Who Wants a Third Eye Anyway?

I take my title from the last line of the afterword, written by John Cogley, to this collection of essays by twenty-two younger Catholic intellectuals. If there is a Third Eye fitted into the ocular equipment of these men, it is a colossal tear jerker. I have never in my life read so much downright whining in any other 245 pages pressed together to make a book. This generation may go with a bang but it has certainly come in with a whimper. The writers among them complain about bad reviews. The teachers complain about repressive university administrations. Almost everybody beats the poor parish priest over the head and absolutely nobody has a good word for the Knights of Columbus or the Holy Name Society. The rank and file laity, those big slobs who never heard of Teilhard de Chardin and who could not care less about the mystique of the Dialogue, get a big bad time for their indifference to liturgical reform and for their residual conservatism. Favorite targets are Goldwater, national REVIEW, Madame Nhu, and Cardinal Ottaviani.

Generation of the Third Eye: Young Catholic Leaders View Their Church, edited by Daniel Callahan. Sheed & Ward, $4.95

FW

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Frederick D. Wilhelmsen

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Georgetown University

Martin Luther King Jr

I take my title from the last line of the afterword, written by John Cogley, to this collection of essays by twenty-two younger Catholic intellectuals. If there is a Third Eye fitted into the ocular equipment of these men, it is a colossal tear jerker. I have never in my life read so much downright whining in any other 245 pages pressed together to make a book. This generation may go with a bang but it has certainly come in with a whimper. The writers among them complain about bad reviews. The teachers complain about repressive university administrations. Almost everybody beats the poor parish priest over the head and absolutely nobody has a good word for the Knights of Columbus or the Holy Name Society. The rank and file laity, those big slobs who never heard of Teilhard de Chardin and who could not care less about the mystique of the Dialogue, get a big bad time for their indifference to liturgical reform and for their residual conservatism. Favorite targets are Goldwater, national REVIEW, Madame Nhu, and Cardinal Ottaviani.

Generation of the Third Eye: Young Catholic Leaders View Their Church, edited by Daniel Callahan. Sheed & Ward, $4.95