LETTERS
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Contents © 1999
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
SEPTEMBER 1999
NOT MUCH CONTRACEPTION LEFT
In your June 1999 Mission [see "Are Abortion Numbers Really Down?"] I see a report on the numbers of abortions performed at various centers in California. It seems to me you record a great under-enumeration.
All that is left of contraception today is the condom, the diaphragm (little used), withdrawal, various contraceptive jams and gels, and a few similar items. So most birth control today is abortifacient. In short, there are really very many more abortions from the pill, etc., than surgical abortions which you alone report.
It would seem to be of frightful importance to make your readers and others aware that there are millions of abortions as a result of abortifacients, some of which I have not named.
The Mission publication is great. All good wishes and prayers.
Father Paul B. Marx, OSB,
Founder, Human Life International
Front Royal, Virginia
VISIT THE EAST, YOUNG MAN
Jesus tells us to "seek and you shall find." Three years ago when we moved to this beautiful area of Central California (thanks to an advertisement in your publication) we discovered Saint Anne's Byzantine Catholic Church in San Luis Obispo. Words cannot describe the beauty, the orthodoxy, the excellent preaching and the friendly congregation at St. Anne's.
We thank the Lord for this precious Catholic church where Divine Liturgy is a foretaste of heaven. While I am not telling anyone to move to the Central Coast of California so that he can be a part of our parish, we certainly will make you feel right at home if you visit the area.
Catholics who never visited an eastern rite Catholic church will experience beauty, reverence, orthodoxy, incense, mystery and a sense of the holy -- things that have been lost in the Church in the last 30 years.
Once again, thank you for your excellent and faithful-to-the-Church publication. Keep up your much needed work. We need more Catholics like you who stand up for orthodoxy.
C.N. Santos
Atascadero
A STUPID MISTAKE
Regarding a news item in your July/August issue -- when and how did the President of Argentina get the authority to move the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8, to March 25, the Feast of the Incarnation? Protestants and ignorant Catholics often confuse these two feasts, but I am astonished to find them writing for the Mission.
Charles Mays
Riverside
Editor's note: We stand corrected. March 25 is the feast of the Annunciation, not the Immaculate Conception. However, we assure Mr. Mays that our error stemmed from a slip of the pen (or, the computer key?) and not from a confusion of the mysteries the feasts in question commemorate.
WHAT HAPPENED TO LEO XIII?
Cardinal Mahony was reported to host a National Jubilee Meeting on Peace and Justice, July 15-18. Judging by the sixteen or more subjects to be discussed in workshops, one is prompted to ask -- is this peace and justice or radicalism? One controversial topic that begs airing is the topic that speaks of "working with the Industrial Areas Organization to establish alliance schools."
The Industrial Areas Foundation was established by the late radical and Marxist Saul Alinsky. This same infamous Saul Alinsky had been going around the country for years organizing in Catholic churches and seminaries including in the Los Angeles archdiocese for changing our form of government and destroying the social order. To fully understand this man's thinking one must read his primer for realistic radicals, Rules for Radicals, which states in the front: "Lest we forget at least an over the shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical; from all our legends, mythology and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least established his own kingdom -- Lucifer." This man had a contempt for religion. Enough said.
Also included in the many points for the National Jubilee Meeting is a suggestion that social justice be integrated in the Sunday liturgies and also that small Christian communities be developed. To this we ask -- small Christian communities a la Liberation Theology?
There is also a call for the Church's role in organizing for the government's sustainable development program This one really calls for discussion. Sustainable development is a global agenda structured on population control and all that goes with it. So much for pro-life!
What ever happened to the wonderful encyclicals on social justice by Pope Leo XIII? This pope would certainly be a better role model than the radical Saul Alinsky. Perhaps there would be more priestly vocations if we were to heed the Bible -- "Seek first the kingdom of God and all else will come."
Betty Belting
Northridge