The Mail

The Revd Richard Wheatcroft, Irving, TX     My copy of Covenant/19 came yesterday. An excellent issue. The article "Local Options" by William Carroll is the best anaylsis of the mess I have read. It deserves wide distribution.

Benjamin Disraeli, Queen's Court, UK     Journals such as yours are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of them are nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man (sic) was the invention of printing.

The Revd Scott Lee, Little Rock, AR    If, following the Windsor Report, we discover that we are not speaking a common language, then we were not speaking a common language before it was issued. The actions taken at General Convention cannot be blamed for the lack of a common language. The lack of a common language is the reality in the context of which the General Convention took its actions. To recriminate the General Convention for the lack of a common language is akin to shooting the messenger.

The Revd Michael Hopkins, Rochester, NY     (The death of John Paul II) is a difficult day for me and for many people. I truly grieve with my Roman Catholic sisters and brothers, sharing in the loss of a great defender of the poor and oppressed, as well as a great leader of the Church. But I have also spent countless pastoral hours with lesbian and gay people whom John Paul called intrinsically evil and, most recently, whose civil rights he called part of "a new ideology of evil."

How incredibly sad that a champion of the oppressed, and a great lover of humanity, could not find it in his heart to love in this regard, in fact, chose to label with the harshest word Christians have at their disposal. I hope (history) will honor the Pope, but also recognize there were those left on the margins and, in some cases, pushed over the edge.

Georg Lichtenberg, Wherever, TN   Your journal is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to peer out.

Canon P D Quirk, Phantasia, TN   It is common knowledge that your bishop thinks that your publication has caused the crippling divisions in your diocese. Mightn't you have done better? You should be ashamed.

[COVENANT, Number 20, April 2005]