To the Editors.

What's needed

I commend Commonweal for its editorials on the Catholic Church's sex-abuse crisis ("Priests & Pedophilia," March 8, and "The Whole Story," April 5). Considering the "frenzy" of the moment, they were the most balanced commentaries on the subject that I have read.

I second your call for the Catholic bishops to commission an independent study of the problem. Although its principal focus should be the Catholic Church, some comparison with other religions and professional groups should be made for the sake of perspective.

GEORGE L. MAHONEY
Katonah, N.Y.

For sanity

Finally, a voice crying out in the wilderness for sanity on the Iraq question ("Evildoer," March 22). Iraq presents a dilemma for U.S. policy makers. It is true that Saddam is a tyrant, waging war on his own people, with designs on becoming a regional power. However, the notion that the United States has anointed itself sole judge of who will govern sovereign nations is scary and crazy.

ALEX ROMERO
El Centro, Calif.

Cover-up is the story

I have recently resubscribed to Commonweal after a thirty-five-year hiatus. When I was a young philosophy teacher in various Catholic universities in the 1960s, Commonweal was the most exciting Catholic publication in the country--politically alert, intellectually stimulating. When I dropped philosophy and went off to law, I somehow lost touch. Now I've returned.

I am very disappointed in your current orientation and level of dialogue. Case in point: your coverage of the sex-abuse scandal in the April 5 issue.

Your editorial, "The Whole Story," makes many good points: no respect for uninformed pundits; even less respect for the opinions of attorneys with conflicts of interest; protecting the civil rights of the accused; respecting the paucity of our information about the broader topics of seminary training, or practices in other religions; no rush to judgment.

But how did Cardinal Bernard Law get into the class of those who may be rashly judged, about whom we lack sufficient information to make a judgment call? The story here is not the sexual abuse. The story is the cover-up. For the first few molestations, shame on the abuser. For the dozens and hundred thereafter, shame on the cardinal.

A common thread in the media coverage has been that the U.S. Catholic hierarchy is so compromised that they no longer have the moral authority to bring about a solution, that the laity must come forward and insist upon reform. So, what do we get from Commonweal? A mealy-mouthed endorsement of a study, along with a despairingly stated conviction that it won't happen! So then what?

Paul Baumann's column ("Mud in Your Eye"), appearing just two pages after the editorial, isn't any better. He concludes that the causes of the scandal are "cowardice, hypocrisy, and arrogance," along with the failure of priests to stand up to bishops--not the "hierarchy or celibacy per se." In short, the problem lies in the hearts of people. What will it take to make him reexamine his premises?

Please stop ducking the systemic and institutional problems facing the church. Is this really the best that Commonweal has to offer?

JOHN J. MCMAHON
Boise, Idaho

Rome has spoken

There are several problems with Robert Krieg's piece on Christology, "Who Do You Say I Am?" (March 22), not the least of which is his dismissal of the necessary role of the church's teaching office in adjudicating disagreements. It is one thing to canvass the competing claims among theologians--whose views, while perhaps very interesting and original, are scarcely the stuff of revelation. It is quite another to omit any reference to the one divinely instituted means for settling their disputes.

I am far less impressed with the theological opinions of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger than I am with his work as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The point that seems to have escaped Krieg's notice is that in giving us Dominus Iesus, Cardinal Ratzinger is not doing theology. Rather, he is defending the faith from the depredations of those who, like the "seducers" exposed in the letters of Saint John, would deprive us of the strong meat of the Gospels. Why is it that it is primarily the theologians who appear clueless about "the central problem of our time," namely, "the emptying out of the historical figure of Jesus"?

REGIS MARTIN
Steubenville, Ohio

High or low?

In "Who Do You Say I Am?" Robert Krieg notes that "the CDF has never undertaken a formal inquiry into a book that relies solely on Christology from above." A double standard apparently is at work. Perhaps, though, a double standard is appropriate in this instance. Although a full Christology must incorporate both Jesus' divine and human natures, a Christology that exclusively emphasizes the divinity of Jesus is less dangerous than one that exclusively emphasizes his humanity. First, the divinity of Jesus is more in dispute than is his humanity. I know plenty of people, including atheists, who are quite willing to believe that a man named Jesus lived and taught a recognizably decent philosophy of life. It is the claim that Jesus was and is God that they dispute. I know believers who have quite disparate notions of what the humanity of Jesus meant and means, but I know of no believer in the divinity of Jesus who questions that he became human. Second, Christology from below could advance the agenda of those who deny the divinity of Jesus. If we lose sight of Jesus' divinity, the morally binding quality of his teaching is lost, too. The teachings of Jesus, if they were mere human teachings, would have no necessarily privileged position over those of Plato or Confucius (or Bentham, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, or Sartre). A Christology that ignores or diminishes the divinity of Jesus is more demeaning to Jesus than would be a Christology that ignores or diminishes his humanity.

PATRICK CALLAHAN
Aurora, Ill.

Locating the sacred

The last few paragraphs of Robert Egan's "The 'Mandatum': Now What?" (April 5) shift focus from the mandatum itself to the larger background issue of modernism versus traditionalism. Modernism and traditionalism are essentially different interpretations of the location, so to speak, of the divine, and so suggest different versions of how we ought to live. To the modernist, the sacred is ultimately inferior, found through the self. Its motto might be "every person is an artist, and every artist is a priest." To the traditionalist, the source is exterior, authored by an external God. Specific traditions are secondary--they come and go. What is primary for the traditionalist is to recognize the need to subordinate the self, by an act of free will, to God's standard. Its motto might be "thy will be done."

Traditionalism can benefit from modernism's lesson to be sensitive to circumstances and to consciences, but it would be a mistake to make them our primary standards. Since modernism has generally succeeded in making them the world's primary standards, we can look around to see the spiritual and social damage these standards have caused. The church can change us radically (in form), but not essentially (in relation to Christ). It must be traditionalist in a modernist world. The church may suffer in a variety of ways for this, but it wouldn't be the first time the church has suffered, and been made stronger for it.

DONALD FOY
La Crosse, Wis.

Write on

Anna Nussbaum's "The Envelope, Please" (April 5) was a pleasure to read. I hope that in college she studies hard, reads widely, and hangs out, but that whatever her choice of career in life, she continues writing.

THOMAS J. MCGOVERN
Milwaukee, Wis.