Letters to the Editor

Reasons for leaving

“Why U.S. Catholics are heading for the exits” (NCR, Oct. 17) listed three reasons for losses in church attendance: ease of salvation via “fundamentalist Protestantism,” loss of “romance of religion,” and the child sex abuse scandal. Might I add my own? How about that mandatory celibacy requirement responsible for the shortage of clergy; perfunctory liturgies with uninspiring homilies (if any at all); poor stewardship of assets both monetary and membership; lousy leadership of the medieval monarch, aka “the bishop”; and failure to challenge the people of God who are the church? When faith in Jesus becomes more a business as usual than an opportunity to inspire and be inspired by others who regularly reach out to the poor, the hungry, the needy and others as Matthew 25:31-46 requires us to do, it is no wonder that membership shrinks and slinks away.

What would Jesus do? It was surely never “business as usual.”

PAUL J. ACKERMAN
Columbus, Miss.

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I was pleased to see in Stafford Betty’s article “Why U.S. Catholics are heading for the exits” the recognition that many ex-Catholics long for the “sense of awe in the presence of the Divine.” For the generation of progressive Catholics who lived through Vatican II, it seems as though any sense of mystery or formality in liturgy, or -- mirabile dictu! -- the use of Latin, awakens feelings of exclusion, oppression, extremism and the like. For a younger generation of Catholics, or former Catholics, the formality of religious practice is not accompanied by the same baggage, nor is it seen as incompatible with a progressive and inclusive worldview. Incense, bells and Gregorian chant used wisely could do a lot to bring serious searchers into, or back to, the church. Religion, like politics, is an arena in which tradition must be wrested back from the hands of the far right, since it belongs to us all.

JOHN PIAZZA
Oakland, Calif.

Road to destruction

Colman McCarthy quotes Sen. Barack Obama saying, “I strongly support the expansion of our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines” (NCR, Oct. 3). From what barrios and slums, from what blighted farm towns will a President Obama recruit so much cannon fodder? What lies will 90,000 more young men and women be told to exploit their generosity and courage? What empty promises will entice more of our children to waste their futures, their lives, health and sanity for wars? And if these cannot be found, how many exhausted and traumatized soldiers, Marines, reservists and guards, will find that they are not going to be allowed to come home and that their expected release dates will slide further into the future? How many more innocent civilians who mean us no harm in Afghanistan and Iraq will be murdered in fulfillment of campaign promises?

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,” Dr. Martin Luther King told us in 1967. Each president of either party that we have endured since Dr. King’s dire warning has only brought our nation closer to spiritual death by that path. Both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Obama promise only to follow their tragic predecessors down that road to destruction. If we have not already arrived, both major candidates seem hell-bent on being the one to deliver us there.

BRIAN TERRELL
Des Moines, Iowa

Glass altar rail

I just read Margot Patterson’s profile of Kerry Kennedy and review of her book (NCR, Oct. 3). As I read, I thought of my own experiences starting as a cradle Catholic to my present life as a Catholic who considers himself to be a “prisoner of the Vatican,” to use the phrase attributed to Pope Pius IX.

I believe that, Vatican II notwithstanding, we still have a glass altar rail. On stewardship Sundays we hear pleas for parishioners to volunteer for various ministries. However, since the glass rail exists, most parishioners must wonder how the ministry allows them to have an ownership in their communities. Most, rather sensibly I believe, have decided just to pay their dues and get to heaven that way. I pray that someday the church will listen to its own teaching that there is only one baptism and accept the idea that we need a Vatican III in which all Catholics participate.

ERNEST A. DORKO
Albuquerque, N.M.

Fall books

The Fall Books Section (NCR, Oct. 3) inspired and moved me. The book reviews were like visits with old friends. Kerry Kennedy’s interviews with a broad spectrum of Catholics gives comfort to progressive Catholics. It’s comforting to know that there are many prominent Catholics who dissent on the topics where the bishops just don’t get it. Here in the Lincoln, Neb., diocese we still hear sermons on birth control and are encouraged to “ask a priest” if we have questions.

Anne Rice’s spiritual journey helped me appreciate again her previous Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Of course, Richard McBrien’s The Church: The Evolution of Catholicism helps focus a bright light on this diocese, the quintessential “dark night of pseudo-orthodoxy.” Paradoxically Kathleen Norris’ downer Acedia and Me helped me recall her earlier upbeat experiences in Cloister Walk of farm houses and monasteries in South Dakota.

I probably won’t read any of the books mentioned but the reviews themselves were both enlightening and inspiring.

JOHN KREJCI
Lincoln, Neb.

Influencing the election

Regarding “Pelosi, Biden hit” (NCR, Sept. 19): If the bishops are so intent on influencing this election, perhaps they could begin by reminding us all how morally evil it would be for anyone to vote against a candidate solely on the basis of race. This could be followed by a reminder about the immorality of failing to protect the environment. Other reminders could deal with the role of government in protecting citizens from corporate greed, the obligation to help those poorer than ourselves, the moral necessity for all elected representatives to obey the law and respect the Constitution, the evils of torture and the immorality of the use of force as a first choice in solving international problems. Based on the results of the last two presidential elections, I think we can manage just fine without the meddling of the bishops.

JOHN HANCOCK
Naples, Fla.

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To understand the folly of voting on the basis of just one issue, of which there are many to be considered, be aware that eight years have been wasted for dealing with global warming. The Bush administration kept secret for four years the findings of a study commissioned by Congress to list the effects of global warming that are happening right now. Diseases are moving northward, as are insects that destroy much needed food for wild animals. Ice at the North Pole is melting at rate of 15 percent per year. Permafrost is melting, releasing much carbon dioxide along with methane, which is 20 times more dangerous as a greenhouse gas. As the oceans warm, methane is also released from the ocean depths. As the oceans rise, island nations in the South Pacific will be flooded. This is just a short list of calamities that will follow full-blown global warming. This is just one issue that needs to be considered.

(Br.) FINBAR McMULLEN, FSC
Winona, Minn.

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The U.S. bishops’ antiabortion strategy is to have Roe v. Wade reversed. However, that would only allow each state to make its own decision. A recent New York Times/CBS poll showed that 24 percent of all voters said abortion should not be permitted, 33 percent said it should be generally available and 40 percent said it should be generally available but with stricter limits. Based on these statistics, many states would vote to keep abortion available.

The statistics on teenage sex and abortion are disturbing. According to a 2001 UNICEF report, 81 percent of teenage girls have had sex. Teenage abortion rates are the highest in the world, 30.2 per 1,000 teenage girls between 15 and 19. Compare the same figures with Western European teenagers. Teenage sex is as high or higher but abortion rates are half as high. Sex education and the use of contraception are the obvious reasons.

Would not it be better to work for solutions that could substantially reduce the abortion rates? Why do young women have abortions? We should try to identify those reasons and address them. Three reasons given are: I can’t handle having a baby. It would change my life too much. I can’t afford it. Can we make it easier not to have an abortion by providing child care, child health care, and educational benefits for the child? Our objective should be to seek ways to reduce abortions, not continue to pursue a strategy that seems unlikely to succeed.

JOHN B. CARON
Greenwich, Conn.

God our Mother

Regarding your article “No Yahweh in songs, prayers at Catholic Masses” (NCR, Aug. 22): I sing, “Yahweh, I Know You Are Near” to myself every day and am not about to change. Jesus got around the accidental blasphemy by calling God “Daddy (Abba).” The Hebrew word for “Lord” is “Adonai,” and it’s feminine in form. Also, Pope John Paul II said that “we should pray to God our Father but more importantly to God our Mother.”

JOSEPH J. KUCIEJCZYK
St. Louis

National Catholic Reporter October 31, 2008