Letters to the Editor

Thank you to Archbishop Gomez for his Nov. 28 column, which I think offered a balanced and honest assessment of immigration reform. I don't think many people will actually read the U.S. bishops’ statement on immigration that he references, which wasn’t very interesting because it was written by more than 200 clerics.  But the archbishop’s words matter to people, and he points out real problems with the Trump administration’s cruel policy. One is that it seems to intentionally aim to hurt and separate hardworking families. Coming to this country illegally in search of a better life (with the hope of achieving legal status) is not the same as stealing a car or abusing someone. The government should stop acting like it is.  — Chuy Garcia, La Puente

In response to Archbishop Gomez’s column on immigration in the Nov. 28 issue: I believe we should be asking those cheating the system to come forward so that those scary raids by federal law enforcement become unnecessary. Justice demands that people follow just laws. Our elected representatives made those laws, so how can they be unjust? Enforcing the law is not unjust. Is avoiding law enforcement justified by Catholic doctrine? Let’s challenge the lawbreakers to do the right thing. Then we can act to help people who come forward to resolve their situations or to return legally. If a huge number of otherwise law-abiding people come forward and ask forgiveness of the federal government, would that not prompt a positive response?  — Benedict Lucchese, Camarillo

I very much appreciated Heather King’s column in the Oct. 31 issue of Angelus about the “reproductive revolution.” I like the way she is not afraid to be emotive about issues that should arouse in us revulsion and horror. The sentence, “I wanted to lie down and pull the covers over my head,” reminded me of the way I felt after reading “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson a few years ago. The specter of real, live CRISPR babies plunged me into depression.  Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) once stated: “Here we can at once say that at the very heart of sin lies human beings’ denial of their creatureliness.” That’s kind of it in a nutshell, don’t you think? — Kathryn Watson

Thank you, Robert Brennan, for your insightful Nov. 13 column on AngelusNews.com on your quasi support of the Dodgers.  I agree that it was a tough pill to swallow when the Dodgers pulled some recent stunts of support for various groups. However, I must think that Walter O’Malley is rolling in his grave over the denigrating of Catholic nuns two years ago. We avoid businesses for various reasons, but doing what the Dodger organization did is reprehensible. — Marcel Viens, Long Beach

I wanted to submit a response to the letter to the editor from Donald Bentley (“Who’s Responsible for ICE Raids?”, Oct. 31 issue of Angelus). Mr. Bentley states 55% of Catholics voted for Trump in 2024 and thus consented to the ICE raids. I am part of the 45% that did not vote for Trump. But for those who did, I don’t think they ever imagined the ICE raids. Supposedly, the administration was just going to deport criminals. It has gone well beyond that, as we all know. I would rather say they were naive or perhaps deceived, rather than consenting. — Laura Murray, Los Angeles

Heather King’s column in the Oct. 31 issue (“The Place No Human Should Go”) was disrespectful of people who are neurodivergent or on the autism spectrum. First, she lists a number of disorders, life conditions, and problems that have nothing to do with autism and then promptly describes them as being “behaviors on ‘the spectrum.’ ” Then she writes: “‘Neurodivergent’: give me a break.”  To diminish other people’s struggles or pain, to assume such a mocking tone is uncalled for.  — Gisele Fontaine   The author’s response: What I wrote was “Neurodivergent, give me a break. Who isn’t?” Neurodiversity is not a medical term, condition or diagnosis, but rather a nonmedical term that arose around 2000 for those who have differences in the way their brain works. In a July 5, 2023 article in “The Guardian,” Judy Singer, widely accredited with inventing the concept, called it a political movement and opined that “as a word, ‘neurodiversity’ describes the whole of humanity”: my exact point in asking, “Who isn’t neurodiverse?” With all that, my profound apologies if I conflated neurodiversity with autism (which is apparently a subset of neurodiversity), and special apologies if I sounded flippant or uncaring. Far from being insensitive to the plight of those whose brains may work slightly or significantly different than the norm, I thought I made it clear that I included myself in that group. The point in naming just a few possible deviations from the norm — the point in fact of the whole column — was to express my horror at the thought of trying to engineer such differences out of the human person. Assuming the science and technology existed, what if the powers-that-be started testing embryos for alcoholism — a disease that took out 20 years of my own life, for example — or homosexuality, or neurodivergence, and discarding the embryos that didn’t make the cut? Obviously many feel we’d all be better off, but I cannot share that view. My work for the last 30 years has constellated around the theme of the light that shines in darkness, including the darkness of my own lifelong emotional, mental and spiritual struggles. I would not be the person I am without those struggles, and I certainly have never wished not to have been born. That is not to celebrate suffering: not anyone else’s, not my own. It’s to share the deeply Catholic view expressed by the French intellectual Simone Weil: “The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural cure for suffering, but a supernatural use for it.’ ” — Heather King