LETTERS
2003 LETTERS
December
November
October
September
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January
ARTICLES
NEWS
ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
January 2003
THE FAILURE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE MEDIA
"Bush is for abortion!" a group of about 200 Latino Catholic school parents shouted unanimously when I asked them if President George W. Bush was pro-life or pro-abortion. Being a board member of Hispanics for Life, I was invited to speak at St. Joachim Parish in Costa Mesa to a Spanish-speaking audience about voting pro-life. I was shocked to find that this group of mostly Mexican immigrants believed that Democrats were pro-life and that Republicans were pro-abortion.
When I asked how they had reached this conclusion, one parent argued that Bush supports stem cell research. I clarified President Bush's stand while still baffled by the comment. This response meant that they were well aware of the issues; it was the candidates and their platforms that they were confused about. When I informed them that Loretta Sanchez was pro-abortion, it was as if I had drenched them with buckets of cold water. Some had doubts, and in order to convince them that their beloved Democratic politician was pro-abortion, I was forced to give them specific examples about her pro-abortion voting record.
Where did this group get their information? Spanish-language media. Most of the parents present had seen the television advertisement on Spanish-language television, where Loretta Sanchez voiced her support for Gray Davis. "Gray Davis is for abortion?" one parent asked me. After my yes to this question, there was only silence from a group that had been actively participating at the beginning of my presentation.
I live in a typical Latino home where, as long as there is someone home, the television is on, no matter what the programming. And when the television is not on, the radio most certainly is. My grandfather sits at the dinner table every evening reading headlines out loud. We Latinos rely mostly on these sources to receive all our information about politics. Based on this fact and the input I gathered from these 200 parents, I conclude that the Spanish-language media has failed miserably in their journalistic commitments to inform the people. Even a few weeks before the elections, the people are ignorant of both parties' platforms and the positions of elected officials. We have been seriously misinformed and let down.
While we Latinos do care about immigration issues championed most often by Democrats and most often showcased by the media, hands down, from our children to our grandparents, we would rather go hungry in our countries of origin than see unborn babies die.
Diana Bennett,
received via e-mail
WHERE'S THE ZEAL?
I get the feeling that the Sisters of Providence, who run Holy Cross and St. Joseph's hosptials, are uncomfortable referring patients for abortions, even when asked, but a policy is only as good as the people who implement it. [See "They Walk With the Devil," September 2002 Mission.] The Pregnancy Counseling Center's newsletter said the young lady wanted alternatives, not an abortion. So why was she referred? What gives? A quietly pro-choice nurse could do a lot of damage. I can imagine: "would you like to know a place you could go to take care of this?" The girl, in her confusion, nods yes.
Is the hospital vigilant about whom it hires? A policy easily degenerates into just a piece of paper without an esprit de corps, without, in this case, what the pope calls a culture of life. And a culture of life rejects more than just surgical abortion. Does the hospital refer patients somewhere for birth control, morning-after pills, or sterilization? Are they keen on this stuff, or are their feet dragging?
I saw in the newspaper that the nurses at St. Joseph's in Burbank were about to form a union and asked the archdiocese's Commission on Justice and Peace to investigate the hospital's relations with the nurses. Will the commission deal with the abortion-referral issue? Do justice and peace get recognized for those too immature to walk around? Or will the archdiocese act with the same blind spot as our pagan society? The nurses in their negotiations with the hospital should demand something for the babies that pass through a Catholic hospital in their mother's wombs. Their union should demand a safe work environment for all.
Where is the Church in all of this? Why hasn't the bishop or the cardinal or the pope called the sisters in and told them that they might lose their accreditation with the Almighty if this goes on? Where's the zeal?
The cardinals attended to the priests' scandal with a zero-tolerance policy. How about a zero-tolerance policy here, where the victims don't live long enough to file lawsuits?
Joe O'Brien
VERY BAD
Please do not send your so-called newspaper to us. We throw it in the garbage as soon as it arrives. Your paper is very bad and not good for faith in Jesus.
Holy Trinity Church,
Greenfield
ON YOUR KNEES, EDITORS!
There is no doubt that there is some truth in your paper, but so often the articles are very critical and tend to break down the Church, and are offensive even to good Catholics.
The November issue, with its very large ad condemning Medjugorje, is most misleading. Medjugorje has not been condemned by the local bishop; in fact, the Franciscans are working closely with him to provide authentic Catholic worship and access to the Sacraments as the Yugoslavia bishops recommended several years ago, and they are faithful in preaching the Gospel message, prayer and penance, and the need for personal holiness and conversion. It would be to your advantage to visit Medjugorje and see how the grace of God is working there.
The priests there do hear many complaints from people about their pastors back home, and the recommendation to them is not to criticize the priests, but to pray for them. You know as well as I do that the real enemy in all the trouble in the Church and in the world today is the devil. And Jesus said, "this kind is driven out only by prayer and fasting." Those are two cornerstones of the Medjugorje message. Thank God that many people are listening to it and are bringing about wonderful changes in their own lives and in the lives of many around them who are influenced by their good example. Perhaps if editors and writers would spend more time on their knees before the Blessed Sacrament and gaze into the Face of Jesus, as Our Holy Father recommends in his recent letter on the rosary, then things would change for the better and they would look into the face of Jesus, Who looked into the face of His Father to know His will and how to build up the Kingdom. Why not try it? May the Holy Spirit of Wisdom enlighten and teach you.
Father Gabriel M. Weber, O.S.M.
Mt. Carmel Church,
Denver, Colorado
Editor replies: Father Weber, seems to say that somehow the problems in the Church arise from the failure of editors and writers to "spend more time on their knees before the Blessed Sacrament." Indeed, that may be part of it, but not the whole of it. (And, I wonder, how does Father Weber know how much time we spend on our knees?) Part of the blame for the state of the Church, at least, would seem to lie with bishops and priests who have been unfaithful to the teachings and traditions of the Church. To claim that papers like the Mission break down the Church by reporting on the destructive acts of bishops, priests and other Catholics is to confuse causes. To complain that our articles are "very critical" is to complain that our writers think. It is to complain that they are exposing ev il in light of the truth.
It is true that one should not criticize the personalities and foibles of priests -- or of anyone else, for that matter. But one can, and at times must, criticize and denounce the errors of priests -- or anyone else -- especially if those errors are destructive to souls. Ordination does not give one the right to utter heresy with impunity, and a layman's confirmation forbids him the leisure of ignoring heresy when uttered. The layman has the duty, both to himself and to his brothers, to withstand the false teachings even of prelates.
And as for Medjurgorje, the Yugoslavian bishops conference, in 1991, declared: "on the basis of investigation up till now it cannot be established that one is dealing with supernatural apparitions or revelations." In 1984, the Yugoslavian bishops said that Catholic leaders, including priests and nuns, could not organize official pilgrimages to the shrine until its authenticity was established. Vatican officials concurred in 1985.
ONLY TWO ARE SLEEVELESS
Hey, look, I realize that a lot of people don't like the new cathedral, and there is certainly much room for criticism.
However, as someone who regularly attends the 7 a.m. weekday Mass there, I must take issue with Ron Graydon's accusation, in the December issue [see "Goddess Saints," Letters], that "in the tapestries on the walls of the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles are one or more women pictured as sleeveless as the ancient Greek goddess Athena."
I walked up and down the aisles this morning, examining each and every one of the figures depicted on the tapestries in the cathedral, and saw exactly TWO people who might vaguely fit that description. One was Mary Magdalen, who is wearing a long, flowing and, yes, sleeveless robe; and the other is John the Baptist, whose bare arms are raised in prayer.
Now you might be able to make a case that Mary Magdalen resembles the Greek goddess Athena, though I personally don't see it. However, I seriously doubt that anyone would mistake John the Baptist for a Greek goddess, unless you can find one that is male, Jewish and has massive amounts of facial hair.
And I'm sure anyone who's that desperate to criticize the new Cathedral can find one.
Christine Lehman,
Los Angeles
YOU HAVE DEFAMED BISHOP SHEEN
"He who steals my purse steals only trash, but he who steals my good name steals all my treasure."
Dead men cannot rise to defend their reputations against calumny and slander, so we who remain on this side of eternity must arise to the occasion and do it for them.
A letter to the editor in the November 2002 Mission [see "Bishop Sheen A 'Screaming Queen'?"] impugns and maligns the character of the late Fulton Sheen and, by innuendo, accuses him of immoral thoughts and unchaste conduct. It is grossly unjust and totally wrong for a writer to pen such innuendo, and also wrong for your editor to allow such a vicious assertion to be published, let alone in the pages of a so-called Catholic newspaper.
Bishop Sheen's loyalty to the faith, his love for the Blessed Mother of Christ and, in particular, his compassion and outreach to the suffering and the poor while he was director of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, were like a beacon in a black night. In particular, his compassion and outreach to the unemployed poor blacks in the city of Rochester, New York, are recalled by scores years after his death. His efforts on behalf of the unemployed and the poor in the face of corporate opposition from Eastman Kodak Company at the time are memories and a vivid example he left for us to emulate to follow.
Edward Petko, M.D., Sherman Oaks
Editor's note: The letter to which Doctor Petko refers ended with these words: "Most gay people I know believe our beloved and saintly Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was a 'screaming queen,' whether or not he ever acted out on any homosexual inclinations." It is not a statement of fact, but merely of what some people think. Given that the people who think it are hardly reputable judges (after all, they are continually making such outrageous claims), I did not, and do not, think the statement hurt Bishop Sheen's reputation one iota.