LETTERS

Inner city pastoral concerns

The Editor: After having gone through the experience of having my home parish cannonically suppressed or closed four years ago this summer I, along with others, have had to struggle with putting it all into perspective. This kind of grieving, of course, can occur at different levels within our spirits and lives.

Pat phrases like “moving on” can so easily be expressed by others. Ironically continuing to reflect theologically within the same parish environs is still required.

When it comes to having a parish closed within an economically depressed area (to some extent) requires that Catholics and other Christians work even harder to discern about how to be and what to do when there is no longer the potential offered by neighbourhood churches.

Here in North Central Regina over the past 12 or so years we have lost a Lutheran, two United, one Baptist, and one Anglican as well as a Roman Catholic congregation. There needs to be discussion about how to be church in a below or slightly above the poverty line as oppossed to being church and comfortably middle class.

I like what retired Anglican Bishop Duncan Wallace of Qu’Appelle said when commenting about financial challenges: “All we need is a table, some wine and bread and we can operate.” There is something radically optimistic about the comment.

Being “in Christ” is always an option even if it isn’t comfortable or financially viable. Being people who always have is only part of the blessing. The other part of the blessing resides in the lives of those who rarely have but who, when given the opportunity, want nothing but the opportunity to share from the wealthy poverty of their experience. — Kevin Jozef Krofchek, Regina

Wheat growers stuck in their own rhetoric

The Editor: The Western Canadian Wheat Growers are stuck in their own rhetoric and again attacking the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB).
Their charge is that Western Canadian farmers are missing out on the recent rally in wheat prices. But wait a minute — they were saying the same thing during the price rally of 2007.

And what happened in 2007? A farmer selling #1 12.5 per cent protein hard red spring wheat through the CWB in August of 2007 received about $8.53 CDN per bushel at the farm gate.

And what was the price where there was no wheat board and only the open market to sell into? Well, farmers in the United States were selling hard red spring wheat in August of 2007 for $5.53 US per bushel.

The reality is that all farmers that are selling grain through the CWB during price rallies are fully participating in that rally. Over and over again, through the auditor general’s report and 14 international trade tribunals the CWB has been found to be making good use of its single-desk marketing advantages.

If the Western Canadian Wheat Growers want to undercut their neighbours and sell all their wheat in August and September for almost $3 per bushel less than the CWB, that’s fine, but I don’t think they should be able to drag all other farmers down with them. — Stewart Wells, Swift Current, Sask.