To the Editors.

Just infallible

Regarding Sidney Callahan's "The Pope Says!" (June 15), if the pope and the magisterium are infallible, then I am infallible if I agree with them. Not, perhaps, filled with love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, or self-control--just infallible.

WILLIAM M. PETERSEN
Summit, N.J.

Haight's evasions

Apropos of Robert Imbelli's June 15 letter and the editorial response, your readers should know that for over a decade very serious criticisms have been published in scholarly journals of Roger Haight's theological writings. To date he has failed to respond in print to these criticisms made by European and American theologians such as John Wright, Jean Galot, and Thomas Weinandy. Like some other popular Catholic theologians, Haight and his supporters preferred to ignore such criticisms. Finally, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith intervenes in order to state what is genuine Catholic teaching and demand a response to the serious criticisms. Haight's supporters then contact the news media (see the front page of the April 24 Boston Globe), claiming loss of academic freedom, when in fact he has failed a test of academic scholarship.

Imbelli raises serious concerns. It is important not to enable theologians to evade the criticisms of their scholarly colleagues. If more popular periodicals held them to account, perhaps it would encourage theologians to respond to important criticisms of their work. If they fail to do so, at least Catholic readers would have more information than evasive complaints about the CDF lacking fairness. On this topic read Stephen Patton's letter comparing the CDF procedures favorably with those operative in the American judicial system (America, May 14). I recall a fine essay written many years ago by James O'Gara communicating some serious criticisms the work of Yves Congar made of the more popular Hans Kung. The review of Roger Haight's book you published by John Cavadini (October 8, 1999), along with the exchange of letters and Cavadini's responses, was in this Commonweal tradition. I believe that many more than Imbelli would want you to maintain and strengthen that tradition.

(REV.) MATTHEW L. LAMB
Boston, Mass.

Commonweal's evasions

In your June 15 issue you follow what Robert Imbelli called your "uncharacteristically tender-minded" editorial on l'affaire Haight with an equally uncharacteristically "personal" reply to Imbelli's trenchant criticism thereof. Past replies to reader criticism usually evinced a lighter touch, often punctuated by self-deprecating humor. Imbelli seems to have struck a nerve.

Dominating the interchange is a sharp divergence on the relative priority of procedure and truth. Imbelli, while acknowledging "the need for more openness and accountability" in the CDF's procedures for handling suspect theologians, gives pride of place to "judgment and truth about dogma...and the privileged role of the magisterium in [the] discernment of God's revelation in Christ" and laments the absence of any mention of these in your editorial. This priority he finds threatened by "procedural liberalism," that is, discussion without end or resolution. The genuineness of this threat should be evident to anyone who, like Imbelli himself, has served long and hard in the trenches of contemporary theological warfare.

Commonweal, in contrast, finds the main issue to be the ecclesial procedures by which truth may come to light. For what is at stake is not some matter somewhere down the ladder of the hierarchy of truths, but its highest rung and lynchpin: the confession of Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world. We're talking the meat and potatoes of core Christian identity here, and all of Commonweal's heavy breathing about communal discernment, which ends--rather disgracefully--with the ad hominem taunt that Imbelli may be the captive of a secretive "clerical culture," cannot conceal this primary and very bald fact.

All in all, not Commonweal's finest hour, not by a long shot.

DENNIS FERRARA
Washington, D.C.

Jubilee of authority

I find it very hard to believe that Robert Imbelli, whom I have always respected, could wonder in his letter to the editor if we are "experiencing a paralysis of authority" in the church. For the past ten years in particular, it's seemed more like a jubilee of authority. In English translations, in liturgy, in university life, in ecclesiastical appointments, in the topics open to discussion and debate in Rome and elsewhere, there seem to be few signs of such paralysis. Paralysis of leadership, yes. Authority? Hardly.

TOM BAKER
Princeton, N.J.

Defend theologians

For Rodger Van Allen's excellent defense of Catholic theologians in Catholic universities ("Theologians in the Dock," May 4), thank you. He states the case as it should be stated: the mandate situation is based on the false charge that Catholic theologians do not present authentic Catholic teaching or distinguish church teaching from theological research and dialogue. Those theologians who refuse to apply for or accept the mandate do so in good conscience, in full communion with the rest of us, the church. What remains to be said are points about responsibility. First: trustees, administrators, faculty, students, benefactors, and friends of Catholic higher education need to stand with their theologians, whether or not they receive a mandate, identify and condemn vigilantism, and resist ecclesiastical pressure. Second, serious Catholics have to stop responding passively to actions taken by the Vatican and bishops under pressure from small irresponsible groups. They need to organize to ensure that the formation of Catholic public opinion and the shaping of ecclesiastical policy do not take place on uncontested ground. The evolution of the mandate question teaches at least this: with the decline of religious orders who once insulated the rest of us from the raw politics of the church, we who share Van Allen's care for the integrity of the community of faith will have to confront the hard reality that, if we do nothing in that arena of church affairs, we will almost always lose.

DAVID O'BRIEN
Worcester, Mass

The writer is director of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture at College of the Holy Cross.

Dissin' the Dalai

I was taken aback by Brian Doyle's piece on His Holiness the Dalai Lama ("Dalai Lama in Oregon," June 15). I know Mr. Doyle is having a bit of fun, but his humor comes at the expense of Tibet's cultural, religious, and political dignity.

Why does he refer to the Dalai Lama as "the head of a state that is and isn't a state" rather than as the exiled leader of the Tibetan people and spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism? And why such an oblique reference to China as an "immense and hungry neighbor" without any direct acknowledgment of China's oppression of Tibet, her people, and her religion?

And the tone! After offering up an inane physical description of the Dalai Lama, Doyle ends his thought with "the Dalai Lama being a head of state and all." The "and all" struck me as both unnecessary and derisive. Ditto the caveat "as the Tibetans say carefully" with which Doyle concludes his description of how the young Lhamo Dhondup was recognized as the reincarnation of his predecessor. Without actually coming out and speaking plainly, Doyle implies something scripted or less than kosher about the Lama's selection.

Anyone who has heard the Dalai Lama speak or has read his teachings knows that he not only respects the world's religions, but that he embraces life and its blows with humor and forgiveness. In keeping with his spirit, I'm working on smiling my way out of this essay.

TIINA ALEMAN
Jersey City, N.J.

Get used to it

In his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame, President George W. Bush reached out to Catholics across ideological lines. And for doing so he gets slammed by Commonweal ("Pope George on the Road," June 15).

What seems to be bothering Commonweal most of all is the receptive audience Bush is getting from Catholics. Get used to it. Bush is proving to be to Catholics what Bill Clinton proved to be to African Americans: though he's of a different stock, he's coming across as the genuine article. That may be a scary scenario to some, but to others it's reason to celebrate.

WILLIAM A. DONOHUE
New York, N.Y.

The writer is president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Bush is right

Your May 4 Et Cetera "Pope George and His Court" is critical of President George W. Bush for seeking the Catholic vote. Certainly, many Catholics have good reason to vote for him. Specifically, he opposes abortions, partial-birth abortions, and he is working out the details on his proposal to see that aid for the needy is in some practical way also distributed through faith-based organizations. Catholics can support these concepts. The Democratic Party does not.

Then you allege that "Bush has sent to Congress his wholly disingenuous budget proposal in which tax cuts are designed...to redistribute wealth to the rich rather than the poor." This overlooks what the Bush plan really is. Since the government has collected more than it needs, Bush's plan returns the overpayment to those who paid the tax. It seems only fair and right. If Congress feels that it requires more money to meet the needs of the poor, then such proposals should be handled as particular new legislation. They should have nothing to do with refunding tax payments.

As a subscriber to Commonweal for over fifty years, I find it very distasteful that you are becoming a spokesman for the Democratic Party.

WILLIAM J. GUSTE, JR.
New Orleans, La.

Send in the clowns

Paul Baumann makes a good point when he recommends that we avail ourselves of those rare moments of serendipitous transcendence that grace our existence ("Crossing 125th Street," June 1). However, much as we may savor comic relief in our otherwise droll lives, the circus is no fun for the animals. Circus animals endure untold hardships and abuse. There is nothing majestic about an elephant being taken from its native land, chained up, and trained with picks to do things completely against its nature. Laugh at clowns if you wish, but please, let the elephants live out their lives in the jungle, where God intended them to be. I respectfully direct the author to section 2415 et seq. of the Catechism that deals with the integrity of God's creation.

RONNIE ROSENBERG
Fairbanks, Alaska

What energy savings?

The editorial, "Bush-league Energy Plan" (June 1), has a lot of good points, but three that are not so helpful. First is the ad hominem attack on Bush and Cheney, which inflames the emotions and thus obscures the vision.

The second is the incomplete description of the DOE report, "Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future." This report is an attempt to estimate the energy consumption reductions that would follow from a series of national policy changes designed to accelerate the development of energy efficiency technologies. Although it tries to estimate the economic value of the energy saved, the report makes no attempt to estimate the costs of the policy changes. The editorial rightly points out that people with low or fixed incomes, along with small farmers and other economic entities with no societal bargaining power, "are hit especially hard."

The editorial says that the DOE report "argues that easy-to-achieve efficiency standards save enormous amounts of energy resources." Although one can quibble analytically with "enormous," there is no doubt that greater efficiency saves energy. What was unsaid is that most higher-efficiency products cost more--and in many cases a lot more--than less-efficient ones. Also unsaid is the effect of increased efficiency on the future price of energy; the price will not rise as fast, and so the incentive to increase efficiency is weakened. To achieve the savings, therefore, would mean increased governmental interference in the marketplace, not an unmixed blessing, as several previous interferences by our own government have shown (for example, gasoline lines in 1973-74 and 1979-80, the result of oil price controls). Without such increased interference, the energy savings become less "enormous."

Third is the fact, also left unsaid in your editorial, that even if the "enormous" savings in energy were realized, there would still be a major need to increase energy supplies.

In sum, energy efficiency is not the national policy value that should govern Christians. The impact of the problems, and of the proposed solutions, on the more vulnerable members of the society should be. And when that becomes primary, the preferred solutions become much more complex.

DAVID E. GUSHEE
Vienna, Va.

The editors reply:

There are more areas of agreement between our editorial and Mr. Gushee than he acknowledges. The editorial never posits efficiency as the total solution to America's long-range energy needs: we argue that a balanced agenda to reduce demand and increase supply is the best solution. The supply-oriented Bush plan lacks such balance.

Gushee attends to the possible economic downside of increasing efficiency. But, as the current oil refinery crush shows, if efficiency is neglected, then so are incentives for infrastructure that ensure ongoing energy profits and security.

By invoking the spectre of 1970s "gasoline lines" and "price controls," Gushee's real quarrel appears to be with Thomas Higgins's view that the California energy crisis was caused by ill-designed deregulation ("The Politics of Power," June 1).

As for ad hominem, we don't see it. When words and processes (such as the unbalanced and secretive Energy Task Force meetings, and its selective use of DOE experts) are misleading, it is neither unchristian nor mean to ask for a higher standard.

Race matters

Reading Ed Marciniak and Don Wycliff ("New Vocabulary of Race Relations," June 1) my spirit soars. Reading about New York City's Board of Education (or any big city's educational system ) I am plunged into despair.

Victories have been won in America's war against racism but we now have a stalemate with most of the younger generation of African Americans (and Hispanic Americans) being lost in an educational system that fails to educate.

The blame rests not only with the teachers' union but also with a city government and education bureaucracy that seems to breed chaos. The New York City school system has averaged a new chancellor every few years. All of the chancellors bring their own ideas, plans, programs that they start and--poof--they are gone and their programs wither and die.

So, let us cheer for what has been accomplished since the Civil Rights Act and the economic boom of the 1990s, but this viewer looks at our educational system for minorities and our technology-dominated economy and wonders if our race relations have really improved that much.

JOSEPH D. POLICANO
East Hampton, N.Y.