THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer’s name, city, and state.
*1*
Jonathan V. Last is a bit off on a few things in A Curious Kind of Catholic. The Paulist Center was not founded in 1970–it was originally an “information center” founded by the Paulists in the 1940s where people interested in Catholicism could come to take instruction in the faith. It underwent changes after the Vatican Council and when the current system of welcoming new Catholics, called the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, came into being in the 1960s and 1970s.
I am unaware of Last’s qualifications for proclaiming the Paulist Center community, which is accepted as a Catholic community by the Archbishop of Boston, as “Catholic, but not really, more like Episcopalian lite or orthodox Unitarian.” Was he suddenly vested with the authority to excommunicate people? I know everyone wants to do it these days.
Of course, Catholic authorities like the Pope himself are very reluctant to declare who is and isn’t Catholic (they rarely even do that with people like Mel Gibson who attend Masses associated with schismatic groups) for good reason. No one but God knows the heart and soul of another person, let alone a community of persons. So shut up, stop using the Paulist Center community as your spiritual prop in an otherwise legitimate political debate in an election year.
–Father Brett Hoover, CSP
*2*
I have maintained that it is impossible to:
(1) Recite the words “We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church” that are in the Nicene Creed recited each Sunday at Mass, and
(2) Believe that you are in “communion” with the same “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church,” if you are a supporter of abortion rights, and
(3) Present oneself to receive the Eucharist worthily while holding both (1) and (2).
I now understand how one avoids the conflict: Don’t recite the sentence in the Nicene Creed that states your belief in the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church,” or better yet excise that belief from the Creed like they do at the Paulist Center in Boston.
–Rudy Andras
*3*
I was greatly amused by Matt Labash’s column on one of the more over-rated figures in popular culture, Hugh Hefner. (Bunny Love)
As usual, Labash pens an entertaining column well worth reading, even by a Democrat such as myself. And he’s right on the mark pointing out what pretentious ass Hugh Hefner is.
One area I would hope we could agree upon across the political spectrum is that as a society we need to ask just where the bottom is in our race to culturally get there. But, before we rush to add another “decency” law, wouldn’t it be great if the free market, which is ultimately “us,” would throw Hefner in the trash heap by refusing to financially participate?
–Kevin Woods
*4*
The cyclists who participate in the Tour de France have a peculiar code of conduct which has a lot to do with fair play and leaving room for others. (Emily Berns, Individual Glory) Typically, when the Tour enters a particular region like the Basque country, the teams and participants from that region are allowed prominence during that day. Or, cyclists will, on their birthday, be allowed to gain some extra points for the day. This year, there was a cyclist who was going to be greeted by his wife and kids along the road, and for this little reunion, the field allowed him to escape and greet his family as the leader.
It was in this spirit that a German rival of Armstrong’s descended from his bike when Armstrong had an accident, and waited until he could continue. And the German was only reciprocating the similar gesture by Armstrong the year before, when the American had waited for him after he had fallen. And it was exactly because Armstrong in the past had displayed such game spirit, that this year the journalists in what Berns derides as “Old Europe” were stunned when Armstrong showed that he did not only want the bread which he so much deserved. He also took the crumbs.
Do you really believe this to be typical of America?
–Michael Zapf
*5*
Emily Berns writes that “The truth is more that ambitious Americans are driven–truly driven–not only to do their best but to prove their worth time and again.”
In French, we’ve a word for that: l’Art et la Manière.
Lance Armstrong is the first for the Art but he lacks la Manière.
–Michel de Saghan
*6*
Terry Eastland is right on target. (Edwards and the Religion Gap) We are a moderate Republican family: husband, wife, and three kids in college. My kids all registered to vote this summer without any prompting on my part.
On the day John Kerry picked John Edwards, my son called me from his job at an United Methodist Church camp to tell me that he is “for sure voting for Kerry.” Which so far makes two votes for Kerry from this moderate Republican family–with maybe more to come.
–Sydney Poore
*7*
When I asked a German friend what he thought of Lance Armstrong, he responded: “He is a machine.” And he did not mean this in a good way. For him it was not a good quality for someone to be so focused. Another criticism was that he rarely smiles, and doesn’t seem to be an affable guy–all in all a machine. But during the Tour de France I heard a reporter say that Armstrong was trying to smile more, and he had learned some French in order to interact better. I thought, what more could be asked of one of the greatest sportsman of all times?
–Andres Hernandez
*8*
Stephen F. Hayes slamming Jay Rockefeller as if he was going back on his word is a little bit disingenuous and perhaps misses a critical point. (Additional Views)
The issue was not whether the president was justified in reaching the conclusion he reached, but whether there was a basis to go to war. That’s very narrow ground: At what point is the national security of the United States threatened to such a degree that war is the only alternative? It’s why going to war in Afghanistan was the right thing to do–al Qaeda was there, we knew it, and they attacked us.
But Iraq is another matter and in taking a nation to war, Congress must be allowed the time to examine the sufficiency of the evidence. Our government did not allow the constitutional machinery to work.
–Bruce Maiman
*9*
Martha Stewart may have some very admirable qualities and Larry Miller is right in saying that she is getting viciously pilloried in the press recently. (Not Afraid of Anything Whatsoever) It is an old axiom that the only thing the press loves more than a celebrity is a fallen or tarnished celebrity. Mrs. Stewart’s situation is a textbook example.
However, Mrs. Stewart’s halo is legitimately tarnished. She did commit a crime, or at least she seems to have, given the best efforts of our criminal justice system. It’s worth shedding tears for a great woman’s turn to criminality and it’s worth raging against our culture’s obsession with the destruction of people, but Martha Stewart does not deserve this much sympathy, particularly not for a 5 month prison sentence.
–Ben Isaac
*10*
I read David Tell’s Inside Baseball and, as a Red Sox fan, I can say: I guess there’s a little good in everybody.
–Geoffrey Pereira
