Following are NCR reader responses to recent news articles, opinion columns and theological essays with letters that have been edited for length and clarity.
Defending Tim Busch
Reading Tom Roberts’ Holy Week fusillade against Tim Busch, Tom Monaghan, Ryan Anderson, Leonard Leo, George Weigel, and Fr. Robert Sirico makes me wonder: Does Roberts actually know any of these people (NCR, April 16, 2025)?
Whatever one makes of Busch’s assessment of the Trump Administration, this White House is not remotely “libertarian.” Its tariffs and immigration limitations are antithetical both to unfettered capitalism and to Big Business. And there has been no greater cheerleader for the abortion-on-demand and gender ideologies that Trump resists than Corporate America.
Moreover, it is unjust to deride Busch and Monaghan as being governed by “unbounded economic ambitions.” Busch contributed tens of millions to The Catholic University of America School of Business and founded the Napa Institute, just as Monaghan established Legatus, to help business leaders keep Christ at the center of their work and philanthropy. Isn’t that a good thing?
Last year, Busch organized a 3,500-person Eucharistic procession through New York, literally bringing Jesus to the city’s streets. Yet Roberts mocks this effort as “project[ing] a muscular Catholicism beyond the reach of ordinary people.” What could be more within the reach of ordinary people than a street procession?
Catholic social teaching permits a wide range of economic perspectives that embrace neither the libertarian nor Marxist extremes, where Catholics can disagree without accusing one another of bad faith or donning a deceptive “veneer of piety.” Roberts seems to have fallen into that all-too-common trap of assuming the worst about one’s political opponents without making much effort to understand them.
PAUL O'REILLY
Santa Paula, California
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'Tone-deaf' cartoon
I cannot express how strongly I disagree with author Phyllis Zagano's interpretation and unjustified anger presented in the article "Tone-deaf Holy Week cartoon shows The New Yorker's disdain for religion" (NCR, April 27, 2025). I'm shocked an editor didn't politely explain "you don't seem to get the joke." The cartoon is not making fun of Christianity or Judaism, it is making fun of our own society's commercialization of Easter. It's actually quite funny to juxtapose the seriousness of the Last Supper with what is now the ubiquitous chocolate bunny and candy most people associate with Easter celebration. Feigning outrage at this, or worse, actually being outraged, does more to detract people from religion than it does draw people to support it.
MATT MALLIN
Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
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Overreacting
Phyllis Zagano is overreacting to The New Yorker cartoon about Jesus and the chocolate bunny (NCR, April 27, 2025). I'm relieved that she didn't declare a fatwa on the cartoonist. I thought the mood of the cartoon was sweet, with Jesus and the disciplines all looking very earnest — and it was funny!
You could even read into it the appropriate theological message that the candy celebrations around Easter have nothing to do with the Eucharistic mysteries, they're just a "fun springtime treat." I admire her commentary on the Church's response to clergy child abuse and the need for female deacons (and priests), but this time she picked the wrong cause to champion.
TERRY NICHOLS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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