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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

LETTERS
APRIL 2003

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BONPANE CONTRADICTS JESUS

I thought that your January article ["Nutsy Stuff, Crazy Stuff"] questioning the Laramie Project at O'Dowd High School was reasonable. However, I wish to answer Blase Bonpane's rejection of the "dualism" of naturalism and supernaturalism in your February number [see "What We Must Never Forget"].

The answer to Father Bonpane is that Jesus does not permit Bonpane to eliminate the distinction between the supernatural order and the natural order. Jesus introduced the supernatural into religion by His answer to a question asked by Nicodemus: "what do we need in order to participate in the Kingdom of God?"

Jesus answered, "in truth I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again from above."

Then Nicodemus asked, "how can one who is already old, be born?" To this Jesus replied, firstly, that to enter the Kingdom we must "be born through water and the Spirit." Receive baptism. Secondly, he replied, "what is born of human nature is human; what is born of the Spirit is spirit." So he is drawing a distinction between the two births.

The difference between the birth according to human nature, according to the flesh, and the birth by baptism, by the Spirit, is this: the first makes us children of Adam of Eve and the second makes us children of God. Thus our birth from the womb is important because it makes candidates for the birth by baptism.

There is a second distinction to be drawn in any commentary on this gospel passage. It is that the new life, the life given to us in baptism, is already "eternal life." All the good that constitutes eternal life is already present. Today we often hear it said that eternal life is something in the future, a prize to be won after we die. But it should be stressed that, in the gospel, eternal life begins with baptism and is something in the here and now, already begun the moment we are given the grace to become children of God.

In Father Blase Bonpane's open letter to the pope [found in his book, Guerillas of Peace -- Ed.], he praises Ernesto Cardenal, the erstwhile Sandinista minister of culture. I have several sermons Father Cardenal delivered in that position. Though Father Cardenal presents himself as a Catholic, one sermon, called, "Of Parents and Nightingales," is a hodgepodge of things which do not pertain to Christ's religion.

Now when he encountered Father Ernesto Cardenal, Pope John Paul II, as teacher of true Christianity, was obliged to warn him against his confusing representation of the Catholic faith. The pope made a point of doing so. Then Blase Bonpane wrote his open letter of condemnation, furiously rebuking the pope, who was just dutifully fulfilling his office of defending the true faith against Father Cardenal. John Paul would not accept Cardenal's secular, natural religion, which says that the only ones sure of getting to heaven were Sandinista troops killed in battle.

In his sermon, Ernesto Cardenal puts Liberation Theology down as the source of peace and friendship in Central America. From my experience at the same time as his in El Salvador, I found it provocative of violence, especially in its recruitment of guerrilleros. [For instance, the story of San Sebastián began during a soccer game, where there were 6,000 in attendance.] Father Rodriguez, a priest commander of the FMLM, led busloads of heavily armed revolutionaries in an attack at the football stadium to secure recruits for his army. He captured one hundred and fifty youths, including the soccer players of both teams. He took them on a very long march to the guerrilla camp to demand that they join the revolution. During the long night march, quite a few of the hostages dropped off the trail and escaped to return home. I interviewed several of these escapees in San Sebastián, while the other hostages were still in the guerrilla camp. In our conversation, they told me that they had no wish to join the guerrilla's war.

The San Sebastián episode ended with the parents getting back their children. Apparently, Father Rodriguez's over-zealous recruiting had created a poor image of Liberation Theology, so that they released all the hostages. Visiting me here, several months later, the bishop of San Vicente told me that, during a special prayer visitation service he made to San Sebastián for the freeing of the captives about twelve days after I left El Salvador, the FMLM guerrillas released to their parents all of the hostages that they were still holding.

Father Bonpane affirms that one cannot practice his kind of justice and at the same time be a good believing Catholic, for Bonpane seems to select what he likes in Christ's teaching in the Bible and to ignore what he does not.

Father Philip Conneally, S.J.,
Jesuit Community,
Loyola High School, Los Angeles


I LEARNED A LOT

I am a 16-year-old student at a Lutheran school in Missouri, and I am writing to comment on the article on your website, "Bammo, Instant Abortion." I thought the article was very informative, and I learned a lot from just reading it. I didn't know that people are still finding new ways to abort unborn children, and passing laws against them. Your article, besides being informative, was also unbiased, which I think can be a good thing in some situations. I can't believe that people are actually willing to do abortions in the first place, but to do them when there is a great chance of harm to the mother, that is also unbelievable. The quote that there is no such thing as an illegal abortion also shocked me. Of course, some people don't believe that abortion is murder; I do, so I believe that all abortions should be illegal. Thank you again for your informative article.

Rachel
received via e-mail


YOU GOT IT WRONG

My name is Laura Slattery and I am writing in reference to the news short article that you printed in your February issue of Faith about an action that I took at the November protest against the School of the Americas.

First, thank you for your coverage. Unfortunately, much of the information in the article is inaccurate. Some of the information that you copied from the Oakland Tribune article was incorrect; and I have no idea from where the rest of the incorrect information came. As to the information from the Oakland Tribune -- It was not in 2002 that I left my army jacket on the fence, but in the 2001 protest. The quote, "I thought that was arrogant," is an inaccurately placed quote, and refers not to the disposal of my jacket, but to a statement that I made directly before that quote about the SOA, stating that it's main purpose was to expose Latin Amercian soldiers to our way of life. It makes little sense in reference to disposing of the jacket.

As to the following incorrect information (and quotes!), I do not know where you got them: I was never wearing my Army jacket (not in the 2002 nor the 2001 protest); I had always planned to cross (I never said that when I "witnessed the funeral parade memorializing the people who have died and reading of all their names I was deeply moved. I crossed over because I wanted to be part of what had happened. I had anxiety, but once I was through the gap in the fence, it was like a rite of passage. I knew I had done the right thing." I never said anything even close, as it had been my intention all along to cross). It is unnerving to see statements that I have never made attributed to me, in quotes, even.

Lastly, I would just like to say that Pace e Bene is listed in the phone book, as am I, and in the future I would suggest that you take a few minutes to verify your story.

Laura Slattery,
received via e-mail

Editor's note: Our news item was based on a December 30 Oakland Tribune story, which also appeared in the Alameda Times Star of the same date. (It can be read at www.timesstar.com/Stories/0,1413,125%257E1486%257E1081151,00.html). The second quotation mentioned by Ms. Slattery was wrongly ascribed to her. The first quote, attributed to her by the Tribune, was the following: "they dumped the crosses with victims' names on them like trash in a heap but fondled the jacket and treated it with more respect than the crosses. I thought it was arrogant." We apologize for any confusion we may have caused.


A JUST WAR FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

The National Council of Churches, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious groups oppose the plan of the United States to disarm Iraq. They state that an attack would not meet the "just war" criteria articulated by the Christian Church for 2000 years.

All decisions that can affect human life have moral consequences and must be just decisions. The just war principles deserve profound consideration. Likewise, in this 21st century, the horrendous consequences of weapons of mass destruction deserve equal consideration. The teaching authority of all religious leaders includes a moral obligation to weigh these consequences. The morality of their decision to oppose the U.S. plan to preempt the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by a brutal sociopath dictator who has used them before, is questionable.

Religious leaders must also consider that the immoral decision of the terrorists to murder 3,000 civilians on 9-11 left 10,000 children without a mother or father, and 100,000 relatives without a loved one. This unprecedented immoral act and its traumatic human consequences was a 21st century Pearl Harbor. The United States and its coalition partners have a moral obligation to prevent future mass murder by a state or terrorists using nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. This preemptive war is not revenge or indiscriminate retribution. It is a 21st century necessary, moral and just war.

Mike DeNunzio,
Chairman,

San Francisco Republican Party

Editor's reply: The tradition of the Catholic Church insists that her just war principles do not merely deserve "profound consideration," but that they are the guiding principles in any act of war making. Among these principles is that warfare not target civilians, either by direct intention or by the use of indiscriminate means. From World War II to our own time, the United States has targeted civilians both ways -- and has given no evidence that it will, in the future, act otherwise. Though opposition to war with Iraq often centers on inessentials -- for instance, the question of multi-lateral as opposed unilateral war, of the role of the United Nations, of whether this war will be preemptive, etc. -- at its root, I think, is the conviction that our means of war making will not be sufficiently discriminate and will, therefore, be unjust. The 9-11 terrorist attack was truly diabolic; but unless one holds that one can fight evil by doing evil, one cannot argue that we can, even in self-defense, do to Iraqi civilians what Moslem terrorists have done to us. The moral law remains in effect, no matter what the century.


THE COURAGE OF KAVANAUGH

Monsignor Kavanaugh is the stuff of which this one, true, holy, apostolic Church is made. How many of us lament as the weak leaders of our Church "cave in" to political or monetary expediency? How few of us have Monsignor Kavanaugh's courage to take a stand for morally important issues? Truly, we must pray for the strength, or we will see the continuing erosion of the Faith and the Church.

I am sick of accepting the "good, faithful Catholics" such as Davis, who use the Church to get votes but do all in their power to pull the Church in to the quagmire of heresy with them. His pastor, Colm O'Ryan, cannot justify his position regarding Davis.

Lilyan Wood,
Crescent City


ANOTHER FOR KAVANAUGH

Kudos to Monsignor Kavanaugh for his forthright condemnation of Governor Davis' unapologetic stand on defending and promoting abortion.

Governor Davis' gross hypocrisy of claiming to be Catholic and yet supporting the killing of the innocent unborn has been rightfully challenged. Shamefully, Governor Davis attempts to be solicitous and sympathetic to the children of St. Patrick's home, yet where are his sympathies and compassion for the unborn murdered through the abortion procedure? Obviously political correctness is more important than moral obligations.

It also appears from the February Faith that Governor Davis' pastor, Father O'Ryan, at Good Shepherd church in Beverly Hills, condones the Governor's position.

Do we therefore cast stones and are we judgmental when attempting to uphold righteousness?

Vern Hunt,
Lucerne

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