Friday, September 12, 2003
After reading the garbage-laden letter from Grove City‘s Walter Carson about the PSO and the Pope (“PSO, say no to the Pope,” Feedback, Sept. 5), I pondered just what would constitute an appropriate reply. Carson presents such moronic vituperation and egregious insults I knew I could not reply in kind as I consider myself a member of the human race and a person fairly tolerant of other people’s views.
My policy was sorely tested when I read this diatribe against the Holy Father, John Paul II, the Catholic Church and the church hierarchy. I had to stop and remember that I spent some time in the South Pacific in WWII to help insure that such lunatic ravings were assured publication in a free press.
How to reply to such outrage and provocation? Thank heaven I remembered my old philosophy professor, Father Schenning at Duquesne University back in the 1950s. He taught ethics, logic, theology, cosmology, etc. And he cautioned that we would someday run across the Carsons in this otherwise civilized world.
He said that we might meet a person who claimed that two plus two equals five, and that we could take him to court and bring evidence and witnesses including Albert Einstein, to prove that two plus two equals four. While the jury and the judge would agree with us unanimously, Carson would be out in the corridor after the verdict, screaming “Two plus two equals five!”
Father Schenning’s advice: “When one argues with a fool, there are two fools arguing.”
I congratulate Grove City for tolerating such fools in their midst.
JACK O’NEIL
Sewickley