LETTERS
2001 LETTERS
December
November
October
September
July/August
June
May
April
March
February
January
ARTICLES
NEWS
ROAMIN' CATHOLIC
Contents © 2001
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
MAY 2001
A CHILL DOWN YOUR SPINE
If the Mission article of March 2001, "Dishonest and Unfair," regarding Father Liuzzi's book, With Listening Heart, on homosexuality is accurate, Father Liuzzi either practices deception or is in deep denial regarding truth.
First, Liuzzi's citing of the American Psychological Association is tantamount to citing false authority. Regretfully, the APA is a politicized organization that dropped homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973 for political reasons. For a similar reason of appeasement, the APA refused to condemn the Soviet Union's practice of sending political dissidents to psychiatric institutions during the Cold War. Of interest, it was reported in the same issue of the Mission that some American seminaries use a similar tactic for handling their theological dissidents. If true, I'm sure that Liuzzi would cite the APA to justify that as well.
The most dangerous part of Liuzzi's heresy, however, is that he seeks to take society further into moral decay. Liuzzi insidiously questions the exclusive normalcy of heterosexuality for, it seems, the purpose of justifying abnormal forms of sexual orientation. His target is homosexuality, but he unwittingly opens the door to legitimize other forms of sexual orientation as well. If you take the Mission article and substitute the sexual orientation of pedophilia for that of homosexuality, it will send a chill down your spine. Yet this is precisely where Liuzzi intellectually takes us when he questions whether heterosexuality is exclusively normal.
Liuzzi is a wolf in sheep's clothing and a very dangerous heretic. Homosexuals need our compassion, our help, and the light of truth, as we all do. They don't need Liuzzi's poisonous rationalizations.
Anonymous,
Albany, Oregon
YOU IGNORE CHARITY
Your writers frequently make bold demands that bishops, priests and others immediately undertake some particular course of action you deem important. However, I am amazed that, despite frequent letters printed in your paper calling you to a more charitable approach in your coverage, you feel free to ignore such calls to charity.
Your coverage is replete with sarcastic coverage from people who visit churches to count genuflections; but who can count the insults to others you print so often? You proclaim your loyalty to Rome, but you denigrate the participation of women in the liturgy with demeaning terms ("cantoress," "lectoress," etc.), despite the fact that the participation of women in the liturgy is approved by the very Vatican you want everybody else to bow to. You employ violent metaphors in calling on bishops to initiate a witch-hunt of gay priests and seminarians ("Rome should make it clear that, before a man can be considered episcopal material, he needs scalps hanging from his belt.") You ridicule those who proclaim the unconditional love of God ("God happens to identify Himself in masculine terms in the Bible. Mothers mother. They love their babies unconditionally. The God of the Bible doesn't," is how one of your supporters summed it up in a recent letter. Such a statement can only be termed blasphemous, an affront to God, and I am surprised you would print it without so noting.) You have articles replete with scriptural citations to support all kinds of positions, yet do you follow the gospel injunction to love your neighbor?
If you must, go ahead and count genuflections. Critique the sacred vessels used at various churches and the attire of the volunteer ministers. Disobey your bishop. Impose your musical taste on others. Spread rumor and innuendo. Seek to exclude various groups from the People of God. If you must, go ahead and do all these things you do. You have the legal right to express your opinions, however divisive they may be. But could you do it with charity? And if you cannot do it with charity, should it be done?
You are free to incorporate St. Paul's exhortation in I Corinthians 13 into your editorial policies without waiting for a document from Rome ordering you to do so.
Eric Stoltz,
Los Angeles
YOU'RE RIGHT-WING EGALITARIANS
Forces unknown placed me on your mailing list years ago. Over that time I have come to the following conclusions about your content: 1) Cardinal Roger Mahony is libeled, generally, two to three times per issue; 2) homosexuals and/or Father Luizzi are demeaned and degraded not less than once per issue; 3) pro-life advocacy is the single largest topic covered in your pages and the paper's litmus test for orthodoxy; 4) misogynistic, egalitarian reviews of local liturgies can be expected to appear approximately every two issues; 5) the new cathedral is a subject for scorn and ridicule, even before it's built; 6) most of the paper's advertisers are more rightist than the editors; 7) you profess yourselves authentic keepers of truth and guardians of the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Faith.
In this holy season of Lent is it not right and just for all prayerfully to reflect on the parable of the Pharisees who loudly thanked God they were not sinners like other men?
Michael Malak,
received via e-mail
A QUESTIONABLE
RESPECT FOR LIFE
In a letter in your April 2001 issue, Thomas M. Whaling wrote: "She [Sister Helen Prejean -- author of the 1993 book, Dead Man Walking] espouses the gospel of life regarding abortion, capital punishment and euthanasia." Oh, really? One only need be reminded of her 1996 interview with Our Sunday Visitor in which she was quite ambiguous about abortion, contraception and implied support for women's ordination. Critics have dutifully raised troubled questions about her association with notoriously dissident groups, too (most recently, she attended the annual Call To Action conference last November in Milwaukee -- Call to Action supports abortion, contraception, homosexual acts, remarriage after divorce, and married and woman priests). In any case, Sister Prejean's respect for the sanctity of human life seems to wane somewhere between the death-row cell and the womb.
Daniel Levine,
Orange
YOU NAILED IT
In "Does Mahony Want A Priestless Church?" [March Mission] you really nailed it -- I mean like, with a HAMMER! Liturgy is so deteriorated in the Los Angeles archdiocese that it's painful to go to Mass. You never know what liturgical horror will be inflicted upon you next.
It's sad when the only decent mass a Catholic can attend is the once-a-month indult mass or the SSPX Chapel in Arcadia. (I am not an arch-traditionalist who only wants the Tridentine Latin Mass -- I'd be reasonably happy with a reverent, liturgically conservative Novus Ordo Mass -- post Vatican II format -- with a bit of Latin and the kyrie eleison still in Greek, and decent music that has some grounding in Roman Catholic tradition -- Gregorian chant, Palestrina, hymns to Mary, to the Sacred Heart, etc.).
Your article also confirmed the worst suspicions of many unhappy, unnourished, unserved traditionalists in this benighted, heresy-ridden archdiocese. It's sickening to realize that we're stuck with this unholy cardinal archbishop for another 11 years unless 1) Mahony decides to take early retirement (fat chance!!); 2) the pope removes him (I suppose a miracle COULD occur); or the megamiracle -- 3) he has a conversion and becomes Roman Catholic once again. You seem to have an inkling of how bad it is under Mahony's heavy hand, but you can't possibly know how bad it REALLY is unless you are a tradition-loving Roman Catholic stuck in the Los Angeles archdiocese!
I had volunteered as a lector. As the result of your article, I realized that I am, by doing so, supporting Mahony's schemes to get rid of priests and to laicize the Catholic Church. I therefore e-mailed my resignation to the person who coordinates/schedules these activities.
Alice Ramirez,
received via e-mail
WHY SO FEW VOCATIONS?
I liked your article on the archdiocesan seminary.
A few years ago, here in Chicago, under the previous management, I was at a Mass when it was announced that the visiting priest was the vocations director for the archdiocese of Chicago. Not letting this opportunity pass, I approached him after Mass. I asked him, "why does Peoria have so many vocations, and this diocese have so few?" He knew the story. He said to me, "because they take all of our rejects. A lot of those guys are non compos mentis. Really." And stormed off.
anonymous
Received via e-mail
TO THE BISHOP
Please extend my kudos to Robert Kumpel for his excellent article, Does Mahony Want A Priestless Church?
I hope he doesn't mind. I forwarded it to my bishop.
John Eakins
Lost Creek, West Virginia