To the editors.

Status clarification

Picking up on one sentence in my article for America ("'Covenant and Mission,'" October 21, 2002), Luke Timothy Johnson ("Christians & Jews," Commonweal, January 31, 2003) holds that I erred in characterizing the Letter to the Hebrews as "the most formal statement on the status of the Sinai Covenant under Christianity" in the New Testament. I stand by my statement and challenge anyone to come up with a more formal treatment.

In addition, Johnson accuses me of defending "supersessionism" and of thinking that Christians should "proselytize" Jews. Both accusations are incorrect. Undoubtedly Christians have much to learn from Jews and will profit immensely from the Jews' adherence to Christ (Rom 11:12). This gives us even greater motives for sharing with Jews the good news that the Son of God came to be their savior as well as ours. We force nothing on them, but invite them with patience and love to share our joy.

I trust that Commonweal readers will judge my position from my own writings and not from reports such as Johnson's.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
Bronx, N.Y.

The author replies:

I think it is good advice to read Cardinal Dulles's original article. He seems, however, to have missed the point I was trying to make. Yes, Hebrews says what he reported it saying. But the language of "formal statement" and "under Christianity" employed by Dulles is, I suggested, anachronistic. Hebrews is not making a "formal statement" in the sense of a Vatican declaration, but is making an argument from within a movement that is not yet--at the time of its composition--fully distinct from Judaism. I refrain from examining the implications of "under" in Dulles's phrase, "under Christianity."

I will also not comment on Dulles's odd interpretation of my point that Christians have much to learn from Jews. Dulles says, "Undoubtedly Christians have much to learn from Jews and will profit immensely from the Jews' adherence to Christ (Rom 11:12)," but, like him, I stand by what I have written.

LUKE TIMOTHY JOHNSON

Defaming Jews

In the January 31, 2003 issue, Luke Timothy Johnson ("Christians & Jews") and Donald Senior ("Rome Has Spoken) set forth with welcome candor "the new beginning" in relations between Judaism and Christianity, as a fellowship of love and of respect for difference. This may be an especially good year for a beginning: on April 17, Jews celebrate the Passover, and that day is also Holy Thursday, when Christians celebrate the institution of the Holy Eucharist by Jesus at Passover. This conjunction might be prophetic, and certainly calls for prayer and study.

The new beginning, however, also calls for self-examination of a painful sort. On the next day, Good Friday, the congregations of the churches that employ the common lectionary--Catholic, Episcopal, and Lutheran--will hear in their liturgies the great Passion narrative of Saint John, in which the defamation of "the Jews" will be proclaimed over and over again. The words can be explained as a specific reference to "authorities" and their hirelings, but is that how they will be heard? Unless the anti-Jewish language of the New Testament is recognized frankly and repeatedly as a historical source of the anti-Semitism only now repudiated by the church, it will remain a toxin undoing any efforts toward reconciliation.

STANLEY A. LEAVY, M.D.
Hamden, Conn.

Super Johnson

In typical fashion, Luke Timothy Johnson slices open the issue, lays bare its visceral elements, and with uncanny sensitivity to all except the most unbending, suggests a course for reconstruction. He did this in my view with the issue of human sexuality in "A Disembodied Theology of the Body" (January 26, 2001) and again in "Christians & Jews" on the question of how Christians think of themselves in relation to Jews.

His analysis of supersessionism as both charm and scourge of Christianity's self-identity is key to his argument. His assessment of the contemporary global context lays the basis for his insight that many Jews and Christians are sincerely interested in learning about and from each other while maintaining their own positions as distinct and different groups of God's peoples.

Johnson portrays the various voices of the conversation with reference to representative thinkers. He chastises theologians fairly for being less than imaginative in their efforts to define Christianity apart from resorting to outdated world views, polity, and negative reasoning.

LUCINDA NOLAN
Lincolnshire, Ill.

Follow the Orthodox

A few years ago a clever cartoonist (in the National Catholic Reporter?) presented readers with a panel that depicted one of the requirements for elevation to the office of bishop as watching turtles for a year. If that is the case (and who can doubt it) then the action that the laity (David O'Brien, "How to Solve the Church Crisis," February 14, 2003) should undertake immediately is to find a medication which can be injected into turtles to make them move faster--a lot faster.

On a serious note: Beyond the pressing crises (sex, credibility, agenda) are political ones--clearly organizational, not doctrinal, and not moral. We cannot expect structural changes to come from the top down. Not from the Vatican, not from the cardinals, not from bishops or pastors, or even from lay-led parish councils. For a model, we might combine the changes desperately needed in the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Father's great desire for closer relations with the Eastern churches. Recall that the mantra cited by the Orthodox patriarchs for opposition to more dialogue with Rome is "politics in the Catholic Church." Translated, that means we Catholics are ruled, yes, ruled, by an entrenched monarchy and its court--a court that suffers no deviation from its protocols. The Eastern churches have a looser, but effective, structural organization that has not, in two millennia, led to Unitarianism.

This organizational structure has already been recommended by various Catholic clergy and laity. Where are the voices that will effect the needed changes? How can we justify the election of a pope, but can't be trusted to elect our bishops? Why can't we Roman Catholics, whether to the right or to the left or in the middle, be treated as caring and capable Christian adults?

REX REYNOLDS
Dubuque, Iowa

Unique skills

An addendum to David Burrell's "The Attraction of Islam" (January 17, 2003): Burrell is correct when he writes that friendship rather than dialogue engenders understanding. A Christian and a Muslim woman met for the first time in October 2001, hoping to share their distress over the events of 9/11. The next month, each invited friends to join in the conversation.

By January 2002, fifty women of different faiths gathered to formalize their status as a collective. Present at that meeting were Jews, Buddhists, Protestant Christians, Muslims, and one Catholic (me). After some discussion, my suggestion for the group's name was adopted: Women Transcending Boundaries.

We've been meeting once a month and, instead of giving or listening to speeches, we tell stories, many of them centered on our faith traditions: rituals; spirituality; holy days and seasons; life passages; et cetera.

That name came to me because I believe that women have unique skills to transcend the religious, economic, and political boundaries that have been imposed on us as a method of control. We are continuing to grow in trust each month, simply by honoring our shared humanity and our stories.

NANCY SULLIVAN MURRAY
Syracuse, N.Y.

No party line

John D. Hagen's "Prolife Democrats" revisits single-issue politics in a misleading way. First, it gives the impression that all Democrats are ideologically prochoice, even on the partial-birth abortion issue, and suggests that at least all Catholic Democrats need to shift their political allegiance. But there are lots of Democrats, Catholic or not, whose views on abortion are considerably more nuanced than the article suggests, just as there are not a few prochoice Republicans. But more important, there are more issues about which to be prolife than prochoice. Why would I switch my allegiance from Democrat to Republican because of prolife issues, when the Republican administration is geared up to kill perhaps many thousands of Iraqi civilians in what cannot, by Catholic measures, be deemed a just war? The shame of issues like abortion and war is that we apparently insist on fighting them on ideological, party lines, instead of recognizing them as complex moral issues in which party allegiances should have no place at all.

PAUL LAKELAND
TRUMBULL, CONN.

No place to land

In reading John D. Hagen's "Prolife Democrats" (January 17), I found myself identifying with Hagen's quandary. In the recent federal election here in Louisiana, we were faced with the choice of a prochoice Democrat and a prolife Republican--both Catholic. As with Hagen, I was (and am) loath to vote for a Republican, and yet am equally reluctant to vote for a prochoice Democrat. In the end, I went with the Democrat--holding my nose as I voted. I must admit that Hagen's rationale for voting Republican is probably more cogent than the reasoning that went into my decision. I find it impossible to vote Republican because I, like Hagen, support many positions held by the Democrats. Just as it gave Hagen no pleasure to vote Republican, I found none in voting Democratic.

Where does a person go who is Catholic, gay, supportive of social-justice issues, and anti-abortion? In 2000, I voted for Ralph Nader, even though he's prochoice; it was a desperation vote. So what does one do? Sit on the sidelines and not vote? Work to create a viable third party? It seems to me that the reason for the low voter turnout is that there are no candidates for whom one can vote without feeling guilty about it.

How can a Catholic voter be the leaven in the loaf of society? I see two ways: individually and collectively. The Catholic way is the communal way. Conservative Christians have the Republican Party--where many Catholics feel at home. Many others feel comfortable with the Democrats. But what about those of us who fall somewhere between the two? I know many Catholics who would make a real difference in our world if given the chance. The probability of that happening is usually increased if one has the support of a group. I'm tired of waiting for someone else to bring about the changes I'd like to see. If I can be a part of those changes, I want to. There must be many others who feel the same way--and sense the same urgency.

STEPHEN KUEHLING
New Orleans, La.

Put laity in charge

In Peter Feuerherd's "Not So Fast" (January 17, 2003), it was interesting how he tried to put a positive spin on the present oligarchical management structure of the Roman Catholic Church. His use of an obscure story of a black child's drowning in a river was not convincing. Martin Luther King Jr. was the major leader of the civil rights movement in the Untied States, not an unfettered Roman Catholic cleric. Perhaps Feuerherd should ask some of the lay people in the Boston Archdiocese what they think about the present management structure of the Catholic Church and the lack of substantive lay involvement in management. Pete Hamill, of the New York Daily News, who is referenced in the article as writing that "parishes should consider returning to governance by lay boards," is much closer to the correct solution than Feuerherd is.

FRANK DURSO
Merritt Island, Fla.

A calumny

Regarding the review of Frank Turner's John Henry Newman by Jeffrey von Arx, S.J., in the November 8, 2002, issue: Certainly von Arx didn't read the book--by, he reports, "a former teacher of mine," explaining the generally sycophantic review. Von Arx's review is outrageously unworthy of Commonweal. I received a review copy of Turner's book well before its publication date of October 31, 2002. I suffered through its 641 pages of text and 100 pages of notes. Turner's treatment of Newman's 1843 sermon "Wisdom and Innocence," makes no progress beyond the obtuse response of Charles Kingsley 150 years ago. I reread Tracts 85 and 90. If Turner's is a serious study, he should have recognized that to characterize Tract 90 as "the act of perjury made easy" is calumny, to say the least.

Turner's book seems dedicated to the denigration of Newman. He implied that he is fulfilling a need that even Lytton Strachey was too intimidated to perform. I refer to the review of Turner's book by Ian Ker in the Times Literary Supplement (December 6, 2002). Ker, probably the dean of Newman scholars, is far too gentle in his negative review. Turner is guilty at least of what used to be called the sin of detraction. Certainly, as dean of Fordham College, von Arx should be familiar with Pilgrim Journey (2001) by the late Vincent Blehl, S.J.--a book that covers precisely the same period in Newman's life and documents Newman's asceticism and search for holiness. To say the least, it casts doubt on Turner's derogation of Newman at that time.

JOHN STASNY
Morgantown, W.Va.

The reviewer replies:

John Stasny may not like my review, which is his right. But it is ungracious, to say the least--it used to be called the sin of calumny--to accuse me of not having read a book I reviewed. In fact, Commonweal sent me uncorrected page proofs of the book on August 1, 2002, and I spent many hours of my vacation that month in a careful reading of the text. I also informed the editors of my connection with Turner when first asked to do the review. One of a reviewer's chief responsibilities is to explain the argument of the author, especially in the case of such a

revisionist interpretation. I suspect Stasny is so angry with the messenger because he does not like the message. I am glad to hear his own reading of Turner has sent him back to the original sources, and I hope we may expect the fruit of his own scholarship on a scale and with an attention to the evidence equal to Turner's.

JEFFREY VON ARX, S.J.