Letters
On Catholic Charities
Charities are "Catholic" (May 1997), kindly keep these points in mind:
The mission of Catholic Charities USA is to provide service to people in need, advocate for justice n social structures, and call the entire Church and other people of good will to do the same. Our faith compels us to follow Jesus' example by helping poor and vulnerable people, not forcing our religion upon them as the price of such service. Don't suggest that we're not Catholic because we opposed the welfare reform bill passed by Congress last year. Catholics Charities USA supported extensive reform of the welfare system well before it became a national priority. We opposed the congressional bill because we believe it will hurt people in need, and we had the backing of the US bishops in that opposition.
Your article mixes the debate over welfare reform with the question of government funding of religious social service organizations. Government support for poor people is a question of social justice, not charity. The Catholic Church teaches that government has a moral responsibility to care for those most in need. To assign reaching out to the people our highly competitive economy leaves behind solely to the churches and charities would be a dereliction of duty for the rest of society. Citizens are not just taxpayers.
Here is what New York Cardinal O'Connor said in response to Senator Santorum's attack of Catholic Charities:
A tremendous number of things we believe are legitimately Catholic would have nothing to do with church liturgy or prayer or things of that sort, but would certainly be Catholic in the sense of feeding the hungry and other works of the social Gospel...
I have not thought of Catholic social services as a medium for the direct, oral teaching about Jesus. We are motivated by the reality of Jesus and try to treat people accordingly.
Here is what Pope John Paul II said to American Catholic Charities leaders: "For your long and persevering service--creative and courageous, and blind to the distinctions of race or religion--you will hear Jesus' words of gratitude, 'You did it for me.'"
Catholic Charities agencies are well aware of threats and risks inherent in government funding, as well as from many other sources, including political ideology on the left and right.
Fred Kammer, SJ
Alexandria, Virginia
(Father Kammer is president of Catholic Charities USA.)
No Christian should question the value of--indeed, the responsibility to--help those who are in need. But honest believers can, and do, disagree regarding the most effective ways to administer that help. The American debate on welfare reform was clearly an instance in which faithful Catholics could be found on both sides of a political controversy. In such cases it is imprudent to imply that one side of the debate represents the "Catholic" position.
The more important question addressed in our article, however, was the relationship between government programs and Church agencies. In this case, has Catholic Charities been too willing to submit to regulations which foreclose the possibility of evangelization?
There may indeed be another confusion here: If Catholic Charities USA is involved with the implementation of US welfare programs, and if these programs are a matter of social justice rather than of charity, perhaps we should be asking how "charitable" is Catholic Charities? The Editor
Compassion without results
No statement better expresses the pervasive belief that faith is a private matter than Cardinal O'Connor's statement that he had not "thought of Catholic social services as a medium for direct, oral teaching about Jesus."
Catholic Charities resistance in verbally testifying to the redeeming power of Jesus Christ in the lives of those who take him as Lord and Savior buttresses the wall between church and state and makes Catholic Charities little distinguishable from any other altruistic enterprise.
The leadership of Catholic Charities should be compelled to commit to memory Marvin Olasky's, The Tragedy of American Compassion, a history of how Christian charity was once delivered in this country. Six months in an Evangelical rescue mission would also be a good start in reestablishing the connection between faith and life.
Senator Santorum is to be commended for his testimony as to what a Catholic's faith in Jesus Christ means. CWR and the author, James McCoy, are to be commended for fully reporting the dispute.
John W. Ruebelmann
Anchorage, Alaska
Too many compromises
Your magazine is simply the best of many that I read. Having said that, I have serious criticism of James McCoy's article on Catholic Charities in the May 1997 issue.
The article gives significant praise to Rick Santorum, US Senator from Pennsylvania, who just received the "Catholic American of the Year" Award from the Catholic Campaign for America, "a lay organization whose board includes notable Catholics like William Bennett..."
It should be noted that this "notable Catholic," William Bennett, was an active supporter of the pro-abortion presidential candidacy last year of Lamar Alexander, and then after that failed, dutifully fell in line behind a fatally flawed Bob Dole--who has voted billions of dollars for Planned Parenthood, voted for the punitive FACE act punishing anti-abortion pickets, voted to confirm all six of the pro-abort justices on the US Supreme Court, and some 180 other lower federal court appointments of our pro-abortion President Clinton, voted for experimentation upon the bodies of poor aborted babies, , and rounded it all off by his vitriolic and slanderous attacks upon the pro-life candidate, his former Jesuit high school classmate, Pat Buchanan. It must be noted also that Sen. Santorum early on in presidential mating dance endorsed his fellow Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, the militantly pro-abortion Arlen Specter.
Such conduct continues the unseemly charade in which the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles gives over his cathedral pulpit to our bloody pro-abortion President Bill Clinton, the Knights of Columbus continue to accept as members politicians who actively support the modern-day slaughter of the innocents, "Catholic" colleges honor these bloody-handed opportunists, and bishops of several diocese bring them into Catholic facilities to speak.
Surely one cannot imagine the NAACP bringing in as a guest speaker the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, or the American Congress honoring a prominent Nazi. When are the Catholic bishops of the United States going to recognize that the wages of compromise is defeat? Until the above obscenities are banished, there simply will be no chance of reversing the culture of death that is clearly so ascendant, particularly here in the United States--which Pope John Paul II has time and again identified as the primary issue facing human society today. We will simply deserve the scathing description applied by Justice Antonin Scalia, in a dissent to the majority pro-abortion opinion authored by his colleague Sandra Day O'Connor: "Surely, Justice O'Connor is simply not to be taken seriously!"
Robert C. Cetrulo, J.D.
Covington, Kentucky
Tribunals insulted?
Having worked six years in a marriage tribunal, I read with great interest Charles Wilson's review of Sheila Rauch Kennedy's book, Shattered Faith.
It's insulting to accuse the tribunal system of resorting to "legal sleight-of-hand in order to accommodate virtually anyone." There are no magic tricks performed when a marriage is declared null. It is a serious and painstaking process. In fact, during the course of an investigation of nullity, each case is reviewed by two "Defenders of the Bond" whose sole purpose is to do just that. And each judge's decision is reviewed by a panel of judges in the Court of Appeals before a marriage is declared null.
Moreover, if Charles Wilson had consulted with a tribunal official before writing the review, he would have discovered the errors in Robin Richards' quote "there is something lacking in a system of justice where you do not know when the case is being heard, who the judges are, who the lawyers are, who the witnesses are, what is being said against you..."
When a case is opened by a tribunal, Canon Law requires that both the petitioner and respondent be cited and provided with the names of the tribunal officials involved in their case. Canon §1554 requires that the names of witnesses be communicated to the parties. Furthermore, the respondents are informed that they have a right to hear what is being said against them and, if they desire, they can provide their own testimony and witnesses. It's unfortunate that somehow all of this information seems to have eluded Richards during his annulment process. What is even more unfortunate is that, in light of the facts mentioned above, the quote Wilson relied upon to make a point is more than misleading, it's inaccurate.
Whether the number of annulments granted is excessive may be a topic worthy of discussion. But the discussion should be, first of all, grounded in the facts.
The question begs to be asked: How do Kennedy and Wilson believe the Church should respond when one of Her members requests an investigation into the validity of his marriage?
Margaret L. Connolly
Park Ridge, Illinois
Charles Wilson replies:
What I said was: "But Sheila Kennedy does object to what she sees as the prevailing lack of intellectual honesty in a system which resorts to legal sleight-of-hand..." (emphasis added) This is the way I chose to convey my impression of how Sheila Kennedy and the five women whose stories were told in Shattered Faith viewed the tribunal system. Margaret Connolly does not say whether or not she actually read Shattered Faith herself. If she did, she presents no examples to show that my summary of the perceptions of six parties to tribunal processes was inaccurate and I stand by my choice of words.
This also applies to my use of Robin Richards' statement. Margaret Connolly has every right to claim that it does not apply to the tribunal which employs her but, without evidence to the contrary, how can she say that Richards' experience was not real or that he was incapable of giving an account of his own impressions of the process?
The St. Joseph Foundation employs the services of a number of qualified canon lawyers in its work of assisting Catholics in defending their rights in the Church. Most of them are present or former judges, defenders of the bond or advocates. I have discussed the state of the tribunal system in this country with all of them, not to mention dozens of respondents in matrimonial processes. Many tribunals do indeed respond to petitions for nullity with compassion, professional skill, and respect for the rights of the parties. Nonetheless, there are some very serious problems. Unsupported denials of those problems will not contribute to a solution.
A bumpy road
It is unfortunate that Sheila Kennedy's faith in the annulment process is shattered. Maybe the process is defective. Maybe it leads to an excessive number of factually incorrect decisions. However, CWR--despite several recent articles questioning, if not disparaging, the process--has yet to confront the key question: Are judgments of the Church regarding the validity of a marriage binding regardless of their objective correctness? In other words does the Church has the authority to bind and loose even when she makes bad pastoral and administrative decisions? And even though we her children may agitate for change, so we still have a duty to accept and obey? I suspect we do.
Thus, I miss chant and Latin, think altar girls a mistake, and grate at the remodeling the ICEL passes off as scriptural and liturgical translation. And the new country-rock "musack" drives me nuts. But I live with it, even though the Mass and scriptures in civilized English could be awesomely moving. (May we start the renewal with Monsignor Knox's translations?) I don't know why God allows things better than any of us, but I trust that in his infinite wisdom he will guide his Church on the right path, lead his people to green (not "verdant") pastures, and still (not "restful"--obviously these translators have never raised sheep or taken to heart Churchill's wisdom on the power of short Anglo-Saxon words!) waters.
You and Sheila Kennedy may find me cynical, but when an annulment dropped out of the sky a dozen years ago for reasons on which I can only speculate, I was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I rode it. I won't pretend it's been the smoothest of rides. Most of life's rides have their bumpy spots. But here and there, among life's blessings and my own serious shortcomings, I can see, in the long run, how he has used it for his own purposes. Even if Sheila Kennedy's faith in the process is shattered, she doesn't need to let that disappointment shatter her faith. I wonder if Kennedy realizes that the late Msgr. Ronald Knox left the Anglican communion for Rome primarily on the issue of the need for "authority?" I suspect that like Knox, Sheila Kennedy would make a great Catholic. It would be fun to watch, maybe even assist her, on the road home.
Mario de Solenni
Crescent City, California
There is--as our correspondent suggests, and as contributors to previous editions of CWR have argued explicitly--a crucial distinction between the attitude of those who question the wisdom of certain pastoral decisions, and those who reject the authority that upholds those decisions. Loyal Catholics may argue strenuously against an administrative policy, perhaps (with due discretion) even after it has been put into place. They will not, however, use that disagreement to undermine the source of the authority.
In the case of annulments, one caution should be raised. If a declaration of nullity is based on false testimony submitted by the marital partners, that declaration itself is null--not because of any defect in the authority of the Church tribunal, but because of dishonesty of the applicant(s). -- The Editor
What optimism?
Kevin Grant writes ("Will the Moral Landscape Alter?" June 1997) that "The nation [the United Kingdom] sees the new prime minister as a professed Christian who attends Mass with his family in a Catholic Church every Sunday." I cannot deny that.
But the fact is that Tony Blair is a man who declares himself to be in conscience totally anti-abortion, yet as voted pro-abortion on every one of the 25 occasions that the issue has been raised since he entered parliament.
This makes it difficult for most Catholics to understand Cardinal Hume's expressed pleasure that the Labor victory in the May election created "a palpable sense of hope and optimism." Perhaps Grant (or other of your readers) could explain that for us? Or at least offer a possible and plausible answer?
Frank Webster
London, England
"Cheap" is an understatement
Congratulations to you and Kieron Wood on the article about Mary Robinson, President of Ireland.
When I first learned that Ireland had elected a woman as president, I was pleased because I assumed she would be a very intelligent person.
The Irish people have provided many countries with leaders of outstanding competence in government, religion, the military, and law and order. Is Robinson the best they could do for their country? She would be a disgrace to any country. She is described as "cheap." That is an understatement.
Perhaps she is one of those insecure individuals who try to bring superior people down to her level. Obviously, she has no respect for the presidency. Perhaps she should remain "barefoot" and sell sprigs of mimosa outside a pub.
If she had respect for the presidency, she would not allow her petty feelings to intrude on her job.
J.N. Kelly
Gig Harbor, Washington
All right in the end
Your lead editorial ("Charges and Counter-Charges," June 1997) involves a subject about which this reader could write reams! Whether concerning church, state, corporations, social clubs ,or just plain family matters, we seem to have degenerated to a society totally incapable of: 1) honest, open discussion; 2) admitting fallibility; and 3) accepting responsibility. In the Letters column that follows, Louis Horvath makes my point for me; he is condemned out of his own word processor. Regrettably he can't think beyond the contents of a slick tri-fold advertising brochure.
But then, in the back, I meet Father Ferigle and know that in the end, everything will come up right. As I meditate on the life--and especially the death--of Father Sal, the music swells in my ear; the closing lines form one of my still favorite hymns brought along from Mormonism!
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take;
Our God will never us forsake;
And soon we'll have this tale to tell--
All is well! All is well!
Robert H. Lake
Albany, Oregon
Called to sanctity
Having had the special privilege of knowing well for several years Father Joseph Muzquiz and Father Sal Ferigle, of Opus Dei in the United States, I have no misgivings in not only totally agreeing with your Diogenes' article "The Stuff of Martyrs," indicating both as special priests--but even furthermore as prophets asking us all to a special calling to sainthood!
I distinctly remember in the early 980s my priestly friend and mentor Father Joe Muzquiz telling me for the first time, in a newly refurbished office of "The Work" in Boston, that there was a calling to sainthood for me. At the time, I questioned this for weeks, time and time again. I was called to sainthood? Wasn't that preposterous for a man with a worldly and sinful past?
It took me months to accept Father Muzquiz' concept as I slowly became aware that he was truly a perfect example of a living saint: extremely humble, plus affable, always a great spiritual counselor available--not only for me, as a civil engineer and a fellow civil-war victim (he in Spain and I in Cuba)--but also for my fellow exiles. At any time of day or night he would promptly come and reverently meet the needs of the sick and dying, bringing always the Sacred Species to them. For 15 years Father Muzquiz' call to sainthood has rung every day in my ears.
Joseph D. Salazar
Wayland, Massachusetts
A positive attitude
I met Father Ferigle only a couple of times, always as part of a group, but he nevertheless taught me an important lesson. At the orientation meeting for a week-long annual seminar for seminarians which he organized, he always impressed upon us the importance of speaking with charity. We were admonished not to be negative, not to berate bishops, professors, theologians, or institutions which we felt were not adequately defending or teaching the Catholic faith. We were not to be cynical or critical; it would be better to keep silent rather than give in to that temptation. We also did not want to find fault with fellow seminarians. Our purpose was to have a positive experience of prayer, camaraderie and theological reflection. Father Sal's talk always set the tone for the entire week because of the reverence the seminarians held for this aged and holy priest. I learned more from his short exhortations than from any of the excellent theological presentations that were given at the seminars which I attended.
Scott D. Brockson
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Limits of episcopal conferences
To bash national conferences of bishops because of chaotic doctrinal affairs after Vatican II is an attack on the wrong party. Christ did not give national episcopal conferences a munus docendi over particular nations. Your June 1997 Essay should retrain its artillery, which is directed at the French bishops' conference meeting at Lourdes, whereas "bashers" ought to confront individual bishops on their mandated territory.
Think of episcopal conferences as golf clubs, mutatis mutandis. Members meet to fraternize and to maintain the course. But golf clubs do not walk the 18 holes for the members; nor do episcopal conferences perform the homework of bishops on their home turf.
Canon Law states that "The bishops' conference can make general decrees only in the cases where the universal law has so prescribed, or by special mandate of the Apostolic See." The Church does not mandate episcopal conferences to exercise an ordinary munus docendi over respective nations. Individual bishops exercise this munus for their individual flocks. There they teach with power. National conferences do not have parallel mandates to teach national bodies of churches; nor, in consequence, do they have Christ's spiritual power to make their teachings effective nationally. If isolated from the universal Church, they are magisterially impotent. They become potent only when they jointly teach with the universal Church over which Peter presides.
If conferences of bishops do not reform the Church in individual nations, do not be surprised. Do not waste time bashing them. Work with the ordinary of your diocese. When he speaks inserted into the Church and under the Pope, he speaks with the power of Christ. Bishops' conferences are not made for that.
Father Anthony Zimmerman
Nagoya, Japan
Oxford and the art of conversation
I much enjoyed the article "The Inklings" (June 1997). From time to time I wonder what is it about Oxford, that "towery city," "bell-swarmed," river-rounded," that it should bring forth such a flowering as you describe in the midst of its "grey beauty?" There is, I think, a deep faith in the elemental values the university represents. These are not only the current descriptions of diversity and multiculturalism but the living together "over tea, or it may be whiskey." It is this sharing of life and the culture of friendship that underlies the scholarly flowering represented by the Inklings. And, I suppose, these elemental values can give rise to other conversations leading to different conclusions. But the conversations are integral to the flowering for when we converse we engage in critical thinking that is of the greatest service to knowledge and truth. The alternative seems to be sullen silence or angry shouting.
Father Kevin M. Tortorelli
New York, New York
Tolkein and the depths
Like Walter Hooper (June 1997) I am a former Anglican clergyman and "convert"--if we are still allowed to use that provocative term. I have also sat in the Bird & Baby (Eagle & Child) pub in Oxford partaking of spiritual sustenance in a pint form. However, may I suggest that Tolkein could have been working on two levels in his explanation of the "Inklings."
Yes, the movement did "dabble in ink," but we could examine the Shadowlands of Job 38. Here is Yahweh's answer and the depth of the mystery (Job 38:16-18)
Have you been right down to the sources of the sea
and walked about at the bottom of the Abyss?
Have you been shown the gates of Death,
have you seen the janitors of the Shadow dark as death?
Have you an inkling of the extent of the earth?
Tell me all about it if you have!
By the way, I remember reading Lord of the Rings sitting on a hillside outside Zakopane in Poland, which is one of the Holy Father's favorite spots. Have I missed it--or has his Holiness commented on Tolkein's writings?
Neville Kyrke-Smith
Sutton, Surrey, England
Strange company
It was interesting to read in your latest edition that the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin received an award from the Masons, the same medal which they had presented to such prominent men as the Dalai Lama, a deity to the Tibetan Buddhists, and Bill Clinton, a wannabe-deity to the women of the world. How strange to picture a Catholic cardinal in the same company as a pagan god and a godless pagan.
Sandra Jones
Covington, Kentucky
Reforming diocesan papers
I read with great interest and equal agreement Father James P. Kelleher's letter "The Catholic Press" (CWR, June 1997). I wholeheartedly agree with Father Kelleher's position that diocesan papers in the United States do not uphold the magisterium of the Church, and in fact are very much engaged in tactics of fragmentation especially against the Holy Father and the Sacred Congregation for the Faith.
As part of the plan to "take back" our Catholic press, I would like to encourage readers of CWR to write to their diocesan paper's editors and request they reprint essays from CWR. I especially suggest they start with Philip Lawler's essay, "The Level of Confidence" (February, 1997). In that fine analysis, Lawler identified the focus of the problem: "The authority of the magisterium is not the subject of an adversarial process, nor is it governed by the rules of a children's game, in which orders are not valid because someone forgot to ask, "May I?'" This is exactly what is happening now: "Catholic theologians" (a euphemism) "rate" the Vatican authority's statements and deconstruct their theological validity.
We must start insisting that Catholic newspapers uphold the Holy Father and the Roman congregations. If our requests are denied--or usually just ignored--we need to inform the papal nuncio, Archbishop Cacciavillan, and also provide copies of the anti-magisterial teachings to him and to the appropriate Vatican congregations. Unless we inform them, they may not know. More importantly, if we do not respond, our silence is saying "We do not care."
Stephen E. Speciale
Phoenix, Arizona