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LETTERS
Article on advocacy said to be biased
I guess what is perceived to be an injustice to some is a matter of right and wrong to others.
Your recent article in the CV (“Catholic advocates press for justice reforms,” Feb. 11 issue) that made reference to comments by Delegate Lynwood W. Lewis Jr. of the Eastern Shore seemed to be a little biased and not very balanced.
I am frankly turned off by the notion that illegal immigration is anything other than that. It appears to me that the enthusiastic desire to help others has gotten on the wrong side of a political issue.
I salute Delegate Lewis for his stance. It is not correct for the taxpayers to be asked to finance the practices of illegal immigrants. They came here and committed a crime doing so. The government should hastily send them home. That, though it may be a hard sell, is the right side of the political issue.
I also admire Jim Albright and his effort to help people in need. This is a tough and very complex issue and one that certainly needs everyone’s prayerful attention.
I firmly believe that the church needs to be involved seeking justice for all people. I do not think it is proper for the CV to portray someone who is trying to be firm in the face of a difficult situation as a callous individual.
We need an end to this problem and I do not think that rewards from the state are the answer.
Bob Williams
Bon Air
(Editor: The article did not intend to portray Delegate Lewis as callous. It expressed the experience of Jim Albright, a participant in Catholic Advocacy Day, on his visit to the delegate and his stance on legislation affecting children of illegal immigrants. Delegate Lewis’s stance differs from the goals of the Virginia Catholic Conference.)
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Immigration debate stirs up reader
Your issue of Feb. 11 in the article on Catholic Advocacy Day and a letter to the editor “Solidarity needed in immigration debate” refer to undocumented immigrants.
At a glance someone might think that undocumented means an immigrant who might have lost some papers. In reality an undocumented immigrant is an illegal immigrant who knowingly broke existing laws to enter this country.
Remember you can call a cow a duck, but it is still a cow.
Yes, proposals such as making English the official language of Virginia do have merit. I grew up in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in New Jersey. Common languages in use were Yiddish, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Lithuanian. But everyone learned English to quickly become assimilated into this country.
Assistance for these lawbreakers, health care, court assistance, state college tuition rates for their children — who will pay for them?
Please don’t say increased taxes. I am taxed enough. I do not understand why my taxes should help support lawbreakers.
Should some well meaning person wish to use his own funds to pay for a court interpreter, health insurance of the cost of a college education, they are more than welcome.
Denis Novak
Chesapeake
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No easy answers on immigration issue
The most recent issue of the Catholic Virginian contained several references to undocumented immigrants. With a close relative and several undocumented Mexican friends, I can’t help but comment on some of what I read.
In “Catholic advocates press on for justice reform,” Jim Albright found his legislator unwilling to support in-state tuition for children of undocumented immigrants. According to Albright, this is unjust because “federal and state taxes are taken out of their parents’ paychecks.”
Last January, we sponsored an undocumented Mexican relative and helped him file the paperwork to become a U.S. legal resident. So we are intimately familiar with immigration laws.
For example, it was only after my relative filed for legal status that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued him a temporary work permit. And it was only after he obtained the work permit that he was able to apply for and be issued a Social Security Number.
It’s unclear how undocumented immigrants are paying state and federal taxes when employers require a SSN before they can withhold taxes. I know this is certainly not the case with my relatives or friends, all of whom receive salaries “under the table.” Taxes are never withheld.
I also don’t understand why one can’t support more stringent laws for illegal immigrants without being “unChristian” and “unloving.” The letter of Jim Romeo (“Solidarity needed in immigration debate”) as much as says that we can’t withhold some benefits from undocumented immigrants without betraying Our Lord.
Last year, my family paid almost 20 percent of our income toward medical expenses. But my undocumented relatives and friends paid nothing toward medical expenses; when they were ill, they simply went to the emergency room, received services, and never paid the bills.
This has become common practice in areas with high numbers of undocumented immigrants, causing some hospitals in southwestern states to close down because they can no longer make a profit. I wonder if Jesus would approve of someone receiving services they had no intention of even trying to pay for. If my family did that, it would be called stealing.
Many hard-working Americans resent that their taxes should go to supporting services such as free education and medical care for undocumented immigrants. Jesus said that we have an obligation to help those less fortunate. But charity cannot be forced or it necessarily loses its merit as a positive moral act.
I posit that those who seek to reward law breakers with unrestricted benefits, some of which our legal citizens are not even entitled to, are naïve and unreasonable. But those who seek to crush undocumented immigrants through law to penalize them for coming here illegally forget that there are many innocent children who will be adversely affected, too.
What would Jesus do? I don’t think any of us can claim to know the answer to that question on such a complex issue as this.
Misty Mealey
Roanoke
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Reader sees red on new CFL lightbulbs
As a lifelong Catholic, I’ve always appreciated the importance the church has placed on education.
But seeing coverage of events like ‘Light up the Night,’ where a church committee deigns to “educate” the open-mouth, knuckle-dragging masses about the “value” of choosing compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) over incandescents under the guise of “stewardship over God’s creation,” I am at a loss.
It further cements my belief that the Church has become an arm of the DNC (Democratic National Committee). With a modicum of research, I am able to refute any argument favoring CF bulbs.
Go to AmericanThinker.com and check out the archives for the article by “Luminous Maximus.” There, you can read facts and more importantly, see the repercussions of CFLs, not just the feel-good fuzzies the mainstream media like to dole out on this subject.
I resent pastors or pastoral committees telling me how and what to think. When the church makes pronouncements against the war in Iraq, a possible war in Iran, illegal immigration and global warming, they might as well post a sign: Conservatives need not attend.
And then people wonder why Mass attendance is dropping? Whatever happened to the separation of church and state?
I find it so ironic that the Catholic Church has embraced the party of abortion as the one with the best ideas.
Even the Pope recently said that environmental alarmists need to dial it down. Perhaps he sees the religious fervor the mass media is able to rally for this new religion: environmentalism.
Sandy Brasili
Chester
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False impression given in CNS article
The (Catholic News Service) article on the revision of the Good Friday prayers in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite gives a false impression of the status of that form within the Church that borders on deceptive.
The author implies that the Missal of Blessed John XXIII is still reserved for a select few who are somehow unable to accommodate themselves to the modern church.
Far from this, the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum” states very clearly that the 1962 Missal was never abrogated or forbidden.
Indeed it “is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same ‘Lex orandi,’ and must be given due honor for its venerable and ancient usage.”
Any priest may use the Missal of Blessed John XXIII on any day and the faithful may, of their own free will, attend. This may occur in any parish, without requiring the permission of the Bishop.
Should a group of the faithful request it, the celebration of the extraordinary form may be made regular and pastors are urged to do this. Failing satisfaction from the pastor, the Bishop is “strongly requested to satisfy their wishes.”
Permission to use the extraordinary form is also extended to all of the other sacraments, “for the good of souls.”
Finally, and this would appear to be the heart of the matter, the Holy Father asks, in his explanatory letter accompanying the motu proprio that “the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite . . . be mutually enriching” and “the celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI . . . demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage.”
Would that those who expend so much energy defending against the “former usage” were as fervent in seeing the ordinary form “celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives,” so as to “bring out the spiritual richness and theological depth of this Missal.”
John Willard
Richmond
The CNS article did not appear in the web edition of The Catholic Virginian
Dealing with homeless requires courage
I am responding to Mary Hood Hart’s column “How do we deal with the homeless?” featured in the January 28th edition of The Catholic Virginian.
I have been dealing with that same issue almost all of my adult life-what to do when I meet a homeless in the street.
Once I even made a vow that I would never pass a homeless person again without doing something. I was never clear about what that something would be, and it is a good thing that in my town the homeless are few, but there is one.
I see him often at the library, walking in the street, standing on the sidewalk as if he is waiting for a bus. But, I have never had the guts to approach him, not even once. I just say a prayer that someone else would do that something.
Ms. Hart’s column was timely. Last Wednesday (1/30), I attended, for the first time, a bible study group at St. Mary’s in Blacksburg. This group, calling itself Be Prepared, studies the bible passages for the coming Sunday. We were discussing Zeph 3:12–13.
We discussed the meaning of “remnants.” Being all women, we discussed remnants of cloth that are often too small to be of any good use, irregular in shape, in all colors and quality of fabric. The remnants are ‘a people humble and lowly,’ and ‘God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who are nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something (1Cor.1:28.)
In a book on the essential writings of Edith Stein, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Father John Sullivan summarizes Edith Stein’s view on how we should deal with the homeless: “Edith Stein recognized the world as the theater of God’s salvific activities because she felt we all belong to God and are interconnected. The only barriers we need fear are the ones we erect ourselves.”
Jesus is very clear on how we should act toward the homeless, and He emphasized the importance of this in His recent gift to our modern world in the person of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
 Then why do we equivocate? In our bible study group, as in Mary Hood Hart’s column, we surmised that we don’t know how to act, perhaps because we are simply afraid. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was not afraid.
St. Edith was not afraid when she ministered to the children in Auschwitz concentration camp where she died. Even if they were afraid, they never let their personal fears paralyze them to the point of not looking after the lost sheep.
This Lent, let’s pray for courage to be ONE with those humble and lowly remnants of our society because in this is our salvation. Let’s ask St. Edith and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta to pray for us.
Irma Silva-Barbeau, Ph.D.
Blacksburg
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Pet therapy dog heartwarming story
Thank you for your piece on Sister Marie Kerns and her pet-therapy dog, McAuley in the February 11, 2008 issue.
It is always refreshing and heartwarming to hear the story of a rescue that benefits the dog and people as well.
I am thankful to Sister Marie for rescuing this adorable creature who might have been put to sleep if he had not been adopted by her.
Carolyn Bushey
Virginia Beach
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