Worth Reading

I was delighted to read the articles by Robert Ellsberg and the Rev. Gerald S. Twomey concerning Henri Nouwen (9/8). My son, a priest, gave me Nouwen’s book, Bread for the Journey, for my birthday in April 1999.

Since that time it sits on my kitchen table, and I don’t miss a day without reading it. It is truly a beautiful book with inspirational thoughts for every day of the year.

Keep it on your kitchen table or your nightstand, because it is really worth reading!

Frances C. Higgins

Voice in Wind

Thank you extremely for publishing such a well thought out editorial, with which I thoroughly agree (Sowing the Wind (8/14). I felt that you were expressing my very thoughts over the last few weeks. It makes me prouder to be a Jesuit who grew up in a Catholic environment in Jacksonville, Fla. with a large Maronite minority, and even a few Catholic Iraqi families. Please continue to be a voice in the wilderness.

Bert Mead, S.J.

Wake Up

Terry Golway’s column A Nation of Idol-Worshipers (7/31) was right on target.

It’s sad to see so many young adults wasting their time and energy for such low standards, while there are so many challenges everywhere to benefit society. There are numerous fields of labor that can make one feel fulfilled. The sad part of this pop culture is that our children feed on it.

Wake up, America; there is work to be done by you!

Regina Licameli

Agenda of Manipulation

FIRE, FIRE, HOUSE ON FIRE would have been a better title for your Current Comment Al Gore’s New Mission (7/17). You state that this documentary (I use the term loosely) An Inconvenient Truth, which deals with Gore’s version of global warming, is sobering stuff.

More sobering to me is your illustrious Jesuit magazine buying into the movie hook, line and sinker, and passing your gullibility off to your readers. An Inconvenient Truth is nothing more than an infomercial and propaganda blitz portraying Al Gore as so much more intelligent than us mere mortals.

If Al Gore were selling a product in this movie, the Federal Trade Commission could charge him with false and deceptive advertising. Maybe your magazine could have done some fact checking before presenting the movie to your readers as glowingly as you did, and bestowing on Al Gore the mantle of a genuinely dedicated public servant.

Unfortunately, America lost an opportunity to shed light on this important topic or add anything of substance to the conversation. You have only allowed the uninformed minority to frame the global warming discussion. How unfortunate.

Barbara Ann Mueller, O.P.

Gospel Ethic

Regarding the article by Wilson D. Miscamble, C.S.C., The Corporate University (7/31), I agree that much of third-level education today emulates the corporate business model. But I question whether this corporate university model is as intrinsically immoral as Father Miscamble seems to imply. If it is, then what other model would he propose?

University education today has become institutional on a grand scale, and we do not correctly read the signs of the times if we simply yearn for a return to the way higher education was administered in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Responding to the core of Father Miscamble’s concerns, I think that the management and marketing models that a university espouses do not necessarily imply an underlying ethic. Corporate is not necessarily bad and non-corporate is not necessarily good. I suggest that one can have a corporate university based on a Gospel ethic that is capable of being communicated to its students.

One final point: Father Miscamble says that as a matter of urgency Catholic universities should take the lead in American higher education in providing just compensation for adjunct faculty. I must say that I am adequately compensated for my duties as an adjunct professor. Adjunct faculty are, by definition, temporary faculty who supply some particular need not provided by the regular faculty. Historically it has been assumed that they have or had some other primary profession and so do not need to be compensated with a living family wage for their adjunct contributions.

Robert N. Barger

Dynamic Universe

I am frustrated by the recent action of the bishops in considering certain changes to the liturgy of the Mass (Signs of the Times, 7/3). Why are they wasting their time and ours on trivialities when there are so many important issues that need attention?

Are they using their command function to remind us that they are in control? I would prefer that they learn to exercise leadership and lead us into the 21st century. This would involve many issues, including the priest shortage, which I attribute to their woeful lack of leadership. Leading into the 21st century would involve updating their teachings from the static universe of St. Augustine and other early leaders to the dynamic universe we know today. Some of the changes include now knowing that the universe is billions of years old and that humans have been here for perhaps millions of years.

I know the teachings of the catechism, but it is hard to relate them to the conditions of the 21st century. Since I know the bishops are not likely to address these issues, I must make my own interpretations. Yes, I am a Catholic and will remain one, but in some issues on my own terms.

John L. Coakley Jr.

The Truth of Parable

While I very much enjoyed reading Peter C. Erb’s The Schwenkfelder Code (6/5), I would have to object to a few of its assertions. I cringed when the author suggested that a faith based on a fictional narrative was adolescent. Since the embrace of historical-critical methods in the field of biblical scholarship, few would disagree that the Bible contains fictional assertions that do not uphold historical integrity. The historian Arnold Toynbee suggested, however, that the genre of fiction was the most truthful way of communicating a description of human relationships. Artistic recreation reaches more of the intangibles of a human story line.

The article assumes that fiction, its depictions being historically inaccurate, is a less adequate technique when communicating such truths as articles of faith. I would argue the contrary: it is more accurate, especially in the discussion of the transcendent, because through art it relays and evokes the emotive elements of relationship. I do not defend Dan Brown’s work. I would agree with much of Erb’s critique (I especially appreciated his point about the contradiction between Brown’s content and formula in one of the final paragraphs), but in the process of this critique he downgrades the power of fiction and the desire of the human to be involved in another’s story. That is not adolescent. That’s simply human. And it can work both ways, which brings me to another, final point.

Despite misgivings, if the reader were to accept the analogy of a mature faith, based on church teaching and history, versus an immature faith, based on the popularity of a piece of fiction, should maturity so flippantly dismiss immaturity? Is there not an obligation to listen, as a parent should, and to respect the needs of their children? Regarding the Da Vinci experience as adolescent demonstrates a divide between the church and its flock. We are called to bridge this divide. The point is that there is much to be learned from the phenomena surrounding The Da Vinci Code. One is that the world very often does not listen to historically accurate doctrinal explanations. It listens to stories that are rich in true and human intangibles. It yearns for the truth of fiction and parable, rather than the truth of catechesis and history. And the church should listen and learn before it thinks of itself as so mature, losing its members to popular trends because it no longer speaks the world’s language.

Joseph Arner

Life to Come

As director of the Office of Prayer and Worship for the Diocese of Albany, I found Terry Golway’s essay It’s Your Funeral (6/5) disturbing. I can only speak for the Diocese of Albany; but like diocesan officials in many areas of the country, we have found it necessary and helpful to establish guidelines for the selection of music and the reflection on the life of the deceased at funeral liturgies. Yes, there were a few horror stories that initiated these directives, but there is also a need for catechesis and a desire to provide positive liturgical experiences reflective of the Christian belief in death and the life to come.

It is in this respect that I disagree with Mr. Golway. The Catholic funeral Mass is not about the individual; it is a celebration of the paschal mystery, Christ’s ministry, passion and death, resurrection and promise to come again as made evident in the life of the one whose earthly time has passed. It points the mourner not only to what has been, but more importantly to the belief that life has changed, not ended. It offers hope to those who grieve that there will be a time when all will be united again and every tear will be wiped away.

Roman Catholic liturgy is forever attempting to call us back from the rampant individualism that pervades United States culture to a sense of community, a sense of identity within the larger group, the body of Christ. It is for this reason that the Order of Christian Funerals recommends that as the casket is received into church it be covered with a pall that recalls the baptismal garment, the sign of Christian dignity given through the sacrament of Baptism. The white pall also signifies that all are equal in the eyes of God.

With regard to Mr. Golway’s complaints about music selections, perhaps he can appreciate that music is part of the prayer of the funeral and all liturgies, not a decorative finial tacked on to provide accent. Prayer is addressed to God. It too is not merely about us.

Also of Irish descent, I am chilled by the affection he feels for the song by Sting and the Chieftains played at the end of James Davitt’s funeral, whose words were sung in a language he did not know. He believes the song was about defiance and courage and life itself. How does he know that the song did not also glorify or call others to acts of violence? Was there any way for him to experience the song as prayer?

I would suggest that instead of being concerned about whether or not one has a friend on the inside and the need or inability to cultivate relationships with clergy to serve one’s own ends, Mr. Golway and others who share his perspective enter into and maintain a greater familiarity with the rituals of the church and the theology that underlies them. I hope America will not let Mr. Golway’s text be the only word on this subject.

Elizabeth Simcoe

Something Different

As a lover of France and French, I have long been fascinated by Joan of Arc, although I find her truly problematic (Believe Me If You Like, by James Martin, S.J., 5/22). Why would God call her to lead an army and fight to put a weak king on the throne of France? But aside from that, I delighted in the fact that she followed by doing what she believed she was called to do, no matter what anyone said. The proceedings of her trial show her to be a spirited and witty young woman, a match for the ecclesiastical court in spite of her lack of theology or education. When asked, shouldn’t she be doing weaving and cooking and all the other things women do, she answered that there were plenty of other women doing those things. Surely one could be spared to do something different. She was well aware that her refusal to wear women’s clothing irked the bishop too, never mind that he himself wore silks and laces and gowns as women did. And I do not think that she was not sexually assaulted by the soldiers because she was plain. Since when have soldiers been that discriminating? I believe it was because she projected an utter trust in God and conviction of her calling, a quality that set her apart. Ultimately, it has always seemed to me that she was condemned because she was a woman who managed to get out from under male control both in the church and in society.

Lucy Fuchs

Get It?

I’ve been smiling off and on ever since I read Timothy Hanchin’s article, Messianic or Bourgeois? (5/8), about the young men who shortened man for others into the catch phrase M.F.O. Unlike Mr. Hanchin, I think this is something that should cause rejoicing, not concern. When I coordinated adult initiation groups, I told the candidates and catechumens that they wouldn’t really be Catholic until they could get the jokes and the slang. By their somewhat tongue-in-cheek reference, the young men have shown that they have indeed internalized the concept. Although it is true that the calling to be a person for others opens one to a depth of challenge, most of us spend our days toting water jugs rather than facing firing squads. In fact, there are days when I feel I would willingly embrace the drama of a firing squad if only it would remove me from the treadmill of my life. But that is not my calling! And so I smile (or try to) and reach out to the person nearest me, trying to become more of an M.F.O. (P.F.O.? W.F.O.?) I am not trying to reject the prophetic dimension, but rather allowing it to permeate a rather ordinary life.

Kristeen Bruun