LETTERS
1998 LETTERS
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ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
APRIL 1998
YOUR PAPER'S FOR THE BIRDS
It is unfortunate that your publication seeks nothing except to criticize and destory the Church. Rarely is anything positive or supportive of the Church or church people found in your virulent articles against the church and churchmen.
It is unfortunate that you spend so much money in sending your publication to thousands of the priests. We get many of them sent to us here in San Francisco. I find them best for the bottom of the bird cage.
Rev. George Twigg-Porter, S.J.
University of San Francisco
Jesuit Community
ME TOO
Please remove my name from your mailing list. I no longer want to receive this hateful piece of trash.
Donald B. Sharp, S.J.,
University of San Francisco
Jesuit Community
LIKE MUSIC TO MY EARS
My daughter passed along to me a copy of your publication, Mission. As a traditional Roman Catholic, it was like music to my ears. Thank God for publications like yours. Slowly, with continual prayers for Pope John Paul, the magisterium, Mother Angelica and publications like yours, we will win back tradition against the tides of "communitarianism."
Please add my name to your mailing list. Enclosed is a donation.
Edward J. Dowd
Cary, North Carolina
BLAME THE BOSS
Your February issue reported on the threatened renovation of San Roque parish church in Santa Barbara ("Neither Wine nor Cheese Can Stop Them", February, 1998). I don't like the renovations either, but give Father Ford a break. He has a boss. The Church is not a democracy. "Father Ford affirmed that any changes would be based on the cardinal's pastoral letter..." The changes are not his own idea.
You also had an item on the induction of Rupert Murdoch and others into the Order of St. Gregory by Cardinal Mahony (News, February Mission). You quoted a Los Angeles Times article extensively, but you didn't quote their statement that the pope is the one who decided who would be so honored. If my memory of the Times story is correct, and if their information was correct, any criticism should be leveled at the cardinal's boss, the pope--someone I don't think you ever criticize.
In all of this, let's remember: "Let us grow in love, together with John Paul our pope, Roger our bishop, and all the clergy."
Joe O'Brien
Editor's note: The Order of St. Gregory is bestowed by the pope on the recommendation of the local ordinary. Though His Holiness approved the list sent to him by His Eminence, Roger Cardinal Mahony, it was His Eminence, and not the pope, who initially singled out Murdoch, Hope, Disney and the others for the papal honors.
I DON'T WANT YOUR ANTI-CATHOLIC DIATRIBES
I respectfully request that you remove my name from your address, please. Your constant criticism and unwillingness o entertain points of view other than your own are very offensive to me, besides being un-Christian (cf. Matthew 7:1-5, Luke 66: 37-42). And now that you have begun to show such disrepect for the hierarchy, I can only conclude that such anti-Caholic diatribes have no place, must have no place, in a Catholic parish. Such tracts I would expect from the Watchtower publishers, and I heed the words of Jesus in refusing to have anything further to do with you or your publication (cf. Matthew 18:8-9, Luke 12:4-5).
Msgr. Peter O'Reilly
Agoura Hills
MERELY THE POPE'S OPINION
The conversation on the morality of capital punishment did little to dispel confusion, because needed distinctions were ignored [See "Just More Liberal Drivel?", and "Sidebar: To Limit or Even Abolish", March 1998]. The dignity of persons, of rational creatures, consists less in having reason than in acting in accord with it. This is seen in the offertory prayer that speaks of God's restoring the dignity of human nature lost by sin. It is then ludicrous to put side by side the life of an innocent child not yet born and that of a hardened criminal who by his crimes has lost the dignity of the virtuous man. It is in fact by willingly suffering a fitting punishment that a criminal recovers some of that lost dignity.
It is also important to distinguish the different degrees of certainty in moral matters. The farther one moves away from the most universal principles, such as "do good and avoid evil," toward particular cases, the less certain one can be of his judgments. And the farther one moves away from what is certain, the farther one moves away from what is teachable. That capital punishment is licit is certain and teachable. The decision as to when it is fitting is neither certain nor teachable. Unlike more general moral principles, it will obviously vary with respect to the circumstances of time and place and those of particular crimes. It would be unreasonable for a nation that cannot feed its people to spend lavishly to incarcerate multiple murderers. And the leniency and severity of punishments must vary as a people does or does not respect the laws.
The use of capital punishment today is an issue of prudence rather than of teachable moral principles. Clearly where there can be no teaching, there can be no authoritative teaching. And what is false cannot be taught. Would anyone accuse God of not respecting the "dignity of the person" when He sentenced the whole human race to death as punishment for original sin? The disturbing passage in the encyclical cannot then be a teaching, but merely conveys a personal opinion on prudential matters.
The denial of the primacy of the common good which makes the private good of individuals paramount is behind this confusion. It is obvious in the claim that the person, not society, is eternal, when in truth heaven is the society of the blessed united in the highest and noblest common good. But a letter is hardly suited to this topic. And it would be hard to know what to say to one who finds the teachings of the Angelic Doctor on the common good totalitarian, or who speaks of the special ministry of executioners. Men under sentence of death, which is a mere physical evil, enjoy the great spiritual good which the Church asks for in the Litany of the Saints: to be delivered from a death that is sudden and unprovided for. Having on occasion been inches away from such a death, I would be only too glad to know the hour I will die so as to have both time and powerful motivation to die well.
Another central error is the view that punishment must be remedial, which hardly squares with the doctrine of hell and the insistence of some criminals that they deserve to die. But since even a small child understands the fairness of losing desert for having pinched cookies--that justice requires those who do what they should not suffer what they would not--further remarks would be superfluous here.
Dr. Richard George
Santa Paula