To the Editors.

Why so long?

Re: "Beatifying John XXIII" [August 11]. John XXIII was a great pope as popes go, but his reforms were only part of those that Martin Luther came up with four centuries earlier.

WALT BUESCHER
Pewaukee, Wisc.

Duffy's right

Eamon Duffy's letter [September 8] was a classic mini-essay on what historians are about. Anyone who thinks Duffy is soft on the papacy should read his book, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. For openers there's the story about the pope who exhumed his predecessor and put the corpse on trial. I won't give away the ending.

Garry Wills's effort to capture Newman's view of the papacy with two quotes reminds one of Dr. Johnson's comment that trying to capture the spirit of Shakespeare with a quote is like telling someone what a wonderful house you have and showing a brick as evidence. Doesn't work for Shakespeare; doesn't work for Newman.

LEO GAFNEY
Lakeville, Conn.

Duffy's wrong

I enjoyed reading Garry Wills's Papal Sin. I also read a half-dozen or so reviews of it. Eamon Duffy's review in Commonweal [July 14] was among the more reasoned. But when I read the exchange of letters between Wills and Duffy in your September 8 issue, I found myself disappointed.

Duffy argues almost exclusively that Wills's opinions are to be disregarded because Wills is guilty of "presentism" (judging the deeds of the past by the standards of the present). Normally, this is a charge that causes me to break out into loud cheers. Generally, those who actively criticize the deeds done during the Crusades or the Inquisition are justifiably charged with "presentism"; after all, the acts in question were done centuries ago. But can you make the same charge when the acts criticized took place only a hundred years ago? Are our standards today that much different?

The wave of outrage that swept through Western Europe and the United States when Pius IX took Edgardo Mortara from his Jewish parents because he had been involuntarily baptized when an infant, would seem to indicate that many people at the time saw this as an evil act. I think it would be a giant cop-out to dismiss all these attacks on Pius as "anti-Catholic hysteria." I believe there are certain deeds, which, by their very nature are evil. While we may come to understand why Pio Nono did what he did, no amount of rationalization can turn this into an act of virtue, especially when done by a pope.

RAYMOND H. HOFFMAN
New York, N.Y.

Stay tuned

When will Commonweal address the recent Vatican pronouncement Dominus Iesus? Is this document a step backwards for ecumenicism? Is it consonant with Vatican II? Why is it promulgated now?

NELSON WHITAKER
Pittsburgh, Pa.

Reply: Glad you asked. Our issue of October 20 will tell you more than you ever wanted to know!

Another version

Congratulations on Robert J. Egan's "Two Versions of History" [September 8]. I can hardly imagine a more judicious assessment in just a few paragraphs of the two ways of dealing with the church as a historical reality "in the modern world." It gets at the heart of the great cultural divide in Catholicism today. I very much agree with Egan that a public conversation about this history needs to be initiated now. From my vantage point, version one of history is a version that, whatever its other merits, does not take history seriously. I have fun, I sometimes tell my colleagues, teaching church history because in relationship to official Catholic pronouncements these days it seems to be an utterly irrelevant subject. If the conversation on "the two versions" should go forward, I might have to get serious about my discipline.

JOHN W. O'MALLEY, S.J.
Cambridge, Mass.

Kung's children

The greatest calamity in the aftermath of Vatican II is that theologians have surrendered the teaching office of the church to the curial inquisition. That includes especially those theologians who comprise the so-called "alternative narrative" according to Robert Egan's "Two Versions of History." They submit the occasional article a la Egan but it is only descriptive. None of those theologians takes a stand, or if they do, it is worded so carefully that they can easily retract it. The theologian who did most to formulate an alternative narrative, Hans Kung, was never supported by them. Nor have they built upon his work (and publishing in remote theological journals doesn't do it). Even the inquisitorial bishops and curia officials granted (see Leonard Swidler's Kung in Conflict) that he had written a virtual summa. Indeed he had, and was shamelessly left by theologians to stand alone. Kung rightly states now that their refusal to back him has brought them to the current situation. They deserve Ex corde ecclesiae. They invited it.

BILL F. MAZZELLA
Yonkers, N.Y.

Gaining weight

After months and months of rather light-weight issues, the issue of September 8 is terribly well done. This Lutheran really perked up. Having read about the popes in Eamon Duffy's Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes, I was a little incredulous that Pius IX was on the beatification schedule. I keep muttering to myself, "Beatify 'em all, and let God decide...."

Father Egan's "Continuing the Conversation" pretty well recapitulated Duffy's take on the whole thing. Yes! Please get more conversation going.

WINTHROP P. WILCOX JR., M.D.
Lancaster, Pa.

Hidden history

I am grateful for Lawrence Cunningham's generally favorable review [September 22] of my book The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive World History. But I am more than a little puzzled why he chose to spend so much space lamenting that my history was not a theoretical reflection on current meanings of martydom.

The Vatican has received thirteen thousand (not eight thousand, as Cunningham claims) names forwarded from dioceses around the world of people who were martyred or are at least candidates to be declared martyrs. No one really knows, but it would not be a wild guess to believe that this figure only represents around 1 percent of the overall body count of Catholics killed for religious reasons in the twentieth century. Given that Catholics and non-Catholics alike are almost entirely unaware of this bloody history, there is an enormous amount of work to be done--my book repeatedly describes itself as no more than the barest beginning--just to recover the empirical record.

If Cunningham wants to write a book about the theology of martyrdom, I will be one of the first interested in reading it. But are the actual lives and deaths of so many faithful men and women all over the world more interesting as material for theological analysis or do they possess greater intrinsic interest than Cunningham seems to grant in themselves?

ROBERT ROYAL
Washington, D.C.

Martyrdom of marriage

Richard Gaillardetz's, "Learning from Marriage" [September 8] proved to me once and for all that Christian marriage is a school of sanctity, indeed of heroism. He showed that in every Christian marriage there is an unromantic, day-to-day "dying" that leads to eventual "rising," after the pattern of the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus. If fully lived, marriage in Christ can make husband and wife not just holy people but also martyrs.

Bishop Fulton Sheen would characterize this life as white martyrdom, namely, the unromantic, day-to-day, drop-by-drop ordeal of living the Christian married life (Bishop Sheen would contrast this slow everyday white martyrdom to what he called the quick red martyrdom of blood). But in his description of Christian married life, Gaillardetz writes encouragingly and enthusiastically, showing that it can be liberating, uplifting, and sanctifying. But there's a price to it. How many are willing to pay it?

(REV.) GINO DALPIAZ, C.S.
Stone Park, Ill.

Doctor's prescription

As a married theologian with children, I want to express a simple, heartfelt "yes" to Richard Gaillardetz's "Learning from Marriage." It rings profoundly true and lays a truly Christian, paschal basis for a theology of marriage, one that I hope the author will continue developing to our further enrichment. Thank you, Doctor!

DENNIS FERRARA
Washington, D.C.

More on Courage

In his response to the letters of Fathers Lloyd and Harvey [September 8], Shawn Zeller claims that critics such as Father Peter Liuzzi are "entitled to their views" that Courage offers reparative therapy. Indeed, one is entitled to one's opinion, although why one would espouse a view that is contrary to fact is very puzzling. It is much like being of the opinion that the sun rises in the west.

The simple truth is that Courage does not claim to provide professional therapy for those of its members who wish to seek such help. Father Harvey has repeatedly said this on television, in his books, and in speeches. As a member of Courage, I can testify that no one in Courage has ever forced me to undergo any form of reparative therapy. Courage has simply provided me with spiritual and moral support in my efforts to live chastely.

According to Zeller, Liuzzi claims that Courage is banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. I am very curious to know why since it has received the endorsement of the Pontifical Council for the Family and has helped thousands of individuals like myself to live chastely.

KAREN TAI
New York, N.Y.

Just a politician

I was disheartened to see the Commonweal editors follow the lock-step media spinners in lauding Senator Joseph Lieberman as a man who "does not hesitate to shape his public life by the light of his religious faith," and whose "example of religious faith lived out unabashedly in contemporary political life is an inspiration to us all" [September 8].

Senator Lieberman is running on a platform that supports the "right" to kill unborn children, including the horror of partial-term abortions. This policy has allowed the killing of millions of unborn children in America, mostly for reasons of convenience.

Senator Lieberman is, first and foremost, a politician. To claim that he is "an inspiration to us all" is to make a travesty of the notion of deep religious conviction and the cost of following it.

JOHN F. DESMOND
Walla Walla, Wash.

Praise where it's due

I was delighted to find Bill Simon Jr. expressing his deep passion for lay preaching in the pages of Commonweal [September 8]. However, mentioned in the context of the article, some readers may think that the work we're doing at the Leaven Center to help people deepen their understanding of baptism includes lay-preaching training, which it does not.

Your readers may want to know that there is a ministry that specifically supports lay preaching with an intensive formation and training program. It is Partners in Preaching, Inc., which is working in fifteen dioceses throughout the country. Their Web site is www.partnersinpreaching.org.

As a graduate of Partners in Preaching, and as a member of a community that has called lay preachers, I know firsthand what a remarkable program they offer, and what a gift it is to our church.

TRISH SULLIVAN VANNI
Eden Prairie, Minn.

The writer is director of the Leaven Center.