Abstract
In 1976, Des Moines native Frank Cordaro graduated from the Aquinas Institute of Theology (then located in Dubuque), refused ordination in the Roman Catholic Church, and moved to Des Moines to found a Catholic Worker community of hospitality. From 1976 to 1982 when he left the Des Moines Catholic Worker house, Cordaro was the preeminent radical in Iowa. What follows is a study of Frank Cordaro as a rhetorical failure during the period in which he founded and guided the Des Moines Catholic Worker community.
It has been an infrequent practice in rhetorical studies to write about people who have merely local reputations; moreover, there exist but a handful of studies of people who have bid for influence rhetorically and failed, though the cautionary value of such studies is self-evident. Of course there is no shortage of reflection on major electoral campaigns, "show" trials, and other dialectical confrontations in which there is inevitably a loser. But I am thinking of something else: the attempt to introduce a new point of view, a new interpretive framework, into a community in order to influence the thought, relationships, and action that takes place there, and failing. In these terms, Frank Cordaro is a failed rhetor. Should the reader doubt either the accuracy or the usefulness of this claim, I propose the application of an acid test: would you recommend to others seeking revolutionary change (radical Christians or anyone else), would you teach others, to do as Frank Cordaro has done? We shall confidently answer the question "no" when we can identify the remediable "groundlessness" of Cordaro's public protests.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Speech Communication
Volume
18
Issue
1
First Page
13
Last Page
24
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Duncanson, W. Thomas
(1986)
"On Grounds of Conscience: The Failed Rhetoric of Frank Cordaro,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 18:
No.
1, Article 4.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol18/iss1/4
Copyright
©1986 Iowa Communication Association
