LETTERS
US supported genocide in Guatemala
The Editor: Concerning the article on the Ottawa March for Life with Supreme Knight Carl Anderson speaking (PM, May 10), if he was an adviser to President Reagan I don’t know how he can be pro-life.
In the 1980s Reagan’s government supplied weapons to the dictator
of Guatemala; his name was Rios Mont. He carried out a genocidal campaign
against the Mayan people of his country. One hundred thousand Mayan men,
women and children were tortured and murdered by the Guatemalan army.
They had their tongues cut out and limbs cut off.
Can you imagine watching your child being tortured to death? Most of these
people were Catholic; many priests and nuns were murdered also. A United
Nations truth commission stated that the US did not bear direct responsibility
for any act of genocide; however, its goverment knew what was going on
in the Guatemalan countryside.
It did not raise any objection and continued to support the Guatemalan
army. I suggest people watch the YouTube video, an American Genocide.
— Bernie Arsenault, Maidstone, Sask.
McBrien appears to sympathize with 'troubling approach' to abortion
The Editor: Rev. Richard McBrien (PM, June 16) appears to sympathize with a troubling approach to abortion described in a book by fellow theologian Rev. Charles Curran. The approach suggests that “pro-choice” is not necessarily the same as “pro-abortion.”
Theoretically, this is true. Practically, it’s a distinction without
a difference.
This becomes clear if we apply such a distinction to honour killing and
slavery which, like abortion, still scar the human landscape. Would anyone
take seriously politicians who claimed to be against these moral outrages
but promoted the choice of others to kill or enslave?
The distinction is made “in light of the religious freedom understanding
of law and the present division in . . . society.” Based on this
understanding, citizens are free “to act in accord with conscience,
also recognizing the rights of others in society.”
But it’s hugely contradictory to use this understanding to justify
pro-choice Catholics who claim to be anti-abortion. To choose abortion,
or to support that choice, is to fail to recognize the rights of the unborn.
It’s beside the point to talk about ensoulment. We know that the
unborn are alive from the moment of conception. If we’re unsure
whether God infuses souls at that point, we must give the benefit of the
doubt to the unborn. Besides, in our society, many don’t even believe
in the soul, yet civil law requires them to respect the right to life
of others.
It’s true that we don’t expect society to criminalize everything
that is morally wrong. But it does criminalize the intentional killing
of those of us who have been born. Why discriminate against those of us
who are unborn?
It’s also true that Catholics must follow their conscience. But,
as McBrien surely knows, they are required to form their conscience according
to the teachings of the church. In doing so, they must act, privately
and publicly, in a morally coherent and consistent manner. —
Joe Campbell, Saskatoon
Mass becomes significant once Christ is centre of our lives
The Editor: The recent article by Anne Strachan on the eucharist
(PM, May 26) prompts a reply.
How is it possible that so many parishes do not experience the real thrill
of Christ’s presence and action in the liturgy? Whatever happened
to “disposition of soul”? For some, mass has been reduced,
more or less, to a human experience, where a strong emphasis is expected
on being politically correct. When the young say they are “bored”
at mass what they are really trying to tell us is that they are not connected
with the liturgy.
Over the years I have recognized that we can only be present at mass really
if we have chosen Christ as the ideal of our lives. Once we make the step
to live for Christ 24 hours a day, with Gospel charity at home and in
our profession, then Jesus in the eucharist comes alive for us.
The way to enter the liturgy is to increase our love for Christ. If parishioners
are not experiencing the presence of Christ in our midst, then our true
strength — charity — will be weakened.
What a real prayer experience we could generate at mass from a people
of Christ truly united in living the Gospel. The face of the church would
turn out to be beautiful again in its full splendour and would attract
the world. Strangers attending our funerals would experience the presence
of Jesus among us.
In my life time I have witnessed a decline it what it means to receive
holy communion. Recipients are not engaging Christ in the communion rite.
The point is this: if we are not living the Gospel then there is nothing
to talk about.
Our schools and catechism programs are not helping young people to know
Jesus and life itself through the dimension of the Holy Spirit. Soon their
Catholic education is a fading memory and increasingly irrelevant. While
a certain sense of mystery may still surround the Sunday mass, many are
experiencing a void; they are not encountering Jesus there. —
Rev. Harry Clarke. Castlegar, BC.
It is not anyone's role to assign people to places in hell
The Editor: It was with interest that I read the recent article (PM, June 9), “Students in Rome organize prayer.” Msgr. Charles Sciculuna, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor of clerical sexual abuse cases, said “there is a special place in hell for priests who abuse children.”
He neglected to mention whether there would be “special places”
for bishops and perhaps some Vatican types who orchestrated coverups and
denials.
One can only hope that the group’s “one hour of silent eucharistic
adoration” allowed them to ponder Sciculuna’s condemnation.
In an hour one could reflect on the culpability of sexual predators who
might have an illness that mitigates freedom to act, as well as consider
that it is not Sciculuna’s role to assign people to places in hell.
One would hope he has been working hard to find places in heaven for us
all. — Larry Yakimoski, Saskatoon
The time has come for churches to stop blaming
The Editor:
I have reflected on the March 10 PM article “Ecumenical talks set
model,” in particular Bishop Bolen’s recounting of Pope Paul
VI giving his ring to Archbishop Michael Ramsay as “a sign of betrothal”
toward full sacramental unity. Another bishop, whom I hold in high regard,
suggested we should not move readily into activities associated with church
unity (e.g., eucharistic sharing), just like a young man and woman considering
marriage should not move readily into cohabitation.
I believe the logic in both cases is excellent. I believe, however, the
premise is faulty in both cases, namely, that we are dealing with the
equivalent of a young couple considering marriage, whether it will be
with this person or another. We are not.
A closer analogy would be that of a couple who are already married, who
were one for a long time. Then something happened, several hundred years
ago, which caused the spouses to choose to live in different homes or,
at the very least, to not recognize that the rooms they now lived in were
in the same house.
Today those same spouses are, ever so slowly but definitely, coming to
realize they are incomplete without the other, and are looking for ways
whereby they might once again come together.
The time has come for the spouse-churches to stop discussing who was right
and who was wrong, and what the other must do to correct the situation.
The time has come for both spouse-churches to say to the other, “I
promise to love you, no matter what, even in those times when you think
you are unlovable, or when you do things that hurt me.”
Enabling eucharistic sharing, thereby allowing the eucharist to effect
that unity rather than restricting it to solely signifying a unity already
fully achieved, would, I believe, make a significant contribution to the
journey toward realizing the unity in our midst. At the very least, such
exceptions could be allowed for couples married across denominational
lines. Such couples could become a real gift and resource for the realization
of Christian unity. — Ray Temmerman, Winnipeg
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