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Margot Patterson’s “Finding herstory” (NCR, June 22) was an informative article regarding the suppression of early church women’s history in order to create a male-only clergy. Women were deemed as “impure” because of menstrual fluid, the broken down lining of the womb, which science later proved is the stuff that enables life. One wonders why the early church fathers never questioned male reproductive fluids and behaviors as being anything other than God’s plan. The reality of it is that the Catholic church will treat women the way Catholic women will allow themselves to be treated. We need to become informed and proactive in addressing church accountability to model Christ’s example of an inclusive, welcoming church.
PATRICIA JOHNSON
West Chester, Pa.
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“Finding herstory” was a fascinating read Whether women will attain the status of priesthood may depend on whether those men who are now priests, bishops and cardinals actually want this to happen and are willing to accept women as equals. This may be the determining factor. I do not expect to live long enough to see that day dawn.
FLO TRIENDL
Tiffin, Ohio
Anthony Flaherty’s letter to the editor disturbed me greatly when it castigated America magazine for allowing recruiting advertisements for chaplains (NCR, June 8). I, too, served in the military during the Vietnam War, as a nurse. His attitude reminded me of the vocal opposition to recruitment of doctors and nurses. The argument was that by serving we were allowing an immoral war to continue. It is my view that doctors, nurses, medics and chaplains are there to serve troops who need care, physical or spiritual. They may not agree on the politics of the war, but they are there to serve people who need them. An analogy might be: If you were to come upon a criminal shot in a robbery, do you attempt to do what you can for him/her or do you let that person bleed to death because you hated what he/she did? My experience of military chaplains of all faiths over 30 years has been different from Mr. Flaherty’s. To a person, they have always focused on the job they had to do, caring for wounded souls.
Finally, while Christ would never have worn a rank, I think it noteworthy that the Gospels have assigned to soldiers two of the most memorable lines therein: “I am not worthy that you should come under my roof” and “Truly, this man was the Son of God.” When soldiers came to St. John the Baptist asking, “What shall we do?” he instructed them not to extort or intimidate and to be content with their pay, not quit their jobs.
CATHARINE R. CARPENTER
Quincy, Ill.
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As a former Army chaplain in Vietnam I disagree with Mr. Flaherty’s perception that chaplains “bless the war.” I spent my year there in combat, and the only thing I blessed was the “grunts in the fields,” as one staff sergeant called them, and their commanders who did everything that they could to support my mission. The men welcomed our coming to the frontlines and felt blessed to be able to share God’s love.
As to those ads, America reaches many Catholics, including many priests, and is a vital means of requesting them to consider giving time to those who need them. I was attracted to the chaplaincy by watching the young boys from the parish go off, and one of them writing back to me to ask what he could do, as there was no Mass in the fields. I feel blessed that I could serve. I do not feel that I blessed war. It is all in your approach.
JIM BRENNAN
Lake Suzy, Fla.
Thank you for the articles on “Being Single” as part of your “Variations on a Theme” feature (NCR, May 25). It is so rare to even have our single friends alluded to by the institutional church or mentioned in print. All we have heard over the years -- and even hear often today -- are prayers for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. My married brothers and sisters are never included, even though their vocation is so important, nor is there any recognition of the vocation to the single life.
(Sr.) ALICE LECLAIR, CSJ
Pembroke, Ontario
Regarding your article, “Benedict in Brazil,” reiterating the church’s position on the “preferential option for the poor” (NCR, May 25): I suggest that Western democratic capitalism, even with its imperfections, has done more to relieve poverty than has the preaching of the popes and bishops. No, it has not eliminated poverty, nor has it equalized distribution of the world’s goods, but it has made it possible for more people to rise above the subsistence level through their own actions and initiative. Is it not from the capitalist societies that the church expects to receive the means for its relief efforts throughout the world? The “option for the poor” without plans or structure to implement it is little more than a pious slogan. I suggest that the church should strive more to enhance the principles of love and compassion within a system that seems to work. If there is no surplus of goods and means, then there is none to help the church in relieving want and poverty.
JOHN L. COAKLEY JR.
Kansas City, Mo.
Re: “The Disappearance of sin” (NCR, June 8), a good article by Jerry Ryan: The greatest sin today as always is the denial of sin. In our day, flawed catechetics on the part of bishops and priests who for decades stopped teaching the Catholic faith in its totality, which confuses and leads astray even the elect. Like the rest of us, they tried to do their best, but like the rest of us they too were misled by the false dogmas of psychology and particularly of psychoanalysis according to Sigmund Freud. Much of his assertions have been relegated to the trash pile of error and deception. By the way, Jesus didn’t come to “eradicate evil from the world.” He came to redeem it, and he was totally successful in doing so. It’s no skin off God’s nose if we decide to reject redemption. We lose.
BRUCE SNOWDEN
Bronx, N.Y.
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I appreciated Jerry Ryan’s perceptive engaging of sinfulness in his article I do take exception, however, to his use of the word “depraved” to describe our basic human condition. In using it, I feel he has not yet fully freed himself from a hypothetical “pure nature” concept that he critiques the church as using in its traditional moral theology. The insightful storyteller in Genesis introduces the Tempter into the mix to underscore not only a psychological component in choices we make, but also an external stimulus as well. I do believe the historical and ideal can be wed. An example of that for me is the truth and reconciliation process undergone in South Africa. I’m reminded of the words of its chief proponent, Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “My humanity is bound up with yours, for we can only be human together.”
MATT TUMULTY
Portland, Ore.
I must laud your courage for printing the full-page ad, “How to end the abortion wars” (NCR, May 25). It put into words, as I hadn’t been able to do, my thoughts and feelings concerning this most vital issue, about which our church lays upon us a different opinion. I live in a diocese where my bishop makes two yearly Marches of Life to Planned Parenthood headquarters, where he and other marchers pray the rosary. Particularly distressing is the manner in which these radicals bring their children to join in the march. The children often carry signs, the wording of which they cannot possibly understand in all its dimensions. A much better title for Catholics for a Free Choice would be “Catholics for a Concerned, Well Thought-Out Choice.”
BEA BUEHLER
Syracuse, N.Y.
The ongoing destruction of God’s creation highlighted in the recent Ecology special section (NCR, June 22) illustrates the unmistakable truth that we are living in a society that justifies its activities by creating a false God, an idolatry. Our “sacred” economy has become a substitute for the Judeo-Christian God, or any other god that would challenge its hegemony. In our current society, the economy is so all-powerful that as popular lore tells us: “We need only let the economy do its work and it will solve all of our problems.”
Any human creation that must be obeyed blindly has become a god that is as false as any Old Testament idol, a God that is dead and therefore can have no respect or love for the work of the true God who created the billions of life forms on this planet, and found each of them to be beautiful and good. Our nation’s sin is not that we are simply destroying the integrity of God’s creation, but that we justify it by appealing to a mercenary god to uphold the indignity of spoiling the true God’s handiwork. The reward is a cold and lifeless object called monetary profit.
LARRY BOUDREAU
San Antonio
I’m saddened and troubled when I read and hear remarks such as those in Mark Shirilau’s letter to the editor (NCR, May 25): “Maybe if you stop reporting everything SNAP does, it, like the sex scandals themselves, will fade into the past.”
These scandals are not a thing of the past nor will they fade from memory. Without NCR reporting the stories, abusive priests would still be finding new victims, bishops and cardinals would still be reassigning abusive priests, and parishes would still be unaware of the abusive priests’ history.
Last year Chicago Cardinal Francis George disregarded the recommendation of his review board and left a priest in active ministry. On May 29, a news release reported the $6.65 million lawsuit was settled with the Chicago archdiocese. Cardinal Mahony’s transfer of abusing priests goes back to that time when he was head of the Stockton, Calif., diocese. He is still hiding behind his lawyer’s public relations firms.
Sexual abuse by priests and the resultant actions by the bishops and cardinals in charge have affected everyone in the church. It has caused many people to question the moral leadership of the leaders of the church.
JACK SITTERDING
Hazel Crest, Ill.
Dr. Martin Sheldon, commenting on the Supreme Court’s April 18 ruling upholding Congress’ ban on so-called “partial-birth” abortions in Gonzalez v. Carhart, wrote, “Isn’t it best left to doctors, not politicians, to determine the safest procedure for the mother?” (NCR, June 8). This implies, and I agree with him, that the court flagrantly ignored relevant precedent and informed medical opinion, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ably pointed out in her dissent. Further, as the five majority justices were all Catholics, though hardly representative ones, their placing dogma ahead of law is improper and can only convey incorrect and negative impressions about Catholic officeholders to the public.
EDD DOER
Silver Spring, Md.
The fact that in April Henry Kissing was “a featured speaker at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences” (NCR, May 11), where he participated in a panel discussion titled “Charity and Justice in the Relations Among Nations and Peoples” is bound to be appreciated in Chile, Vietnam and Iraq as well as other countries that benefited from his benevolence over the years.
JAMES W. HAMILTON
Santa Fe, N.M.
Letters to the editor should be limited to 250 words and preferably typed. If a letter refers to a previous issue of NCR, please give us that issue’s date. We reserve the right to edit all letters. Letters, National Catholic Reporter, PO Box 411009, Kansas City, MO 64141-1009. Fax: (816) 968-2280. E-mail: letters@ncronline.org (When sending a letter via e-mail, please indicate "NCR Letters" in the subject line. We've installed a new spam filter on our letters e-mail account. If it's not clear to us that yours is a letter, we might delete it.) Please be sure to include your street address, city, state, zip and daytime telephone number
National Catholic Reporter, June 29, 2007