View from the Pew
Letters to the Editor
from various issues (Vol. 1-3)

Financial burden of re-renovating?
I wrote a letter to Archbishop [Daniel E.] Pilarczyk in support of the people at St. Philips Church [in Morrow, Ohio] and asked him to reconsider the use of Environment and Art in Catholic Worship (EACW). He responded to me in the following manner, and I quote:

"You may be interested to know the document Environment and Art in Catholic Worship is now being updated by a special committee of the NCCB and will be brought to the full body of bishops for approval in a year or so."

My question is, in light of Apostolos Suos [the Holy Father’s apostolic letter addressing the limitations of bishops conferences] and especially because the document EACW, by the admission of the Archbishop himself, is being "updated" and is yet to be brought to the full body of bishops for approval, how can this document be used for permanent renovations of churches within the archdiocese? If the bishops, as a collegial body, do not approve EACW, will the faithful have the added financial burden of re-renovating their churches to conform to standards acceptable to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops?

—Casey Mitchell
Mason, Ohio

Editor’s comment: The original idea for "updating" EACW came from the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions (FDLC) several years ago— after the authority of the statement had been challenged in print. Helen Hull Hitchcock, editor of ADOREMUS Bulletin wrote a column questioning it in CRISIS Magazine a few years ago, then in Dossier and ADOREMUS Bulletin. The FDLC’s objective was not to change the principles of EACW, but to give it the authority of the bishops' conference—i.e., to erase doubts about its authority.

Eventually a committee was appointed to draft a revision. Mrs. Hitchcock tells us that "there is not unanimity on the committee about the way EACW should be revised. Yet, so long as there is no new document to replace EACW, it will continue to be used as a wrecking ball, and the ‘experts’ who advocate it seem committed to swinging it wildly as long as they can. Sound strategy from their point of view. Once millions have been spent to build or destroy a church, it will be hard to put it back together again—the Humpty Dumpty theory of church renovation."

Fr. James Moroney recently told Our Sunday Visitor that, contrary to the FDLC’s desires, the new EACW document "will not be a revision of the 1978 letter, but rather will replace that document. And unlike the 1978 letter—which was only a statement of one committee—the new EACW is expected to be a statement of the entire bishops’ conference." Moroney told OSV that he expects that a draft of the new document will be presented to the liturgy committee next spring; the draft would then be circulated to all the U.S. bishops for comment before coming to the floor at their annual meeting in November 1999.

At a recent "Society for Catholic Liturgy Conference," Chicago archbishop Cardinal Francis E. George, O.M.I, offered his own observations on EACW. "Some liturgists," said George, "have conducted war against devotion," so in some theories there was no room for public devotion. "Mistakes surfaced in EACW," he observed. "That document presented a ‘division’ between the ‘static presence’ of Jesus in the Eucharist at Mass and the ‘reserved presence’ of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle. EACW, in essence, relegated the Eucharist to a closet." George predicted that this "directive" will not be in the new version of EACW.

Huge monument, monumental ego
In 1992, I took a job as a part-time teller/manager of the Mercy Hospital credit union in Anderson Township [Cincinnati]. At this time, the "Wellness Center" was still in the future. However, I identified the project’s brainchild, Sr. Kathy Green, S.M., with the feminist "Women's Health Center" —frankly, I never could understand why the health care industry needs "separate but equal" facilities for men and women. There are a few issues which are different between the sexes—breast/ovarian/uterine cancer vs. prostate cancer, for instance—but not enough to justify this huge edifice called "Womens' Health Issues" which has been constructed by liberal activists over the last thirty years or so. I believe that this is about nothing but "power."

I have tried many times to earnestly and sincerely engage such activists in dialogue over the issues which separate us. Most with whom I have tried to talk have resorted to similar unfair, stylistic approaches that characterize, I believe, a certain modus operandi employed by the dissenters in the Church:

It has become clear to me that Sr. Kathy Green, and many, if not most, of the other "nuns" at Mercy Hospital, do not believe in the things that were and still are sacred to me, a Catholic raised in the traditional Church. (They scoffed at Friday abstinence, for instance, or at the idea of loyalty to the Holy Father, or Lenten penance, whenever I would bring up such issues.)

I know that for reasons I might not have been able to articulate clearly, I was less than enthusiastic when the Mercy Hospital announced its plans to build the mega-YMCA that then began to take shape on the property across State Road from the hospital.

I did not believe that such a project had anything to do with the mission of a Catholic hospital, as I saw it. (Your editorial comments about the deviation by the Mercy system from the role of a Catholic hospital expressed it beautifully.) I didn't know where the money was coming from, and I didn't have any idea how the costs would ever be recovered. But most of all, I couldn't see any reason for it, except that it was a huge monument to someone's monumental ego.

What puzzles me most, however, is why people like this want to be known as "Catholic," when those things which would most identify them as "authentic" Catholics are so repugnant to them? Why can't they be honest and admit that they are practicing a different kind of "religion," give it a new name, secede, and be done with it? What do they gain by this charade and farce? My guess is that inside of the Catholic Church, they find access to a pulpit more effective than any they could create on their own, starting anew.

—Bill Banchy
Cincinnati, Ohio

Parasites on the mystical body
As a former lay theologian from Xavier University, I would like to corroborate the July-August 1998 article in St. Catherine Review about theologians at Xavier.

Dr. Paul Knitter replaced me back in 1975 and took over my courses in world religions. Within a year or two of Knitter’s replacing me I became aware that his teaching was no longer Christian, and I was saddened. In subsequent contacts at professional organizations I have heard him publicly express views denying defined Catholic dogmas and basic Christian beliefs. Several years ago in a talk at a Catholic Theological Society meeting, he said of Jesus’ death on the cross: "If it doesn’t save anyone, don’t call it salvation," meaning that, from his liberation theology/social gospel perspective, since the crucifixion did not change social structures and lift anyone from poverty and oppression then and there, it was hokum to call it salvific.

The introductory course/book in theology authored by three Xavier theologians [Faith, Religion & Theology: A Contemporary Introduction] is obviously an endeavor in advocacy, special pleading, interpretation and dissent. I am sorry to say that some of it reads like the authors are parasites on the Mystical Body. Bob Buse’s judgments sound right on! Yet Xavier is far from unique with theologians neither orthodox nor evangelical. But you can’t fire them easily. Knitter and many other dissenting theologians have tenure. So, what to do?

1. They should not be permitted to designate themselves as Catholic theologians unless they will profess the prescribed oath of fidelity. Xavier can carefully describe them in its literature as it wills.

2. The student requirements of six hours of theology could be limited to courses by openly orthodox Catholic theologians. Xavier can certainly have religious scholars offering courses in world religions, Protestant, or Jewish thought. The main question is: Does Xavier require two courses in theology for Catholic/Christian reasons, or academic/cultural reasons?

3. What the local bishop and pastors have to say about Xavier University is always very loud; it has immediate financial repercussions regarding recruitment of students. I suspect a bishop could destroy a local "Catholic" university simply with his tongue. It could only survive by becoming genuinely Catholic or completely secular.

4. I know I did not send one of my sons to Xavier precisely because of the theologians. I could never feel assured that it was worth it to send any of my five children to Catholic colleges, since most theology departments were not much better than local Religion courses (experience, process, etc.). They could get that same liberal mush and critique at a state university for one third the cost.

5. The theologians in question are scholars and deserve freedom to teach what they think. They should also be left free to teach what they believe. But they should be required to teach, profess, and proclaim precisely what it is they believe, and Xavier should preface every course listing to properly advise the student/consumer. Everything should be open and above board.

6. Let Xavier live with the results of their choices of professors. The university could hire a committed Catholic, of course, who later becomes a committed Buddhist or total skeptic. The school can’t control that and should not try. But it can control what courses they may teach and under what auspices. No honorable person teaches or advocates anything under false pretenses.

—Dick Rowling
Reynoldsburg, Ohio

St. X High prepares student for the Village
I attended St. Xavier High School under principal Dave Mueller for all four years of my high school education. While away at school last year at New York University, I was quite dismayed to hear that the school was falling under such an attack, both from within and without [SCR, May-June, 1998]. What I would like to make known is that the study of homosexuality with the religion department at St. X was completely within the context of four years of religious education. The first two semesters consist of a close study of the Old and New Testaments. The Second year analyzes our Catholic faith and sacraments, so that, for example, students understand the importance of symbolism in baptism. The third-year class is called "Social Justice." It is under this rubric [sic] that the study of homosexual behavior takes place. The fourth year of religion requires one semester of theology, and one elective.

My point in writing is to simply allow for my perspective to be taken into account: I am, in fact, happy that I attended St. X for this type of religious education. I now live in Greenwich Village in New York City, a neighborhood that has to have one of the highest "gay" populations in the world. For the unprepared it is certainly a shock. But I, however, feel very comfortable here. Because of what happened at St. X, the fact that we studied homosexuality as an issue of social justice, I am not as concerned with my neighbors’ behavior as I am with my own. Social problems such as hate crimes, job discrimination, etc., do happen, and I find that all too often I contribute to them by not doing anything at all.

I do not think that homosexuality is natural, or acceptable, but my concern is not to point out my neighbors' faults, but to take care of my own, and to try as much as I can to love those people around me. My education at St. X in large part made this possible for me, and I'm thankful for it.

—Patrick Walmsley
New York, New York

"Academic freedom" at Xavier University
What Bob Buse reveals in your recent SCR interview [Sept-Oct 1997] is painfully correct; and politically correct in terms of the current on-going sense of "academic freedom" which Xavier University and the preponderant number of so-called Catholic institutions of higher education espouse. It is more fitting to speak of these departments as "religious" rather than theological. Most of the profs there are not at home with Catholic professors who hold a full-blown theological degree. In Xavier's department of religion there is no program of study in which the very exercise of one's Catholic Faith is a premise to the study itself. The overall effect of any one prof’s contribution is that each prof does "his or her own thing." The underlying "system" is the deliberate and concerted effort to bypass any systematic approach.

Almost every religious prof, "to a man," spurns teaching which the Magisterium presents as Catholic doctrine. They disdain this as being sheer "catechetical" (i.e., a mere indoctrination). The cornerstone of their approach is the "critical mind" (i.e., the mind of a professional skeptic). This is the modern mind, the mind of the Enlightenment, which becomes even more subtly and cleverly critical (i.e., skeptical) in dismantling the premises of the Enlightenment itself. This, of course, is the post-modern mindset that is regnant today in academia.

In my personal encounter with most of these profs I became aware that they themselves are inexcusably ignorant of the philosophical premises of their own positions. Of course, there is no theology without philosophy. Certainly, there is faith without theology. But, the doctrinal elucidation of Catholic faith is a philosophical undertaking. The philosophy inherent in today's religious programs is by-and-large ignored both by the profs and the students who are wrapped up in these pursuits. Their common bond is their consensual animus toward the known Doctors of the Church.

Certainly, the overriding premise proper to scholastic theology is that of the Catholic faith. This "faith" is inherently evidential and trustworthy. It eschews even the shadow of doubt and skepticism. One cannot advance in the theological elucidation of God's revelation without a preliminary trust (i.e., faith) in the credibility and self-evidence of that revelation. This preliminary trusting approach to theological study is simply repudiated by the modern "catholic scholar" who embraces the current view of "academic freedom" that deems every hierarchical authority as invasive and intrusive to his academic expertise. The Church's hierarchical authority has no place in the "scientific" pursuit of quantum mechanics or economics. Hence, a fortiori, neither should it hold sway over the student of religion.

The Magisterial Church's response to this? This is spelled out in Vatican II. It is not confrontation nor excommunication. It is dialogue. The Catholic university is seen by the Church in "Ex corde ecclesiae" as the very platform for dialogue. And the "theology department" itself and the theologian is seen as the very linchpin in conducting this dialogue. Diabolically, the dialogue is being conducted in the mode of a diatribe against the Church's Magisterial office. In the interim the local bishop who is the plenipotentiary authority to oversee a university's catholicity remains aloof. All negotiations between the local ordinary and the local university are transmuted to conferences which have no canonical authority in this matter.

Others who are very well qualified in this matter have written and had published in highly reputable journals and books from noted publishers the unorthodox positions publicly espoused by several prominent members of Xavier’s religion department. Cardinal Ratzinger especially singled out a special book by Dr. [Paul] Knitter as an example of a current "catholic" theologian who lumps Christ together with other noted historical figures (viz., Buddha, Confucius, etc.) within a global framework of multi-cultural analysis. The objective of this study is to discern in all of these religious sagas paradigmatic myths and themes that are similar in their primitive origins. Very sophisticated and "fascinating" for young minds who do not wish to be shackled with morally binding dogmas.

—Dr. Richard E. Dumont
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Xavier University
Cincinnati, Ohio

The influence of Jung’s neopagan world view
I just read your article on Sr. Pat Brockman’s "Jungian Dream Journaling" workshops [SCR July-Aug. 1998]. SCR did an excellent job of hanging Brockman with her own words. Needless to say, her invitation for Catholics to invent new personal religious rituals to contact the "god within" comes directly from the neopagan cult that Carl Jung formed during the First World War.

In my book The Aryan Christ I devote three chapters to case histories of three women who knew Jung during those years and who were trained to do these very things. It's amazing how far this vocabulary and neopagan world view has traveled since the days of 1916 Zurich.

How can people like Brockman claim to be both a Jungian and a monotheist? And if Brockman is not a monotheist, then how can she claim to be a Catholic? Too many people have accepted Jung uncritically. It is often not really their fault, as one must have some background in biology, psychiatry and psychology to understand why Jung was wrong and why his post-1913 ideas of the collective unconscious, archetypes and individuation have absolutely no scientific basis.

Congratulations on that fine article. Your non-polemical style was quite powerful. The final quote from Dr. Grant Herring concerning "Jungian parasites" was excellent and right-on.

—Richard Noll, Ph.D.
Belmont, Massachusetts

Editor’s note: Dr. Noll is the author of two best-selling books on Carl G. Jung: The Aryan Christ: the Secret Life of Carl Jung, Random House, 1997; and The Jung Cult, Princeton University Press, 1994. SCR highly recommends both of these books!

You rabid, tunnel-visioned Pharisees!
I am at a loss for words to describe your tunnel vision, in spite of the fact that I am a widely published writer for the Catholic press. You are rabid in searching for error and enthusiastic about indicting it as you see it. Remember that the only people with whom Jesus Himself was furious and critical to the point of utter rage were the Pharisees and Scribes, the self-appointed bastions of righteousness and tradition as they narrowly interpreted it... and who loved nothing better than to point fingers. I don't see the essence of our precious Catholic faith to be principally a watchdog effort to find the bad guys. I don't see Jesus doing that in the Gospels. He did have some disagreements, as I alluded to, with the official watchdogs of the Faith in His time, who had lost sight of the spirit and were tunnel-visioned to the letter. And, yes, I think we need married priests and women priests. You will no doubt think of me as a "cafeteria Catholic." We folks to the left of center regularly hear that. If it's true, we do not have a monopoly on that. SCR, for instance, apparently has grave reservations about "Always Our Children," a rather official document.

—Jim Auer, Religion teacher
St. Martin of Tours School, Cheviot, Ohio

Apologia pro vita sua
Thanks for including my letter in your recent "View from the Pew" of SCR [May-June 98]. It’s always nice to be afforded a forum, and even though I anticipated vehement disagreement, at least I signed my name and did not request that it be withheld. It has generated a good deal of response, some of it sent to me personally, some to our pastor at St. Martin’s recommending my dismissal and hinting that I am probably perverting the catechesis of children. Some was intelligently written; some was in all honesty simply hate mail.

Besides what your readers already think they know about me as a teacher, I’d like them also to know the following: I have poured my life out for rather little salary for thirty years on behalf of Catholic school students at the rate of an average of ten to twelve hours per day, and after having finished that, spent time on a second job necessitated in order to survive financially and support my family on a parochial school teacher’s salary.

Further, I take my junior high students to church for stations of the cross and for visits to the Blessed Sacrament; during March, I reproduce copies of the now almost forgotten Litany of St. Joseph and pray it with my students; on Michaelmas Day (is that traditional or what?) I have devotions to St. Michael, including the classic prayer; during Lent we pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, with extensive meditations on the sufferings of our Lord; and we frequently use Gregorian Chant as a background for meditation at the beginning of class.

In an age when an understanding of the Real Presence is pretty muddied or cloudy among Catholic youth, I feature, emphasize, and review it adamantly with my students. This is only a smattering of traditional Catholic things which are a regular part of my classes.

If some of your readers think I should be dismissed as a religion teacher, please have them recommend to our pastor someone who will continue to do all these things. Perhaps they know of a couple dozen potential replacements who are willing to take late evening phone calls from kids who need to talk.

By the way, I do accept that the Pope has forbidden the ordination of married priests (in spite of thousands of our Eastern-rite brethren) and of women. I said that nevertheless I think we need them; I hope the Pope changes his mind or that the next pope does. Simply holding that idea and making the statement puts me in company with more than a few bishops and a couple of cardinals.

—Jim Auer, Religion teacher
St. Martin of Tours School, Cheviot, Ohio

Titular See of Cincinnati?
If we carry Archbishop Pilarczyk's statement regarding the number of priests that are needed, to the next level of the hierarchy we could easily say: "We still do need (bishops), but we probably don't need as many (bishops) as we think we need. We certainly don't need as many (bishops) as we used to have" [SCR, "Archbishop Shares Vision of Church" Mar-Apr 1998]. Certainly there is historical precedent for fewer bishops, since various sees have become titular sees only, as the Church has died out in so many of those places over the centuries. Will at some future time an auxiliary bishop be appointed to the Diocese of Lunar Base One, with the titular see of Cincinnati, or perhaps even Covington? Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

—Name withheld at request
Covington, Kentucky

Shalom! I hope you stop publishing
I came across a copy of your review in the Retreat House here at the Abbey of Gethsemani. It was the Jan-Feb 1998 issue. I hope it will be the last issue you print. There is little of peace and the spirit of reconciliation in its pages. Shalom!

—Fr. Alan, O.C.S.O.
Trappist, Kentucky

What are you hiding?
I have received the latest issue of St. Catherine Review. I am requesting that my name be removed from your mailing list. My reasons for doing this have not so much to do with the content of the newsletter; rather, they deal with my perception of the way you conduct business, as you will see listed below.

To begin with, I did not write you to request a copy or to subscribe to your publication. This is an invasion of my privacy. I think it is a gross assumption on your part that I would be interested in reading SCR. Second, it is impossible to telephone you, since all you list is a fax number, [email and postal address]. I can’t telephone you to inform you personally that I wish to be removed from your mailing list. I think you do your readers a great disservice by not being available to them. You expect us to receive SCR in our homes uninvited, yet it is impossible for us to contact you. You have all the power and control; we have none.

This leads me to my third point. I am terribly suspicious of a newsletter editor who refuses to allow the reading constituency to gain access to his or her business life. The red flag questions are these: What are you hiding? Why are you hiding? Of what are you afraid? Why is it necessary for you to have all the power and control? The purpose of this letter is not to show my disapproval of your product. I think publications such as yours have as much place in Roman Catholic discourse as those which espouse a different theological bent; after all how can one expect to grow if one is only presented with limited viewpoints? I wish you nothing but success. However, I have tremendous difficulty in accepting your publication as ‘valid’ simply because you send it to people without their approval, and because it is impossible to contact you by way of a phone call. Please remove my name from your mailing list.

—Ronald P. Combs, Cincinnati, Ohio
Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary, Class of First Theology

Editor’s Note: Often times subscribers will purchase a gift subscription for another, or recommend a name for us to send them a complimentary copy. Such was the case with Mr. Combs.

[ St. Catherine Review ]