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Sir: It must be frankly admitted by Catholics that the "new theology" that preaches an atheistic secularism cannot be casually dismissed as a fad. It is too prominent, too widespread, and seeks to rock the essentials of a Christian faith that must articulate a position in the face of such a challenge. Our way of talking theism may very well be outdated, but God is not.
STEPHEN R. DE ANGELIS, S.J. Loyola Seminary Shrub Oak, N.Y.
Egg-Crate Camelot
Sir: You mistakenly support the current fad for blaming Detroit for our personal shortcomings. If cars were death-proof [April 1], if alcohol did not make you drunk, if the police were not brutal, if the Government would take care of me—ah, what a Camelot!
EARL SUNDERHAUS Ann Arbor, Mich.
Sir: The current safety committee hearings in Washington are getting votes and selling books, but accomplishing little else. There are too many people on the road who shouldn't be there, but as long as they can vote, the committee will continue to pass the buck to the automobile manufacturers. If driver-license standards were stiffened, judgment, mental and physical tests given, highway laws and signs made uniform, stiffer penalties for violations enforced, the remaining good drivers could go around in a four-wheeled egg crate and never splinter the wood.
PHILIP C. WALLWORK Safety Director Automobile Legal Association Boston
Sir: The Danes and Finns are just as tough as the Swedes about even slightly tipsy motor-vehicle operators. Violations cannot be fixed; Member of Parliament, clerk, street sweeper, all live in the same terror of flunking the blood-alcohol test and being clapped into jail. Time and again, when we lived in Denmark, friends with as few as two schnapps or highballs under their belts telephoned the police—who dispatched a courteous cop, free of charge, to drive them home.
NANCY AND TEMPLE FIELDING Balearic Islands, Spain
Lingering Melody
Sir: TIME was not objective in reporting sightings of unidentified flying objects [April 1]. Journalists are under no obligation to accept blindly explanations of the "authorities," especially when those explanations insult the integrity and intelligence of responsible observers. Probably a vast majority of sightings can be rationally explained, but we are not convinced that all observers are mistaken. WILLIAM BRAINARD, KATHERINE OLSON JOHN HUDELSON, WILLIAM JONES JR. Research Engineers, NASA Lewis Research Center Cleveland
Sir: Denying that UFOs exist simply because they "elude technical explanation" is typical of what the American public is expected to accept on this subject. Methane is inflammable but not musical! If, indeed, these objects were such stuff, whence came the whine? Methane is also odorless, a blessed quality lacking in your story. TIME has been scooped by Frank Mannor and all the rest of us who have had a glimpse of the century's greatest mystery.
LOIS SYMONS Southport, England
Sir: I wish to state most emphatically that civilizations superior by far to ours are very much alive on other planets within as well as beyond pur solar system, and that their representatives do pay visits to us here on earth.
K. LEXOW Pointe Claire, Quebec
Wrapping the Censors