Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

He's right. Nobody cares about his sex life, so why did he bring it up?

October (1981). The bass guitar by Adam Clayton is incredible. Follow it along from beginning to end and you'll see what I mean. Clayton has to be ranked as one of the greatest bass guitarists in rock and roll. If I'm wrong about this, John Sullivan will let me know.

[T]he Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of the social order.

(Barry M. Goldwater, The Conscience of a Conservative, ed. CC Goldwater, The James Madison Library in American Politics, ed. Sean Wilentz [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007 (first published in 1960)], 5)

Note from KBJ: This isn't conservatism; it's libertarianism. Goldwater's book is misnamed.

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To the Editor:

Re “The Pope and the Birth Control Ban” (editorial, Sept. 21):

Pope Francis needs to listen to Catholic lay people about how the church’s rules affect their lives.

A mechanism already exists for the church to change its prohibition on artificial birth control in a theologically sound, well-established and face-saving way.

It is called “sensus fidelium,” or the “sense of the faithful.” It holds that a widespread (approaching universal) agreement among the clergy and the faithful on an issue indicates truth. Your editorial cites statistics that suggest that this has already been achieved regarding birth control, and, further, that Pope Paul VI acted in opposition to the sensus fidelium.

PATRICIA SOUTHWARD

Banner Elk, N.C.

I thought Taco Bell's "fourthmeal" advertising campaign was obscene. They were (are?) simply catering to their customers' desires for nonstop eating.

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To the Editor:

What a pity that Benedicta Cipolla (“My Father, the Priest,” Sunday Review, Sept. 20) didn’t suggest that women be ordained to fill the Catholic Church’s desperate need for more priests. But we women know that the church would prefer any man, even an ordained priest of another religion, to a woman.

One of the world’s truest aphorisms is “to exclude is to revile,” and while we may welcome Pope Francis to New York, there are many of us who feel a sinking in our souls to know that he will never consider us equals or worthy of joining the sacred brotherhood of clerics.

Male gods and male clerics: How weary we are!

FENGAR GAEL

New York

Note from KBJ: I'm not Roman Catholic, but I attend mass with Katherine every Sunday. I have no strong opposition to female priests, provided they're trained as well as male priests. What say you?