To the Editors.

Ears still ringing

I experienced your recent editorial, "The Homosexual Agenda" (October 6), as an unexpected blow to the head. My ears are still ringing.

Your words left me in shock. Could you really doubt the goodness, dignity, and constructive value of gay relationships, social connections that should be strengthened in the public square, nurtured with the acts of recognition?

Your editorial seemed overly fearful, somber, and sad. In response, I pray for braver hearts and an end to the nervous buzzing in my ears.

JOHN SHEKLETON
Minneapolis, Minn.

Nothing to fear

Commonweal's editorial on the homosexual agenda supplied no empirical evidence for why reasonable people can oppose same-sex civil unions. Instead, the editorial relied heavily on the appeal to fear of the unknown. Referring to same-sex unions as "social experimentation on an unprecedented scale" exaggerates the case. In fact, what is happening in Vermont is a social experiment on a small scale, and it would be interesting to see its results before making a judgment on it.

Is this experimentation dangerous? Lesbian and gay couples have been heading families for a long time. Why not examine research studies about families headed by same-sex couples to see if problems exist?

Speculation about possible social danger from same-sex unions only augments fear, particularly when heterosexual unions are described as "deeply congruent with the human ability to survive and flourish." How is homosexuality a threat to the species when by most accounts only 10 percent of the population have a same-sex orientation?

Heterosexual marriage is an institution subject to a fair amount of social threats, but it is puzzling to understand how legalizing same-sex unions is one of them. People who are heterosexually oriented will surely not see the latter as an attractive option for themselves.

Catholic teaching does not support the notion of same-sex unions because of the magisterium's stand on the sanctity of marriage and the place of procreation in marriage. Yet we do not use this teaching to oppose civil laws that allow divorce or birth control. Why don't same-sex unions fit into the same category? Is it a difference of moral gravity or a distaste about homosexuality?

FRANCIS DEBERNARDO
Mount Rainier, Md.

The writer is executive director of New Ways Ministry.

What is at stake

In good Commonweal fashion, your October 20 issue presented three sharply diverse theological responses to Dominus Iesus, the recent declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--one from a non-Catholic Christian (Martin Marty), and two from Catholics presumably intended to represent, respectively, the "traditional" (Robert Imbelli) and "progressive" (Philip Kennedy) mindsets of contemporary Catholicism. For once, I find your "all sides of the question" format, which generally proves so stimulating of intelligent conversation, questionable, for it threatens to reduce the Vatican statement to a matter of debate, when in fact it is a two-edged sword that cuts through debate and requires confession. What is at stake in Dominus Iesus is core identity.

Of your respondents, only Imbelli grasps this clearly and interprets the statement accordingly. Consequently, his response, written from an unblinking awareness of the disarray within contemporary Catholic theology that constitutes the precise occasion of Dominus Iesus, is the only one of the three that represents accurately both the intent and content of the declaration, which is centered first and foremost on the person and work of Christ and only consequently, as an extension of Christ, on the church. Marty, whose ecumenical bristling is understandable given the inner-Catholic directedness of the statement (though I wonder how else he thinks the ecclesiological point could have been made to those Catholic addressees), is nonetheless so exercised by it as to remain completely oblivious to its primary, Christological thrust, as detailed forcefully by Imbelli. For his part, Kennedy first indulges in overkill on the historical significance of Lumen gentium 16 and ends by offering the kind of muddled contemporary interpretation of Christ and his relation to the mystery of God that virtually demonstrates why Dominus Iesus was issued in the first place.

Given the anti-authoritarian temper of our time and the checkered history of the present pontificate, the great temptation will be to dismiss Dominus Iesus as yet another instance of Vatican intransigence, and thereby ignore its challenge to confess our faith in and loyalty to the person of Christ and clarify our commitment to the Catholic church. Temptation, however, is not synonymous with viable option.

DENNIS FERRARA
Washington, D.C.

Vatican arrogance

Thanks for the viewpoints on Dominus Iesus. Taken together, they certainly confirm reader response theory to the max, and nicely defuse the arrogance of this document with its insistence on a single source of authority.

This document stands in sharp contrast to my experience of the Parliament of the World's Religions meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa, almost one year ago. The embrace of the parliament's global consciousness was immensely wide and strong. It included the entire earth and all its people.

In light of such a global vision and broad embrace, parochial diatribes like Dominus Iesus are petty and irrelevant. I came away from the parliament realizing that almost all religious and spiritual traditions work hard to bring salvation and redemption to their adherents. But I also found myself wondering who brings salvation and redemption to the institutions of religious and spiritual traditions, Catholicism included? Can these organizations redeem themselves?

I don't think so.

But it occurred to me that religious and spiritual traditions can extend salvation and redemption to each other by keeping each other focused on the incredibly important task of redeeming and repairing the world. In short, by calling each other to integrity, each religious and spiritual tradition performs a great service to other traditions. Regretfully, Dominus Iesus cuts the institution of Roman Catholicism out of this redemptive process. Too bad.

PETER GILMOUR
Chicago, Ill.