To the editors.

Steinfels's example

Thank you to Margaret O'Brien Steinfels for her many years of work at Commonweal ("A Note from the Editor," November 8, 2002). I have been reading the magazine for forty-five years. It has always been thoughtful and is the only place I have found in which the Catholic perspective is, in most cases, shared by me.

Steinfels's leadership and writing have been excellent. I am sure there were many times when the last thing she wanted to do was write a thoughtful, balanced article that illuminated an issue and often opened up new avenues of dialogue. Attacking and slamming a person with a differing viewpoint is easy and doesn't help solve a problem. A good professional sticks to the issue.

I hope that she continues to be a spokesperson for the kind of Catholicism that Pope John XXIII stood for. We need people like her if we are going to have the impact on the world that God wants us to have.

BOB BEEZAT
Aurora, Ill.

Truth or consequences

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's comments on the current crisis in the church ("The Church Still in Crisis," December 20, 2002) are among the most thoughtful I've seen. Her forthright admission of how much we still do not understand only places in bolder relief the valid points she makes.

Steinfels suggestively draws on Vaclav Havel's analysis of the tension we all experience between "living in truth" and yielding, even if half-consciously, to "the lie." The temptation to so yield is especially acute for those sucked into power games and collusions, whether in church, state, university, or media.

Though invoking Havel's authority is surely appropriate, even more foundational is the authority of the Letter to the Ephesians. There the members of the church are instructed to "speak the truth in love" and to "put away all falsehood" (4:15, 25). Ephesians could well serve as lectio continua, as we once again enter upon "ordinary time," that continues to be crisis time.

(REV.) ROBERT P. IMBELLI
Newton Centre, Mass.

Living a lie

Thank you for Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's thought-provoking article. I am especially taken by her citation of Vaclav Havel's grasp of the effect of "living a lie." Our ability to deny our part in evil is so strong that the guilty often acquit themselves, simply unable to accept the magnitude of the harm done.

That said, I am hungry for some help to discern at what point remaining voiceless in an institution that has so deceived itself becomes "accepting [our] life with it and in it." Having been many years ago involved in parish committees and even a diocesan pastoral council, I no longer believe enough credibility exists in these forms to encourage participation. I see no real evidence that lay opinion carries any weight, except where a local pastor is willing to listen. Even then the effect lasts only so long as he does. Many choose to withhold money; it seems the only lever that gets a reaction. However, most of us do not have enough to withhold to seriously threaten even our local church (which is most likely not the problem).

When does participation in this institution, even at liturgy, allow the hierarchy to believe that this will "blow over"? When does it allow friends and neighbors to believe we think current church governance and attitudes are acceptable? Is this not giving bad example?

I hope Steinfels continues her exploration of these dilemmas. Many besides me have these questions.

CECILY K. BODNAR
Canandaigua, N.Y.

Ride that horse

Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's "The Church Still in Crisis" helps us see many sides of the problem. But I differ with her conclusions on what to do about it.

She calls for not pushing the liberal agenda of married priests, women priests, et cetera; these "hobbyhorse" items, she says, will only distract from the main challenge of putting in place effective parish and diocesan councils and a meaningful bishops' conference with lay involvement.

While the latter would be helpful, Steinfels fails to note whether lay participation in these already-established groups would be deliberative or consultative. If only consultative, the lay voice will remain mostly window dressing for clerical decision makers. Moreover, I think she underestimates the importance of liberal "hobbyhorses" for long-term change in the church. The clerical culture and class system, basically unchanged since the Middle Ages, is a closed club or a "tightly held" corporation largely impervious to democratic change. Even Cardinal Bernard Law's resignation can be seen as the hierarchy's sop to return to business as usual. A combination of effective lay participation and deep structural change in clerical lifestyle hold out the best hope for significant development in the church.

EUGENE C. BIANCHI
Atlanta, Ga.

The writer is a board member of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) and co-author (with Peter McDonough) of Passionate Uncertainty (University of California, 2002).

Alienated

I reread Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's essay three times, took notes, and hope to find some constructive therapy that can help our paralyzed church. She gave us some excellent leads at the end of her piece.

Having served as a priest for more than thirty-five years, I reflected on my relationship with bishops. Over the years, I have tried to share with them and keep them informed, probably working out of the father-son model. Most of the time I found little response and concluded that often they do not want to know how I really think or feel. I am just to be congenial with all and support the party line, especially the bishop's annual appeal. I try to avoid "living the lie" by speaking my word of truth on important concerns in some forum or other. I am sad to say that I have come to expect little from our bishops, and believe most of them are drowning in a sea of ceremonial fluff with few substantial and honest pastoral contacts with priests or laity.

I feel distant and alienated from much of what is happening at the top, and find my support and solidarity in my own area of pastoral ministry. To avoid becoming disconnected, I pray for each member of the bishop's team every Thursday. At least this keeps my attitude hopeful instead of negative.

(REV.) MIKE SMITH
Savannah, Ga.

We hold these truths

Regarding Margaret O'Brien Steinfels's question, "Can we tell the truth?": If truth unites and lies divide, truth-telling can be an act of love. This is such an occasion. But let it not be unique. To quote one of my old mentors: "It makes all the difference in the world whether you put the truth first or second." Sad to say, the church has all too frequently put it second and, by so doing, has introduced a cancer into its vitals. The best hope for a cure lies in the open, honest debate that would spring from wholehearted acceptance of the priesthood of all believers.

In any case, it is high time that the "descending" theory of churchly authority, which has reigned supreme since the Reformation, be challenged in the light of the authentic (and glorious) Catholic constitutional tradition as set forth in the work of scholars like Francis Oakley and Brian Tierney. A first concrete step might be the revival (and updating) of the diocesan synod which, since the Council of Trent, and despite its urgings, has been almost totally neglected.

JOHN R. MACCORMACK
Halifax, Nova Scotia

The writer is emeritus professor of history at Saint Mary's University, Nova Scotia.

Bishops & Iraq

Paul Moses is right when he says the bishops' statement on the proposed Iraq war did not get enough coverage ("The Bishops & Iraq," November 22, 2002); but there's a reason he doesn't develop. The bishops don't really want a lot of coverage. Individually and collectively they don't oppose an invasion to "take out" Saddam Hussein.

If they did they would assume the role of prophets and speak out loudly again and again, in their pulpits, in letters, interviews, on radio and TV talk shows, and in their own newspapers. They would spell out graphically the terrible human cost of war--the lost lives of innocent civilians and of our own young men and women, the great majority of whom come from poorer families. For the bishops it's not really a priority--partly because, given their status, they socialize with the political leaders who are planning the war. An occasional word in favor of "peace," like New York Cardinal Edward Egan's aside to Secretary of State Colin Powell at this year's Al Smith fundraiser, cheapens the word. Even George W. Bush can say he's for "peace" as he beats the drums of war. Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is in the ideal position to speak out. Yet on a pre-Christmas Meet the Press he just sat there while Laura Bush and Rudy Giuliani talked up the war and Giuliani even repeated his desire to personally kill Osama bin Laden. Tim Russert then reminded the cardinal of the U.S. bishops' statement on the impending war. McCarrick's reply was so limp that Mrs. Bush and Giuliani could smile politely and nod their heads as if they were listening to a five-year-old. I know that, because of the sex scandal, the bishops have lost credibility. Perhaps they could regain some if they would show courage and perform the great public service of preventing this war.

RAYMOND A. SCHROTH, S.J.
Jersey City, N.J.

Newman & liberalism

Having read Jeffrey von Arx's review of Frank Turner's John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion ("Nowhere Else to Go?" November 8, 2002) I was left with some disquiet over a serious omission about Newman's Anglican outlook.

Turner and his reviewer both evidently agree that Newman's principal opposition was directed at the evangelicals of his day. It is true that much sound and fury were caused by the way Newman's high Anglican set attacked that great triumph of the evangelicals, the Reformation, especially its private judgment of the Scripture. Yet Newman's deeper antipathy, his anguish of spirit, were caused by liberalism. Newman identified liberalism as the human tendency to make truth conform to human outlook and preferences. (See Newman's poetry of this period.)

Von Arx cites R. D. Hampden as a spokesman for evangelical theology. According to Desmond Bowen's The Idea of the Victorian Church, Hampden was no evangelical. Rather, he promoted a "practical commonsensical reasonable domesticated amalgam of religion, culture, and country life." Newman attacked Hampden because Hampden dared to teach that church doctrines could be modified to suit changing times. Newman's ruling passion was to establish the absoluteness of Christian doctrine. Hampden was a horrid liberal.

At the deepest level, Newman was more similar to his contemporary Kierkegaard than to his immediate associates. Both men challenged the assumption that we can expect God to support us in the way we make Christ conform to our comfort and convenience. Von Arx makes much of the strong anti-Catholic feeling in England. The picture he gives is that ordinary Anglicans looked on Catholics as idolaters and the pope as the Antichrist. It was not so simple. True, these terms were flung out, but religious energy was waning in the land. The English were more against the pope because he was a foreign power who tried to bolster the cause of absolutist governments. This was the nineteenth, not the seventeenth, century. And, of course, the liberal outlook was gaining force. English life would follow the way of pragmatic compromise, as power shifted to the lower classes.

In this respect it was the novelist George Eliot who observed that the tractarian's "Tracts for the Times" were really tracts against the times. To me, it is interesting that we still struggle with the issue of adapting foundational truths to current modes of thought.

(REV.) ROY DARCUS
Calgary, Alberta

The writer is an Anglican priest with the Diocese of Calgary.

`Haloed be her eve'

Father Robert Lauder's definition of a Catholic novel ("Neglected Treasure," Correspondence, December 20, 2002), "one whose theme is based on some Catholic dogma, moral teaching, or sacramental principle, and in which Catholicism is basically treated favorably," is a bit narrow. Why must the subject of Catholicism be treated favorably? Why not objectively, as other subjects are treated? To properly understand James Joyce, easily the most Irish, most Catholic, and most brilliant writer of our recent past, a deep background in Irish literature and Catholic liturgy is needed. Ulysses is rich in liturgical references, Latin phrases, and catechetical stylistics. Finnegans Wake is an Amazon jungle of interlacings from liturgy, prayers, and Irish mythology. Joyce's stories are equally filled with Catholic references. One doesn't have to be a faithful practitioner of Roman rituals to turn them into literary form. In Joyce's case, he knew well what he wrote about and he remained objective. That is all we need. "In the name of Annah the Allmaziful, the Everliving, the Bringer of Plurabilities, haloed be her eve, her singtime sung, her rill be run, unhemmed as it is uneven!" (Finnegans Wake).

NADINE GALLO
Hadley, Mass.

Judas got a bum rap

It did my heart good to read Hollis Cate's poem "The Note Judas Left" (December 6, 2002). For lo, these many years I have found it hard to accept that a disciple and trusted friend of Jesus could possibly betray him. A temporary denial of Jesus out of abject fear, yes; but betrayal, no. Then I read William Klassen's book Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? (Fortress, 1996), which sets out the theory that Judas, perhaps at the behest of Jesus himself, arranged the arrest with authorities too fearful to attempt it themselves. Cate's poem avers that Judas played "a role no one wanted / but someone had to play: Otherwise a / story without a cross."

I find this reassessment of Judas Iscariot eminently plausible and attractive.

(REV.) THOMAS O'FLAHERTY
Pensacola, Fla.