To the editors. (Correspondence).

Priceless

I've been a reader for half a century, ever since coming across Commonweal at my public library as a high-schooler.

As I was paying bills recently, I wrote you a check to renew my subscription, and said, "Wow! Forty-seven dollars?!" (I was also renewing other subscriptions for $15.95 or $19.95.)

Then I said to myself, "Wait a minute! What is the value of the information, ideas, and opinions you get from Commonweal's dedicated crew?" Truly, it is many times the value of those other, more secular, journals.

Thank God for Commonweal and the witness you have been all these years.

DAN DAMON
Plainfield, N.J.

Get the facts

Christorpher Ringwald, in his hagiographic essay on Jim Dwyer ("The City Is His Beat," August 16), quotes Dwyer as saying "when a monsignor in Queens can run off with a couple of million dollars in church funds ... you realize how many of the Vatican II reforms fell apart in this country." In fact, the monsignor in question did not "run off" with any money. He did give large sums of money to people he considered needy; most people would not consider many of them worthy of such largesse, but what he did was, unfortunately, legal. I agree that canon law and corporate practice regarding parish administration should be changed, but this misuse of money had little to do with the crumbling of Vatican II reforms, or malfeasance on the part of "guys in pointy hats." It was those "guys" who started the investigation, called in the police, retired the pastor, and discussed the issue in great detail with the parishioners, holding multiple meetings with parish committees. As a former trustee in the parish, I am well aware of the diocese's efforts to correct the problem.

The monsignor in question gained nothing for himself; in fact, he lost his own house and is almost impoverished.

Dwyer's use of "run off" and his description of the "pointy hats" is a clear example of a reporter not getting the facts but using facile language to sell a personal opinion. It calls into question all the wonderful things said about Dwyer as a reporter in the essay. I am afraid it also calls into question Commonweal's judgment: why is this sloppy thinker being lionized?

We Catholics have had too many problems as it is; we don't need journalists--or anyone else--using our misfortune as the basis for their hand-wringing pronouncements, especially when they do not bother to get the facts straight.

JOHN P. MONAGHAN
Forest Hills, N.Y.

Jim Dwyer replies:

I agree with everything John Monaghan says, and more. The ex-pastor gave $700,000 to three ex-convicts, and apparently was a soft touch for money; he had stashed $1.8 million in a secret bank account. Meanwhile, the parish facilities started looking run-down. The parish in question had no finance committee of lay people. Naturally, the parishioners went to the guys in the pointy hats to fix everything. Pardon my syntax. JIM DWYER

Good copy

Christopher D. Ringwald's profile of Jim Dwyer is a heart-warming and provocative reminder of what a journalist's vocation can be at a time when journalism schools, notably Dwyer's own alma mater Columbia, are re-examining the nature and role of journalism in the contemporary cultural context.

Ringwald emphasizes Dwyer's "constant search for the delicate balance between a journalist's sense of mission and professional detachment" and notes that Dwyer is "most comfortable in the space between apathy and zealotry, where he can bring compassion and an eye for the disadvantaged to his work." Ringwald also makes clear that Dwyer would not be the journalist he is without his deep religious roots and sensibility.

Thank you for the wonderful article.

THOMAS EWENS
Middletown, R.I.

A long tradition

In your reply to Patrick Connor's July 12 letter on rights talk in the Catholic Church (Correspondence, August 16), you write "whatever `rights' may lurk in canon law, to be sprung on us when they suit the Vatican's views, we doubt they are the kind of rights we enjoy as citizens of the United States, which generally seem to be the kind of rights ARCC promotes in urging reform of the Catholic Church."

It is true that the language in ARCC's Charter of the Rights of Catholics in the Church sounds vaguely similar to a document like the Bill of Rights, but the concepts are much older than this nation. For example, Right 1 states that all Catholics have the right to follow their informed consciences in all matters. Thomas Aquinas was a great teacher of this truth. By 1776, he was long in heaven. Also, Right 5 in the charter states, "All Catholics have the right to a voice in all decisions that affect them, including the choosing of their leaders." In 1215 the Magna Carta granted nobles in Britain a voice in public affairs. Our founding fathers and mothers had, among other things, the Magna Carta in mind when they considered breaking free from England.

The notion that a democratic church is solely an American vision is unfounded. Two centuries ago, the United States and indeed the Catholic Church in this country were founded by refugees from tyranny. Those early immigrants (even today's immigrants) brought with them a spirit that cries out for the recognition of the rights of individuals. The yearning for democracy is not strictly American. It is human.

ARCC is often criticized for not emphasizing "responsibilities and obligations" in leading the Christian life. For this reason, we appended the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the full charter. ARCC is aware that in leading a truly Christian life Catholics have certain responsibilities. We assume that a mature Catholic Christian is already aware of those responsibilities. We support all who focus on the specifics of leading a responsible Christian life, and continue to organize mainstream exercises in consciousness raising--including publishing newsletters, pamphlets, and our Web site.

Finally, please note that ARCC's vice president is Patrick Connor, not O'Connor, as printed in your reply.

MARY LOUISE HARTMAN
Southampton, Mass.

The writer is president of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC).

What's wrong with rights?

I am confused by your reply to the letters from John Borst and Tom Baker (Correspondence, August 16) regarding the use of "rights talk" in the church. You say "the kind of rights ARCC promotes in urging reform of the Catholic Church" generally seem to be "the kind of rights we enjoy as citizens of the United States," then go on to say that "ARCC's mission to extend those kinds of rights to the Catholic Church has always seemed misconceived" (emphasis mine). You cite two reasons: first, because of "historical, cultural, and structural differences between the church and the United States," and second, because "`rights talk' in this country is usually short on talk about responsibility and obligation."

But I'm not sure how or why the United States became involved in this discussion. Is the U.S. "kind" different from, say, the UN "kind"? In any case, "rights talk" has, as a matter of fact, been in use a lot in our church for some time now, especially since the promulgation of Pacem in terris by John XXIII. Part 1 of that document begins (translation altered slightly): "First of all, it is necessary to speak of the order which should exist among human beings. Any human society, if it is to be well ordered and productive, must lay down as a foundation this principle, namely, that all human beings are persons, that is, their nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. By virtue of this, they have rights and duties of their own, flowing directly and simultaneously from their very nature. These rights are therefore universal, inviolable, and inalienable" (emphasis mine).

These rights are then discussed in sections 11 through 27, followed by a discussion of duties (sections 28 through 34). The encyclical goes on to describe rights to an education and training, to assume roles and responsibilities in society, to share in the benefits of culture, to set up a family, with equal rights and equal duties for man and woman, the right to follow a vocation to the priesthood or the religious life, to work, to safe working conditions, to a just wage, to private property, the right of assembly and association, "the right to give the societies of which they are members the form they consider most suitable for the aim they have in view," the right to freedom of movement and of residence, a right to juridical protection of their rights.

Since all these rights flow "directly and simultaneously" from our human nature as such, and are therefore "universal, inviolable, and inalienable," it's hard to see how they could not exist in the church or why the church could be excused from acknowledging and honoring them. They may require clarification, elaboration, and further development. They should be embodied in codes of law. Isn't this the conversation ARCC and all of us should be having and carrying forward in the church today? Is it the position of the editors that all of this is "misconceived" or "misleading"?

ROBERT J. EGAN, S.J.
Spokane, Wash.

India & the bomb

In close juxtaposition I read Thomas Friedman's column "India, Pakistan, and G.E." (New York Times, August 11) and Jo McGowan's "India and the United States" (Commonweal, August 16), both on the subject of our response to the recent crisis between India and Pakistan.

Friedman's Indian business and political friends were surprised at our limiting travel and calling some diplomatic personnel home. We should have realized, they said, that India would never jeopardize their considerable investment in Western technological services by going to war with Pakistan.

McGowan, on the other hand, described (from her home in Dehra Doon) a similar calm acceptance and surprise at U.S. concern. That sang-froid, however, was due to a fatalistic acceptance of "the violence that occurs

daily in India."

Although both writers were only a hundred miles apart, their contrasting observations said a lot about this troubled and dynamic country.

RICHARD ROSENGARTEN
Indianapolis, Ind.

Sex won't help

Anyone who reads Anthony Trollope's Barchester novels will find in the machinations of Bishop Proudie's wife one of the best arguments against a married episcopate (Rodger Van Allen's "Bishops Should Marry," July 12). Van Allen's scriptural arguments are useful, but the medieval history of corrupt, noncelibate bishops, until the reforms of Hildebrand, reveals clearly that a sex-preoccupied clergy can seriously hurt the church.

Believing that optional celibacy will erase Catholic/Jansenist attitudes toward the body and sex and cure the present schizophrenia between Catholics' sexual practice and the church's teaching on sex is pure pipe dream.

One does not have to commit adultery, murder, or thievery to better understand their nature, so arguing that a married bishop will better appreciate and understand married life by being married is a non sequitur. If marriage makes Catholic parents so sensitive and understanding, then why do 50 percent of Catholic marriages end in divorce?

J. THOMAS MEYER
Milwaukee, Wis.