybe preserve, life for those who are mentally ill.

MADELINE MARGET
Auburndale, Mass.