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Regarding your article on the impact of the sex abuse scandal on priests’ lives (NCR, May 4): While I understand priests’ concerns about their rights when faced with sex abuse accusations, I do not understand why they feel they are more at risk than others working with children. Our teachers, for example, are subject to at least the same scrutiny as our priests, and yet one rarely hears teachers complaining about their vulnerability. Neither do we see teachers backing away from their responsibilities -- might I say ministries? -- to children because the reputations of some among them have been questioned. Why should we accept that it is natural for our priests to do so?
I also doubt the conclusion that the reason Catholics devote fewer resources to youth than other denominations is that priests have been backing away from youth ministry since 2002. With all due respect, resources for our youth ministries have been embarrassingly paltry for much longer. Is there some data that suggest otherwise? If so, please point me there. It’s time for Catholics to start facing reality. Priests are human, just like all of us, and to the extent that they have failed us, we have also failed each other by continuing to accept the persistent, fundamental injustices inherent in the church’s understanding of sex, gender, sexuality and family relationships. We need to address the roots of these problems. Everything else is just “spin.”
LENORE ROGAN
Lords Valley, Pa.
Fr. Joseph Nassal’s comments about the obsolete nature of clotheslines and real fresh air in Starting Point (NCR , May 11) indicate that he has tried neither. There is no fabric softener in the world that can duplicate the smell of fresh air. Using a “solar” clothes dryer eliminates the need for one of the biggest energy hogs in most households. In these days of global warming and high energy prices, that’s something you might want to think about.
MYRNA OHMANN
Clearwater, Minn.
Thank you for essentially confirming the media dereliction of duty with respect to our nation’s criminal aggression against Iraq (“What they were writing back in ’03,” NCR, May 11).
With respect to the erudition of the Jesuit magazine America, it would be even more noteworthy were America to “walk the talk” on the war. Since the war began, its publishing effort has benefited from this illegal and immoral war through its aggressive full-page recruiting advertisements for chaplains. As a Navy chaplain, I once experienced much disfavor among other chaplains in Vietnam when I pondered among them, “What rank do you think Christ would have worn?” My experience has been that chaplains for the most part are vigorous sycophants for war, to a degree even embarrassing to some of our most war-advocating corporate generals. Of late, throughout the country our criminal war party is actively recruiting borderline criminals for the armed forces. Indeed, in the very Catholic community of South Boston it has opened a recruiting station next to the courthouse where for a minor drug offense, the judge will release criminals to achieve sobriety and death in Iraq, where presumably our chaplains will bless the effort.
ANTHONY F. FLAHERTY
South Boston, Mass.
Jon O’Brien’s excellent article titled “Prevention, not prohibition, is the way forward” (NCR, May 4) raises a fundamental question: Do our Catholic bishops really want to reduce abortion? Not if that reduction means they would have to compromise their mindset on marriage. We know from opinion polls that the overwhelming majority of married Catholics accept most forms of contraception in their lives. I believe we do so because to us marriage is a vocation independent of the conception of children and that the sexual love in marriage is an exchange of grace that is of value in and of itself. This is why we laity welcome most methods of contraception, to expand the opportunities for the physical exchange of grace and to conceive children if they are desired and the family is emotionally and financially ready to support them. This contradicts our bishops’ viewpoint that says every exchange of physical love in marriage must be “open to the transmission of life.” By this formulation, they are, in effect, saying that having children is the primary and only purpose of physical love in marriage. From this it follows that they are opposed to all forms of contraception; they are unwilling to recognize the value of contraception not only in strengthening marriage but also in reducing abortion.
CHARLES N. DAVIS
Fripp Island, S.C.
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Read your opinion piece “The evolving abortion debate” (NCR, May 4). Too bad the participants seemed to talk at each other instead of having a dialogue towards common ground. Jon O’Brien struck me more as a slick politician, answering the question by avoiding answering the question. Prevent pregnancy and you prevent abortion, bash the bishops, blah, blah, blah.
However, while many Catholics may feel increasingly uncomfortable labeling themselves as “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” the vast majority of Americans and Catholics support the partial-birth abortion ban and view the procedure as inhumane. O’Brien’s piece, while including much interesting information, is silent on that issue, and I believe that silence is deafening.
While I am probably more sympathetic toward Pia de Solenni’s perspective, sadly, abortion is legal. Given that fact, isn’t it best left to doctors, not politicians, to determine the safest procedure for the mother? The reason why a delivery that would be considered dangerous for a mother in labor (for example, breech delivery) could be healthier for a woman having an abortion is relatively straightforward. Prior to the development of dilatation and extraction (also called partial-birth abortion because the fetus is delivered breech), the method used for second trimester abortions was and is dilatation and evacuation (the fetus remains in the uterus). This involves surgical dismemberment of the fetus in the uterus. Given that calcification of bone begins about week 18, there is higher risk for perforation of the mother’s uterus. Dilatation and evacuation also involves significantly more instrumentation than partial-birth abortion, as the surgeon repeatedly inserts the forceps through the cervix, thus further increasing the risks. While most Americans feel increasingly uncomfortable with abortions the further along the pregnancy, doctors strive to place the safety of the mother first. Implying they do not is disingenuous.
MARTIN SHELDON, M.D.
Columbia, S.C.
It’s always amusing to see where the tear will appear in the seamless garment claimed by some. Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback seems to have forgotten the seven or eight times Pope John Paul II pleaded for a non-military solution to the mess in Iraq (“Conscience -- and ambition -- of a conservative Catholic,” NCR, May 11). Somehow a preemptive attack on another nation doesn’t sound very pro-life to me. And further, what has the good Fr. Frank Pavone and his organization Priests for Life done lately about the miscarriages purported to be one-fourth of all conceptions? Seems to me there should be some concern for all these “persons” formerly lost in limbo but now who knows? And to be really consistent and seamless, I would think there should be a campaign launched by them against artificial conceptions that result in so many frozen embryos that will never see the light of day.
R.J. REINKOBER
New Brighton, Minn.
In Brazil Pope Benedict warned the world against authoritarian governments. Also, he indicated that democracy is a good form of government. Does the pope realize that his church is one of the great authoritarian governments of the world, one that does not accept democracy? Is there anyone who thinks that the pope is in touch with the world we live in?
(Fr.) WILLIAM FORST
St. Louis
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National Catholic Reporter, June 8, 2007