To the Editors.

McDermott's razor

Finally (don't wince) got to the Alice McDermott essay in the February 11 issue, and have to write to say that while the whole piece was sharp, honest, thought-provoking, and graceful, this little nugget--"If any one life can be dismissed as meaningless, so too can the life of Christ"--was the pithiest remark I have ever heard about abortion, war, death, politics, rights, and belief in Christ. That's fine thinking and razor-sharp speaking. I'll never forget that slicing mind undoing that knot.

BRIAN DOYLE
Portland, Oreg.

Study in need of prayer

In her column, "Prayer Makes a Difference" [April 21], Sidney Callahan argues for the power of prayer in the physical world. As a former research economist, I was sadly amused by the large "controlled" study of prayer Callahan implies can help us explore the question of whether intercessory prayer changes things in the material order of nature. I deeply believe that God acts in the world, but I fear that trying to use a statistical study to address the issue cannot add clarity and might do a great deal of damage.

Any researcher worth his or her salt will tell you that every study will have a result. The trick is figuring out what it means. The issue, as I see it, is not whether God acts in the physical world or whether our prayers affect that action, but whether the action is simple enough to allow for statistical analysis that would produce results that are meaningfully interpretable.

This study assumes that our unknowable God acts like a bad politician. The more prayers someone gets, the "better" (measured on a concretely defined scale) the person's outcome. This formulation is nervy. And it is cruel. What about innocent children who die horrible deaths? Are we sure enough of the statistical enterprise to associate ourselves in any way with a study that might imply that, if only their parents had prayed harder or had more of their friends pray, these children would have gotten well or suffered less?

Callahan gently explores some of the problems I raise, but I would encourage a more forceful and clearer debunking of any statistical study of the power of God. Studies like this attempt to take the mystery out of God and are likely to serve our already too powerful inclination to use our relationship with God as a tool to get what we want and not to "do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God."

CINDY CARTER
Waban, Mass.

An apology

One of the dangers of commenting on living history is that the living have strong opinions and are likely to share them. Having been taken to task in Monsignor George Higgins's letter [Correspondence, May 5], I must retract the unfortunate words I used in my earlier letter [Correspondence, April 7]. I noted that John Hill's account of Reynold Hillenbrand [March 10] had ended "with the oft-told tale of John J. Egan meeting Hillenbrand prior to his death and gaining from Hillenbrand some degree of validation for Egan's point of view." Of course Egan didn't go to see a dying Hillenbrand to gain validation. For this inference I apologize to John Egan. What interests me is how others have used the story to validate Egan's perspective, and the way in which this story has taken on a life of its own.

ALBERT SCHORSCH, III
Chicago, Ill.

On, Sancho!

I am very grateful to Professor James Fisher for his extravagantly generous review of my book The Catholic Imagination [May 5]. I have but one nit to pick. He suggests that my "forays into Catholic visual art are unsupported" and cites my comments on The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa by Gianni Dagli Orti. Actually the Ecstasy displayed on the front cover and discussed in the book is by Gianlorenzo Bernini and my discussion of it is supported by Charles Scribner's Bernini (Abrams, 1991). I apologize to Scribner for not giving him due credit.

As part of his excessive generosity, Fisher suggests that I might be the product of the creative imaginations of James T. Farrell and Herman Melville. Some of my friends suggest that the latter be replaced by Miguel de Cervantes.

(REV.) ANDREW GREELEY
Chicago, Ill.

Bull's-eye

Christopher Ruddy ["Young Theologians," April 21] hit the nail on the head. He brings a refreshingly new, and "radical" (equals going to the roots) point of view to the festering problem of oversight vs. free discussion--both (one would hope) ultimately in the service of truth. His essay should be required reading for all bishops, at least ones in the position of granting or withholding a mandatum; for theologians; and for the senates and boards of trustees of Catholic universities.

EDMUND F. KAL, M.D.
Fresno, Calif.

Ruddy's wrong

Christopher Ruddy gauges the theological scene very differently than I do. I work with a dozen "older theologians," and I know hundreds of them through theological associations. Their clocks did not stop with Humanae vitae and they are not in the least alienated from the church or captured by the culture of the academy (though some occasionally disagree with the episcopal magisterium, nearly always with respect and patience, fulfilling an ancient task of Catholic intellectuals, whether clerical or lay. Think of Erasmus!).

Nor are these "older theologians" bent low under the burden of academic culture to the detriment of their connection to the church. In fact, most of them spend much of their nonacademic time working hard in local churches, and many publish more in the public interest than they do for academic circles. There is not a literate Catholic in the country who can complain legitimately that he or she is starved for accessible and competent theological literature.

The "younger theologians," Catholic and Protestant, that I help train, exhibit nearly universally a desire to serve the church. None appear to be caught in a tension between the demands of the academy and the needs of the church. True, there are always the tensions between "faith and reason" endemic to the intellectual life. True, some have more talent and desire for public engagement. But none of this amounts to a crisis in the practice of theology. The fact is, if you want to work in a university you have to be a scholar of some sort. I hope Ruddy is not setting up a tension between being a professional person and being a Christian, whether in theology, law, medicine, history, or the life sciences. The better Christian you are, the better you should be at your work--unless you are in the wrong line in the first place. If you want to be a Christian scholar, be one, be a good one, and the rest will follow.

Though I agree with Ruddy that the relationship between bishops and theologians in this country is in desperate need of construction, the situation we find ourselves in is a new one and there is responsibility enough to go round. In some dioceses, the relationship is forming quite nicely; in others it is nonexistent; in some few it is quietly antagonistic, as is my own situation in Saint Louis. There are reasons in each case. Each side is understandably nervous about the other. It will take a lot of work to build what has not been in place historically, and there is, alas, not a plethora of humility and gentleness in the leaders of our educational and ecclesiastical bureaucracies. But I am hopeful that it will happen, because there is so much more than bureaucratic self-interest at work in each side. Ruddy's aim, as I understand it, is admirable and his willingness to chide all sides is courageous. But I don't think he's got the lay of the land.

WILLIAM M. SHEA
Saint Louis, Mo.

Ruddy's right

Two of Christopher Ruddy's points in "Young Theologians" deserve special commendation. The first is his indictment of contemporary theology's "increasing captivity to the mores of the academy and its concurrent ecclesial deracination." The second is Ruddy's equally straightforward awareness, vividly exemplified by contrasting examples from both past (Thomas and Bonaventure) and present (Rahner and von Balthasar), of the dearth among today's young theologians of deep spiritual formation and the "ecclesial identification and responsibility" that it "forge[s]." To those of us fortunate to have received a more traditional theological education, all this makes wonderful and very encouraging reading.

To be complete, Ruddy's prophetic insistence on the spiritual and the ecclesial must be complemented, it seems to me, by equal insistence on the distinctively intellectual. After all, theology, however spiritually rooted and pastorally pertinent, remains formally an affair of the mind, fides in statu scientiae. Theology, then, needs not only learned popularizers, as Ruddy points out, but also "rabbinic" theological scientists. Von Balthasar and Rahner were not only great spiritual writers; they were great thinkers, whose creativity found expression in retrieving the patristic and scholastic traditions. If anyone doubts the continued intellectual vibrancy of these traditions, I invite them to compare the work not only of von Balthasar and Rahner, but of Congar, de Lubac, Danielou, and Lonergan with that of those who, in the name of enlightenment and historical consciousness, embrace a secularized and atomized present. Which gives life to the church? Which will be remembered in a hundred years?

DENNIS FERRARA
Washington, D.C.

Faculty & Catholic identity

Thanks for the splendid education issue addressing the question of Catholic identity in Catholic colleges and universities [April 21]. I found John Langan's article "Reforming Catholic Identity" thoughtful and helpful, though ultimately lacking.

Langan argues that the "essential task which the faculty has to carry out with regard to Catholic identity is to present the Catholic intellectual tradition, and to extend it by...creative development." I agree. But then, he argues that this is not a task for each and every faculty member.

I would argue that every faculty member--Catholic and non-Catholic alike--has a responsibility to be a faithful steward of a Catholic college's mission and look for ways in which her or his teaching can incorporate an engagement with the Catholic tradition that is both critical and sympathetic. To be indifferent to, or even antagonistic toward, a core dimension of the institution's self-understanding is simply not sufficient. Tradition, by definition, is something which is "handed on." While Catholics and non-Catholics alike can undertake study of aspects of the Catholic intellectual tradition, only someone who has an understanding of that tradition from within will be able to negotiate the most crucial steps in its development and communicate a love and an enthusiasm for the tradition which will truly constitute "handing it on."

Pace Langan, simply having a group of scholars who are pursuing Catholic studies will not assure the Catholic identity of an institution any more than having a religious studies department on a secular campus would render that campus a religious institution.

The only way to assure that the Catholic identity of a university endures is to develop some kind of an "affirmative action" to assure that there is at least a critical mass of Catholic intellectuals on our campuses. An essential aspect of such a policy will be to assure that, in seeking to hire "Catholic intellectuals," the whole spectrum of the reality of contemporary Catholicism is represented. The future health and vitality of the Catholic intellectual tradition demands it.

DAVID GENTRY-AKIN
Moraga, Calif.