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Regarding “Gumbleton decries lack of leaders” (NCR, March 16): I have a dream. After four years of preemptive war (what it “emptiv-ed” is still a gossamer), I refuse to quit dreaming. I dream that a cohort of U.S. Catholic bishops will be seized in a way unknown in recent memory and propelled recklessly and prophetically toward moral conviction on a subject other than abortion. I envision, even from the northern fringe of this great nation, the Irish-American military ordinary and the denizen of Lincoln, Neb., leading the charge. In my quiet moments, I even hope for a pell-mell rush toward clarion honesty as a divine antidote to a deafening silence on the war. Guilty of unbecoming modesty, I have even coined a new term for the end of episcopal lethargy. I call it a “surge.” Actually, I would settle now even for a stumble in the right direction. Anything, guys, anything.
(Fr.) JOHN BROPHY
Mellen, Wis.
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Where are the prophets among you bishops of today, speaking out against the mistreatment of your brother Thomas Gumbleton? How many of you had the conviction and courage shown by Bishop Gumbleton to speak out against violence, the death penalty and war decades ago when it was counter-cultural? How many of you have had the courage to take the microphone at your national bishops’ conferences and openly defend your gay family members, friends or perhaps even yourselves against discrimination and prejudice from your brothers? How many of you have empathized with survivors of clerical sexual abuse to the point where you went public, demanding justice for all regardless of how many years have passed? How many of you whisper to your sisters and women friends that they are equal but in public uphold the unjust church position of discrimination against ordination for women? Bishop Gumbleton has been the lone prophet among you to denounce these and other issues of injustice. First they came for the gays and you did not speak out because perhaps you weren’t gay; then they came for survivors of clerical sexual abuse and you did not speak out because perhaps you weren’t sexually abused; then they came for women, then they came for Bishop Gumbleton and you did not speak out because you were not a prophet. Dear bishops, be not afraid. They will never come for you. You never spoke out.
(Srs.) BETH RINDLER, SFP,
MAUREEN SINNOTT, OSF, and
GERRY SELLMAN,
SCMM
Detroit
The article concerning defense spending (NCR, March 9) is quite comprehensive. However, the extent to which private contractors are used to fight this war is not mentioned. One out of every three military persons in Iraq is there through a contractor. One of the most evident is Blackwater. We in northwestern Illinois have become aware of Blackwater because they are developing a small 80-acre installation on the border of Jo Daviess and Carroll counties. Blackwater’s main base is in North Carolina. Corporations such as Blackwater often receive no-bid contracts, many of which are classified, are not closely monitored and frequently have cost overruns. Their employees make many times more than military personnel and operate under a different, less stringent and defined, set of rules. Furthermore, they have a demoralizing effect on the enlisted troops and much less positively represent American citizens to local people. Thus, the military is becoming privatized. The costs to the taxpayers for the same services have greatly increased. The Blackwaters are equivalent to the hated Hessians who fought for the British Empire against the citizen army of the colonists. Google Blackwater on the Internet, and you can become informed about these sinister private contractors.
FRED TURK
Rock Falls, Ill.
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Your coverage of the U.S. defense spending was woeful in its lack of context. We cannot decide the moral question about what to spend on the military in the absence of a discussion of what the military actually does. What does our military do, and what do Americans and the rest of the world get for this expenditure of tax dollars? Our Navy, for example, constitutes a huge portion of our defense spending. Because we have this Navy, we get seas around the world that are safe enough for international travel and commerce. When pirates threaten shipping in the Indian Ocean or off the coast of Africa, who challenges the pirates and keeps sea lanes safe? The U.S. Navy. You might also recall that after the tsunami the primary provider of aid to most who were stranded and helpless was the Navy. This policing and stability role once fell to the British Royal Navy, but Britain can no longer afford to do it. No one else now can afford to do it. And we have good reason to do it, too. Safe seas make for greater prosperity, from which we benefit incalculably. Complaining that we are spending too much without examining how we and much of the rest of the world benefit from that spending is moralizing in the absence of sense. It is akin to saying a city spends too much on police because police budgets include lots of guns. Well, duh.
AUGUST TICAN
San Diego
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Thomas Plante’s review (NCR, March 9) is a defensive reaction to some hard truths put forth by Dr. Frawley-O’Dea. He ends with the emotional retort that she is “Catholic bashing,” much like the defenders of the institution whose knee-jerk reaction is to name any valid criticism of church wrongdoing as an unfair attack.
Dr. Plante says that we need to aggressively attack the structures that allow abuse to occur and flourish within and outside the church. That’s precisely what the author has done and with an accuracy that has not been found in other academic studies of clergy sex abuse. She digs into the clerical subculture upon which the institutional church is based and finds much that fosters the psychopathology that has nurtured abusive clerics and enabled the narcissistic value system that prompted church officeholders to cover up the abuse and continue to operate in a defensive mode.
It is true that some bishops and priests have finally begun to comprehend the horror of the sex abuse scourge. But it is also true that the hierarchy in general continue to deny the essential role their own actions have played in creating this nightmare. Dr. Plante prefers that the author repeat the detailed findings of the medical community as to the complex nature of sex abuse, its causes and effects. That’s safe, and shifts the focus from where it should be. Rather, she has used her vast experience and expertise to delve into the areas she believes need research. The problem is that Dr. Plante, like most of the strident defenders of the institutional church, doesn’t like the answers.
(Fr.) THOMAS DOYLE, OP
Vienna, Va.
Your editorial “Time to act on global warming” (NCR, Feb. 16) is important and timely. The moral dimensions of global climate change, too often neglected or ignored, deserve greater attention and urgency. The most recent report by the International Panel on Climate Change makes it clear that more urgent action is needed. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has made environmental justice and climate change major priorities. Over the last 15 years the conference has taken a great number of steps and actions to help link our faith with care for God’s creation, including creating a new Catholic Coalition on Climate Change designed to provide more intensive help to dioceses and other organizations, including funding for model climate change projects.
On Feb. 7, 2001, Bishop Thomas Wenski, chair of the Committee on International Policy, wrote key members of the Congress, the White House and leaders of environmental organizations. He urged them to take up the cause of climate change with new urgency. He called for them to pursue “the common good rather than the demands of narrow interests” and place a “priority for the poor.” While the bishops are encouraged by increasing signs of attention to climate change, they want to make sure that the voices and needs of the poor are heard and addressed in debates and decisions. The conference is working to build up the “common ground for common action to advance the common good” as the nation and world address this growing moral challenge.
JOHN L. CARR
Washington
John L. Carr is secretary of the Department of Social Development and World Peace for the bishops’ conference.
I respectfully disagree with Frances Kissling’s views expressed in the article “Kissling leaves, with barbs for the left” (NCR, March 9), especially those that relate to the Women’s Ordination Conference. After more than 30 years of being locked out of the Vatican, the conference is more active than it has ever been. Local groups publicly demonstrate for women’s ordination and an inclusive church. Where one tactic does not work, our members develop new ones. Our three major programs, the “Three Ministries,” are based on different strategic approaches to advocate women’s ordination. In addition, the conference’s Young Feminist Network, a program for Catholic women in their 20s and 30s, grows exponentially as it organizes local church reform activism and faith-sharing groups across the country. The amount of public attention the conference has received recently is unprecedented in its 30-year history. Our leaders have been interviewed on major news stations and quoted in most major newspapers during the election of Pope Benedict XVI and the Roman Catholic women priests’ ordinations. The Young Feminist Network was featured in the January issue of U.S. Catholic magazine, and the activism of two members was featured in the March edition of Jane, a popular secular magazine for young women. I want to assure Ms. Kissling and NCR readers that the church reform movement, particularly as it focuses on women’s ordination into a renewed priestly ministry, is making a difference. I am among the young leaders and countless other women and men who will continue to be the voice and the embodiment of justice for women in the church.
AISHA S. TAYLOR
Fairfax, Va.
Aisha Taylor is executive director of the Women’s Ordination Conference.
Robert Swegle’s letter “Gay clergy” (NCR, March 16) makes some assumptions, betrays a bit of homophobia, glosses over a few key points, and finally fails to get to the nature of the actual problem. First, he assumes that priests, straight or gay, are overwhelmingly successful at turning a vow of celibacy into the consistent practice of chastity. There is some indication that such is not the case, even at the highest levels.
Certainly failed chastity, whether heterosexual or homosexual, has consequences that range from damaging to devastating, particularly in the context of a member of the clergy (or even a bishop).
His fear that “freed from the mandate, [gay priests] would emulate the married heterosexual clergy and feel it permissible to engage in sexual release with male partners” only serves to underscore the damage done by our continued marginalization of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the church. At the end of the day, the problem is not “the priesthood becoming a gay occupation” so much as it is our failed attempts to deny and to shame healthy, committed and fulfilling adult sexuality in large segments of the church’s population. These include all priests, homosexuals, the divorced and remarried, and others. Fix that problem, and the other solutions will tend to fall into place.
GREG BULLOUGH
Doylestown, Pa.
Letters to the editor should be limited to 250 words and preferably typed. If a letter refers to a previous issue of NCR, please give us that issue’s date. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Letters, National Catholic Reporter, PO Box 411009, Kansas City, MO 64141-1009. Fax: (816) 968-2280. E-mail: letters@ncronline.org (When sending a letter via e-mail, please indicate "NCR Letters" in the subject line. We've installed a new spam filter on our letters e-mail account. If it's not clear to us that yours is a letter, we might delete it.) Please be sure to include your street address, city, state, zip and daytime telephone number
National Catholic Reporter, March 30, 2007