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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
September 2005
YOU WIDEN MY VOID
It is with sadness and concern that I am writing you this letter. While I share your mission goals of strengthening our Holy Mother Catholic Church, I beg that you modify your methods.
With much trepidation, shame, and sorrow I have been reading article after article over a protracted period of time in which your writers tear down, through vicious and sarcastic criticism, the person of His Eminence Cardinal Roger Mahony. This, it seems to me, has been your main method of trying to achieve our much-desired goal here in Southern California. You need to offer your readership more than empty stone throwing. This tactic of yours leaves me with less hope than when I began reading each of your articles and somehow widens that void inside of me that I wanted to fill by reading the Mission in the first place. Anger is not the way.
It seems that you are trying to enrage some non-existing electorate that you think will somehow miraculously vote this archbishop, whom you dislike and with whom you ardently disagree, out of office. That is not going to happen. He was appointed to this tremendous task by our late-great Holy Father and, as such, Cardinal Roger Mahony deserves our humble respect and our prayers and definitely he does not deserve our defiant, sarcastic criticism at every turn. In your constant criticism of His Eminence you are not teaching Catholic values. You are however looking more and more like any ugly inquisitor.
I have been teaching catechism at my local Catholic parish for eight years now. I went into this because of the armies of Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and other Protestant sects invading what used to be predominantly Catholic East Los Angeles. By the way, I do not accept, not even as a common courtesy, the Watchtower or the Awake from the hands of these fellow humans because they are so full of articles in the same mode as those that appear in the Mission. Only their venom is for the entire Catholic Church not just for targeted clergymen. I teach from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and from Holy Scripture, and so should you.
I teach of the four pillars in the Catechism: the Creed, the sacraments, the commandments and prayer. In letter and in spirit these four pillars are missing in your articles. Especially the last pillar -- prayer. You should be asking all of us to pray for His Eminence. With every article you should be asking your readership to pray that the Holy Spirit enlighten and guide our archbishop so that he can lead so large and hard-hearted a flock as the one he has here in Southern California. Pray for him to lead us in the footsteps of our Lord and away from sin.
I think it only fair and correct that you ask of your writers that they walk a mile in the cardinal's shoes before again condemning him in your next edition. No, you must go further than that. You need to demand that they pray for him before they write about him again in so critical a manner. They actually need to stop criticizing his Eminence and pray for him. It must be so wonderful to be so free from sin that we can afford to cast so many stones. Don't throw stones; instead teach and pray. Herein lies the meat that will strengthen our beloved Church. Otherwise you are just another secular newspaper stoning another aspect of the Catholic Church.
I wholly agree with and understand that your intent is to bring about an extraordinary adherence to orthodox Catholic doctrine and to avoid any deviations and abuses. This is also why I teach catechism. So, teach! You have a pulpit! So, teach that sin still exists. Call those sins by their proper names lest we forget! Teach that fornication, adultery, sodomy, homosexuality, abortion, birth control, euthanasia, human cloning, embryonic-stem cell research, pride, greed, anger, envy, gluttony, sloth, lust are all sins that greatly offend the one true God! The last thing you should be doing is copying the Pharisees by putting down the vicar of Christ here in Los Angeles.
Socorro Varela,
Los Angeles
Editor replies: I confess I am puzzled by Socorro Varela's letter. How does she know whether or not Mission writers pray for Cardinal Mahony? Further, I am led to wonder whether Mrs./Miss Varela actually reads the Mission. She claims that "in letter and in spirit" the four pillars of the Catechism are missing from our articles; but our articles have always been assiduous in citing magisterial documents, including but not limited to the Catechism, when they deal critically with Cardinal Mahony and other bishops, with Catholics both clergy and lay. We cite them when we are not being critical of anyone. At times irony and sarcasm appear in our articles, but these are not out of place when dealing with teachings and practices that undermine Catholic truth and threaten the souls of the faithful. They are, really, a mild reaction to a very great evil. But I think both sarcasm and irony are used sparingly, like a fine spice, in some of our articles and certainly do not overwhelm them with their flavor.
Miss/Mrs. Varela, however, objects to our criticizing the cardinal -- and presumably any prelate -- at all. But it is never enough to teach truth without pointing out error. Christian charity, as well as the charge all Catholics receive at their confirmation to defend the Faith, demands that those who persistently and publicly teach error be publicly and persistently challenged lest one's brothers in Christ be deceived. This duty does not exempt prelates or clergy; for, the higher the office, the greater the influence. One should not do this lightly, and we at the Mission do not do it lightly. The Church in Southern California faces great dangers and Christians cannot sit back and be silent about them.
As an aside, it is interesting that the Mission has been accused of being too soft, too gentle. Mutually exclusive criticisms generally cancel each other out, which leads me to think that the Mission is fairly close to the mean.
It would be better if readers like Mrs./Miss Varela cite particular articles as examples of what they find objectionable. Letters such as this one are long on accusation and very short on proof. In fact, Miss/Mrs. Varela's letter offers no proof for her accusations at all.
I COULD NOT FIND WORDS TO PRAY
Recently I was told by my oncologist that I would need to receive cranial radiation. To say his words terrified me would be a huge understatement. I am a wife and mother of four. Having lived with cancer for two years now, I thought I could handle anything, but as I listened to the list of possible side effects -- brain swelling, memory loss, paralysis -- the terror only grew within me. In my two-year battle I had turned to God in prayer with each new "hurdle," but now I found myself lost in despair. I could not even find the words to pray.
Then something happened that changed everything: a priest offered to anoint me. I had received the Sacrament of Anointing before during this illness, and I accepted his offer, thinking, "it couldn't hurt." However, I underestimated the power of the sacrament. Never before in any anointing had I felt such an overwhelming presence of God. I can't tell you the details of the anointing -- the prayers, the Holy Oil, or the Scripture reading -- only that I knew without a doubt that God had taken over my life. In an instant, the fear was gone, and peace took over my heart.
Sometimes we ask for a "cure" when what we really need is a "healing". We need to remember that it is not the outcome that proves God is with us, but what happens along the way.
So much is written these days about the things that Catholic Priests "do wrong." I wrote this letter as a word of sincere thanks to our priests and a reminder to all that there so much that the majority of our priests "do right." They bring Christ to us through the sacraments in a way that no one else can. And to bring Christ into the heart of someone who is afraid they could die -- is there any greater act that a man can do?
Therese C. Corsaro,
Palmdale
I SUPPORT WHAT YOU DO
I am proud of the Mission for what you are doing for the Catholics of Southern California. I have much respect for what you are doing.
Exposing and reporting on people like Dr. Richard Gaillardetz is one of the reasons why I support your apostolate. I must be over due another donation by now. It will come soon.
I support your magazine because the following is true: "The Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission seeks to report truthfully about the Catholic Church in Southern California, to foster the restoration and spread of Catholic culture, and to evangelize non- and fallen-away Catholics. While we will highlight what is positive in the Church, we will not hide what is negative. The Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission is staffed by laymen compelled by their baptism and confirmation to challenge themselves, other Catholics, and even the hierarchy to follow the high call of their catholic and orthodox faith."
Leonard Palazzolo
received via e-mail