Church in Crisis

Sir: Exalt ye citizens of the secular state, for the Roman Catholic Bishops of the U.S., supposedly in communion with the See of Peter, have essentially repudiated the legitimate teachings of the Roman Pontiff [Nov. 22]. Who knows, these enlightened individuals may next choose to elect their own "assistant Pope" who somehow will share the teaching authority of the Pontiff. And someday the Church of Rome may be declared to be nothing more than a schismatic sect!

GERALD MICHAEL SCHNABEL Assistant Professor of History Bemidji State College Bemidji, Minn.

Sir: "Saintly reformers" among the dissidents in the Catholic Church? You've got to be kidding. When did the church ever canonize anyone for pride and disobedience? It is the Holy Father who is holding the church together. Nowadays, everyone is infallible but the Pope.

And what's this about traditional Catholics being "peasants" and uneducated? I happen to be a college graduate, but I'd rather be a humble peasant than a vainglorious "do-it-yourself" theologian.

DOROTHY BRODINE New Rochelle, N.Y.

Sir: Life for everyone is enough of a struggle. Human beings need a religion based on compassion and understanding, as opposed to one that emphasizes the threat of hell. Catholicism will truly be tried when it unshackles the compact majority and forces it to make its own decisions on matters of faith and morals. The hierarchy may discover that this majority would indeed be harder on itself than the institution would ever dare to be.

A historian said: "There is nothing wrong with religion, it just hasn't been tried yet." If he were alive, I think he might agree that it is being tried now.

CONSTANCE MALAK Madison, Wis.

Sir: The Vatican's inflexibility with respect to altering long-held dogmas should surprise no one. The whole Ecumenical movement has never resulted in any substantial changes, only in talk about changes. The rulings that the Mass may be sung in English, that it isn't a sin to eat meat on Friday, and that the Jews didn't kill Christ after all, are hardly of major importance. On all the significant issues--birth control, divorce, abortion, censorship --the church hasn't budged an inch.

GARDNER WHITCOMB Manhattan

Sir: Perhaps Cardinal O'Boyle is at least partly correct when he says that many of us wish to tear down everything and put nothing in its place. We do, indeed, put "no thing" in its place. We put what we find to be true relationship with God there. And that's not a "thing." We find it a very real abstract.

If we continue to communicate our conscientious internalizations of faith with one another, we will continue to see the natural, healthy tension that is keeping--or making--us more alive than we've been in years. And it's great to be alive!

CHARLES F. LIST Catechist

Our Lady Queen of All Saints School of Religion Fraser, Mich.

Imperial Image

Sir: This likeness of the Emperor Vespasian [979 A.D.] from the Bardo Museum in Tunis, may well interest any of your Texas readers who are themselves concerned with their place in history.

JAMES LOCK Halifax, England

Looking Forward

Sir: I am overjoyed at the well-deserved victory of President-elect Nixon [Nov. 15]. I will look forward to honest government, black capital instead of black welfare, responsible budget, practicality and common sense and greater respect for the U.S., which the Nixon Administration should provide. It will be a refreshing change.

HUNTLEY GILL Lawrenceville, N.J.

Sir: You say that Jewish voters, many upper-middle-class whites, Negroes, women, McCarthyites, blue-collar workers, young professionals and white-collar workers in the East, all turned out heavily for Mr. Humphrey. Southerners voted for Mr. Wallace. Apparently Mr. Nixon was elected solely by wealthy white Christian male Americans outside of the South. Amazing!

ROBERT H. ELLINGHAUSEN Corpus Christi, Texas

Sir: When I was a little boy, my mother told me that anyone could become President. Now I know what she meant.

WILLIAM C. DAVISON Philadelphia

Sir: Yes, Americans want a change. To have Richard Nixon win by such a small percentage of votes at a time when Americans are drastically searching for new leadership shows the fantastic amount of hate this country has for that man.

RICHARD MOSES Pittsburgh

Sir: If the liberal President before him could not appease a raucous Negro population with heavy legislation for human rights, how is the comparatively conservative Nixon expected to do so? If a liberal Democratic President could not manage a liberal Democratic Congress, how is the conservative Republican expected to maneuver the same Congress? If the leader of a labor-oriented political party could not pacify the rebellious labor unions, how is the leader of a big-business-oriented party expected to reason with labor? If the President who was swept into office in 1964 on the largest majority vote ever could not unite his country, how can Nixon, who twice before lost elections and won the last time with a minority of the popular vote, unify the people?

J. H. WANT Richmond

Sir: I can think of nothing more disastrous for the future of America than Mr. Nixon's talk of unity. The last time we were blessed with unity was during the togetherness Administration of President Eisenhower, which turned out to be a period of absolute torpor.

This nation was born as the result of heated contention between loyalists and revolutionaries. The rise of the common people took place during the controversial presidency of Andrew Jackson. The end of slavery was brought about during the war between the states. The great Depression produced human progress unequaled until the divisive Johnson Administration.

Now, when we are on the threshold of true emancipation for the poor and the black, Richard Nixon talks of unity. If you must, Mr. Nixon, give us your worst, but please, spare us from unity.

WILLIAM D. MUIR Sacramento

Winning by Losing

Sir: I found your Essay, "The Difficult Art of Losing" [Nov. 15], most interesting. There is no doubt that in the Western world the tradition of publicly conceding defeat to a political opponent has been well established. I think Americans have reached a high point of civilization by having made this beautiful and courageous practice an important part of their way of life.

We in Asia and Africa, where emotions, hatred, bitterness, extreme and uncompromising views are common in politics, have a lot to learn from the restraint and dignity that is generally the hallmark of Western politics.

AMEEN KHORASANEE Karachi, West Pakistan

Sir: TIME refers to the strains placed on losers by the Western trait Spengler called Faustian--the refusal to believe in a static order or a fixed fate. It then gives left-handed praise to dropping out and says that even Faustian man must gracefully acknowledge some power beyond himself. You should not promote the idea that our business in this world is to fail in good spirits. If there is to be a decline of the West-a West which is now centered on a most Faustian America--that decline will begin with a readiness to accept defeat.

MICHAEL A. G. MICHAUD A.P.O., New York

Sir: Before we make an art out of losing let us heed the words of Charlie Brown, who, after a particularly disastrous day on the mound, was reminded by Linus that "winning isn't everything." Charlie said, "Losing isn't anything."

VERNON R. GUTMAN Pittsburgh

Sir: I would add General Douglas Mac-Arthur's words to the cadets at West Point before an Army-Navy game: "From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea--written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo: There is no substitute for victory!''

PAT M. STEVENS IV Captain, U.S.A. West Point, N.Y.

Sir: Sour grapes or bitter wine, I'll still rage till we can proudly hail the day when we select candidates on their records and not their Madison Avenue images. Meanwhile, for the victors and the vanquished, "There are things more precious than political victory--there is the right to political contest"--Adlai Stevenson.

KENNETH C. SANDERSON Auburn, Ala.

Abortion or No?

Sir: Re "Progress Report on Liberalized Abortion" [Nov. 15]: Who has the right to play God and destine the fate of an innocent child by taking its life, on the grounds that there was a likely chance it would have been born defective? Or because the mental health of the mother is at stake? It's absolutely ridiculous! Let's fight legalized abortion before they decide to legalize adult "justifiable" murder!

JUDY SALENBIEN Maybee, Mich.

Sir: Abortion on demand? Absolutely. Ask the woman who has needed one. She is the only relevant statistic.

SUSAN BROWNMILLER Manhattan

Sir: Last month a jury in Kings County Supreme Court awarded $100,000 to a child whose mother had been refused an abortion, and $10,000 to its parents. The awards were believed to be the first of their kind in the nation. The case is expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the mother had been granted permission to have an abortion performed after she had contracted German measles in her fifth week of pregnancy, the permission was rescinded when she was wheeled into the hospital's operating room. The child was born totally deaf, partially blind, spastic and mentally retarded.

(MRS.) ANNE BAYER Bohemia, N.Y.

A New Medium

Sir: The Bishop Pike story concerning survival of personality after death [Nov. 15] was a pleasant change of pace from the usual melange of sterile theology and interchurch squabbling.

Once again Bishop Pike will be roundly condemned for abandoning the orthodox methods stipulated by his church, but it may be that Pike has a better chance of finding worthy answers through so-called "mediums" than through antiquated theological mysteries. It is commendable when a man of the cloth shows that he prefers an honest search and not empty pontification.

M. W. GIESKIENG JR. Denver

Sir: I wonder how Bishop Pike can communicate with his dead son Jim if the Word of God plainly states that "the dead know nothing" and that "the dead do not praise the Lord." I believe that Bishop Pike and some of his friends are on dangerous if not devilish ground.

UDO WORSCHECH Pastor

Seventh-Day Adventist Church Beiseker, Alberta

Sir: Why do people insist on hanging on to those they have loved in life? Why not love them enough to set them free to complete their destinies? Bishop Pike's own faith should tell him his son is all right without seances, psychological agonizing and pseudo-scientific gesturing.

MURIEL HASKELL Claremont, Calif.

Sir: God is personal and becomes a target for exploitation the moment an organized group claims an "in" road to God's throne. Bishop Pike is trying to find a personal experience in order to believe beyond his intellectual rationale in an image that is false. Godhead, ultimately, is a collective self-perception impossible to see or perceive individually, yet moving and flowing knowingly over all. If all men could be one, the whole would be as good and wise as the individual who watches the mad mob and feels pity for its senseless action.

(MRS.) ALYCE JOYCE Middlebush, N.J.

Mettlesome

Sir: One suspects your critique of Donald Siegel's new picture, Coogan's Bluff [Nov. 15], was written in the confines of a smelting plant. Consider Clint Eastwood as "steelyeyed" and "iron-jawed." What fun his makeup man must have daubing him with Rustoleum! Then there is a Siegel swipe at the "brass." Completing the alloy, we have the co-star of this melting pot: Tisha Sterling. TIME'S critic may now take his place 'neath Longfellow's spreading chestnut tree as he hammers out his reviews.

DON BOWMAN Hamburg, Germany

Sir: Congratulations on having no goddam puns in the Cinema section this week [Nov. 15].

JOHN HUSTON

Berlin

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