Picking a Pope

To the Editors:

The manner in which you tie the Veni Creator Spiritus with I Corinthians 1: 20 in your cover story "In Search of a Pope" [Aug. 21] is inspirational. I was moved each time I read that paragraph, and I read it more than once. Imagine that: the spirit speaking through TIME! I can only say amen, and amen.

(The Rev.) M. Richard Bevan

Butler Christian Church

Butler, Ky.

Your cover story was concise and excellent. Your concluding words, "The touch of the divine, bringing tantalizing possibilities, may once again make foolish the wisdom of the world," were literary gems in a meaningful summary. Man will always be involved in the affairs of God, but room must always be left for God to be involved in the affairs of man.

Father Raphael Kamel

All Saints Catholic Church

Dallas

The article on Pope Paul's funeral, his Pontificate and the Conclave was a pleasure to read. Thanks to the team that gave us such a serious and balanced report.

Patrick V. Ahern

Auxiliary Bishop of New York

My prayer is that the new Pope identifies with the poor and oppressed of the world, so that future covers of TIME symbolizing the office will show a simple wooden cross--such as Bishop Dom Helder Camara wears--indicating a papacy that enters into the suffering of others.

Ruth McDonough Fitzpatrick

Fairfax, Va.

Let us pray that the next Pope has read TIME'S story, in the same issue, of vacationers packing the beaches and resorts along the Mediterranean, and does an about-face regarding birth control.

Sarah J. Metivier

Southbridge, Mass.

After reading the specifications of the ten theologians for a new Pope, I can see that the problem doesn't lie in finding a Pope to fit the Catholic religion, but in finding a religion that fits the Catholic Pope they want.

Francesca A. Larson

Edison, N.J.

It is singularly curious and inept of TIME to select Hans Kueng to comment on the qualifications for the next Pope. Kueng questions the fundamental bases of the papacy--its infallibility and primacy. Kueng has been judged by such a competent theologian as Karl Rahner to be little different from a liberal Protestant in numerous of his opinions about the church. In fact, Kueng has often sailed very close to objective heresy. Great choice indeed!

(The Rev.) Richard H. Trame, S.J.

Los Angeles

Teddy for President?

The stories on the choice of a Pope and on the presidential prospects of Ted Kennedy [Aug. 21] provide an ironic contrast. For Pope, there is a bewildering array of choices of men of proven ability and unblemished record, so that it is hard to pick a front runner. But for President, there seem to be few options. Ted Kennedy appears to be far and away the front runner. Yet he has little or no executive or military experience. His best friends would not maintain that he is of outstanding intellect or character, and his blemished past is a source of nagging doubt. Is there something wrong with our way of picking a President?

Lawrence Cranberg

Austin, Texas

I will be overjoyed when (and if) the people of this country begin to realize that there is nothing mystical or omnipotent about Ted Kennedy. He is just one of the run-of-the-mill liberal Democrats who want to spend taxpayer money with big, useless Government programs. If we think taxes are bad now, just wait till we get a national health plan.

Linda W. Atcheson

San Francisco

If the way Mr. Kennedy handles his personal life is any indication how he plans to run the country, I think he had best forget it--even if his name is Kennedy.

Linda Wilson

Trumbull, Conn.

Kennedy can give us what we need most, inspirational leadership.

Mrs. James Kalback

Pittsburgh

What's in a Name?

Frankly, I really enjoyed Trippett-ing through the TIME Essay, "The Game of the Name" [Aug. 14]. After all, what's in a name?

David L. Boone

Norfolk, Va.

After being born into a family whose last name began with a Z and growing up in a generation where alphabetically was the only way to go, I would be the last to resist taking my husband's surname. I am, happily,

(Mrs.) Jean Blair

Carlisle, Me.

Jews sometimes use a name change when a child is very sick in order to foil death. Chaim, meaning life, is often chosen as the new first name, so that when death comes looking for the child, it will not find him.

(Mrs.) Ann Isaacson

New York City

In Brazil, babies' names became so ridiculous that the government forbade any that could harm the child. Before the law you could find people with names like Umdoistres de Oliveira Quatro, meaning, One-two-three de Oliveira Four, and Rolando pela Escada a Baixo de Almeida, meaning, Rolling Down the Stairs de Almeida. A notary recently refused to register babies with the names Esquisofrenico, Hexagonal, Pugnacious, etc.

Rodolfo Lima Martensen

Sao Paulo

Not So New Elite

Beware of your cornucopia, young America. It is frightening to see that the "New Elite" [Aug. 21] have developed such a callous attitude toward savings and planning for the future. These individuals seem to think that they are something new and unique to this country. Unfortunately they are merely a repeat performance of an overextended, spendthrift, pre-Depression America. They are naive to think that the rug can't be pulled from under their Utopia via a recession, job layoffs or a death in the family. What these "college graduates" need is to recognize that today's new elite can also become tomorrow's newly impoverished.

Y. Paul Gee

Austin, Texas

Dedicated to our careers, we made the decision to opt for the no-child career-play life-style eleven years ago when we married, and backed it up with a vasectomy. What could be more apropos in this world of scarcities and overpopulation?

Stanley and Carolyn Rocklin

Grand Junction, Colo.

After eight years, my wife has just retired from her profession in order to raise a family. Before TIME arrived, we thought of ourselves as a more or less average middle-income family. How future shocking it was to learn that we had given up our membership in the new elite and joined the new poor before we realized either existed.

Peter D. Solymos

York, Pa.

Lampooning Sex

So, Animal House's "filthy, outrageous lot" [Aug. 14] are the perfect portrait of "the true spirit of American higher education"! Well, well. Wherever Frank Rich attended college, he is certainly not qualified to condemn the entire American system of higher education on the basis of his own limited experience. Perhaps he went to college "to spend four years studying sex," but there is no justification for dragging the entire undergraduate world down to that level.

Lisa M. Schnellinger

Sandusky, Ohio

As a '78 graduate of a small, fraternity-sorority-oriented college (Marietta College), I want to thank the people at National Lampoon for creating Animal House and thus providing me with a visual-aid supplement to my overly ambiguous resume. They captured on film what I couldn't on paper.

Richard G. Trachtenburg

Avon, Conn.

Rich completely missed the boat on John Belushi; "fat comic actor" indeed! Jackie Gleason is a fat comic. Belushi is a brilliant Marlon Brando type who maybe needs to lose 20 Ibs. There's a significant--and very sexy--distinction!

Joanne Pytlik

Louise Lacey

Kentfield, Calif.

Carter's Tobacco Row

"The Politics of Tobacco" [Aug. 21] is a prime example of the non-leadership Jimmy Carter brings to the U.S. While he's off courting votes among the North Carolina tobacco farmers and claiming back in Washington that his Administration is behind preventive medicine, millions of cigarette smokers are puffing their way to the grave.

Fred Price

Houston

By highlighting the negative aspects of cigarette smoking through the HEW campaign and the positive aspects of tobacco farming during his North Carolina trip, the President has contributed to the national debate on this issue. Though Hugh Sidey may be confused by these activities, President Carter has walked a fine but reasonable line of tobacco politics.

David Grim

Reston, Va.

Yates' Cautionary Nerve

John Skow, you say that Dick Yates' new novel A Good School [Aug. 21] is first-rate, acute and impeccable and then slap him down somewhat scornfully at the end. You say his work comes close to fear, whatever that's supposed to say as a literary evaluation. I would have thought you'd applaud that cautionary nerve in Yates when we have so many books so bravely fearless and forgotten. Fear is a quality to be admired in a writer of Yates' integrity. If he has fear, how can the rest of us afford not to have it? A Teddy Roosevelt is one thing and a dedicated, comparatively impersonal artist like Yates another.

Seymour Krim

New York City

New York's Seductive Charm

As a Texan who spent the summer studying there, I found your article on New York [Aug. 21] exhilarating. It touched me and, oddly, left me with a feeling of pride for a city that isn't, by birth, mine. That, perhaps, is New York's most seductive charm: in one way or another, it belongs to anyone who wishes to claim it.

Douglas McGrath

Midland, Texas

So New York has bounced back. So what? One week I read where New Yorkers have to clean up after their dogs, and the next week they're all wearing I LOVE NEW YORK T shirts. I wish your editors would quit scheduling stories about their neighborhood. How many readers really care about the Big Apple anyway?

Carl Briggs

Tempe, Ariz.

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