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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
LETTERS
February 2006
THE SOLUTION TO IMMIGRATION
Thomas Storck rises to noble and constructive thought in his article on immigration in the January 2006 Mission (poorly titled, "Be Thankful They're Not Moslems"), but action is needed too. As one who migrated the other way (my wife and I are Anglos from Seattle, but we brought up our family in Tijuana), I offer these suggestions.
Catholics, including non-Hispanic ones, should reach out to immigrants from Catholic cultures. We can go beyond patronizing the Guadalupe Guild breakfast and offer money to support Spanish-language catechesis. Perhaps we can set up computer links with the home village, helping our brothers fight the unchastity problem, noted by Storck, by giving access to pictures of their beautiful families.
All Catholics, left and right, can join to swing political clout and fight the corruption whereby "the economies of the Latin American nations are destroyed for the benefit of ... corporations." They didn't jump -- they got pushed, by shamefully lying, vicious, murderous agents of our own USA. See Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins (San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler, 2004), reviewed in Culture Wars, June 2005.
The solution to the immigration problem is to remove the money pressure that causes it. In the meantime, we should extend hospitality, the noble virtue of Abraham, to our fellow Catholics from whatever place.
Larry Dickson,
National City, California
Colonia del Rio, Tijuana,
Baja California, Mexico
YOU HAVE THOUGHT PROVOKING ARTICLES
I have been receiving your paper for some time and try to read every issue as it comes in. I enjoy the open and thought provoking articles. Your independent spirit is important to the progress of our faith.
I also receive the Sunday Visitor and read many of its sterile articles. The Sunday Visitor admittedly has many articles of good information regarding the happenings in many parishes and many different and important announcements regarding the many ministries, but the real news and thought provoking opinions are found in your paper.
I may not agree with all I find in the Mission, but I am happy we have a voice out there that sometimes sees things from a different angle and can make it known. We should never allow censorship of opinions to take over our Church as had happened in the past.
Richard Orozco,
Long Beach
Editor replies: I thank Mr. Orozco for his kind words. We try to publish articles that are thoughtful and thought provoking; it is good to hear that readers think we have succeeded.
I would disagree, however, in part with Mr. Orozco's final statement about censorship. The Church has the duty not only to disseminate the truth but to defend it. Thus, the Church must silence those voices which contradict her teachings. Error is to the soul what disease is to the body; but, while disease only causes physical death, error causes eternal death. It also leads to moral corruption, which ultimately results in the corruption of all society. Our Lord said the truth sets us free; error, therefore, enslaves those who embrace it. The Church may no more permit the spread of error than the state may allow the injustice that leads to slavery or the medical establishment the quackery that kills, rather than heals, the sick. If the Mission were publishing anything that contradicts the universal magisterium of the Church, I would hope we would be censored, or, at least, censured.
That being said, I think, within the bounds of orthodoxy, there is room for differences of opinion and for differences on how we should carry out, practically, the call to spread the Gospel to all men. The Church, historically, has for the most part allowed a rather free exchange of opinions on such matters, and should continue to do so. Allowing too great a latitude for opinion or forbidding a proper expression of it are the Scylla and Charybdis the Church must avoid.