Letters to the Editor

Dear Editors,

The article "An Hour for Christian Witness" in the Nov. 27-Dec. 4 issue of Angelus ends with “But whether Biden will govern with a consistently Catholic approach on the issues will remain to be seen”.

There isn’t any ambiguity in how a Biden-Harris administration will eviserate Catholic beliefs from abortion to freedom of religion. Joe Biden is against the Hyde Amendment and the Mexico City policy. He would work to require all health insurance policies pay for contraceptives and many abortifacients.

Kamala Harris questions whether a Knight of Columbus can be a Judge. As California attorney general she virulently attacked pro-life pregnancy counseling centers, attacking both freedom of speech and religion, and for the moment loosing that battle in SCOTUS decision in NIFLA v. Becerra.

Respectfully,

Dennis De Pietro
Pasadena

Regarding the essay on Rod Dreher's "Live Not By Lies," titled "Resist or reach out? The Catholic dilemma after the 2020 election":

Both as Christians and citizens, the search for truth is essential. Yet never before have Americans been so out of touch with reality. However the “soft totalitarianism” we are experiencing does not come from cultural elites. Rather, financial elites and enemy nations have joined together and created the most effective and highly targeted misinformation campaign in history, thanks to consolidated news sources and social media. Do not be mistaken here: your cable company and computer know more about you than your spouse; and no psychological tool has been spared in this carefully crafted manipulation. Awareness of this fact is the first step in discerning truth from lies.

We live in a time of intentional division in our Church and in our nation, designed explicitly to weaken its members. Furthermore, the primary tool of this division is misinformation, misdirection, oversimplification and outrage. It is incumbent upon each of us to recognize and resist this division. As citizens we must learn how to distinguish truth, from partial truths and lies; and as Christians we would do well to consider how much time we spend on the sins of others, versus our own. It is only through personal humility, and prayer that we allow God to work in us.

Mrs. Douglas Jungwirth

Porter Ranch, California

I like your idea of the series by what you call “Catholic thinkers.” Aren’t all of us Catholics called to be Catholic thinkers, applying faith to life? That takes thinking and discernment.

I think you’re thinking of “thinkers” as in “think tanks.” I don’t think you mean “Catholic intellectuals,” an older, perhaps too elitist phrase, though, for example, wonderful Father Ronald Rolheiser is exactly that, and a theologian, too.

I think you need a better description, something like, “Catholics with special experience or expertise,” or “Catholics in thought and deed.”

- Phil Argento

What a grave disservice Angelus News does by leaving readers with murky conclusions over how to vote in “The homeless Catholic voter.” By framing the upcoming election as a presidential contest between two equally worthy sets of ideas, the article miserably fails to communicate Catholic teaching.

Church wisdom proclaims that there is an objective moral order which determines a hierarchy of values. In the political sphere, this translates into non-negotiable issues superseding issues that allow for a diversity of opinion. And what are those non-negotiable issues?  

Although cursory attention is given to “Forming Consciences through Faithful Citizenship,” the author omits the bishops’ emphatic statement that “the threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed.”

So, rather than make Catholics feel like they must wrangle over a myriad of issues, why not begin at the most basic and fundamental right — the right to life? After all, everything else flows from that.

Testing a candidate’s worthiness by studying his/her stance on non-negotiable issues simplifies the choice. 

By pushing positions that directly oppose the Catholic Church’s teachings on life — not to mention the teachings on marriage and religious freedom (also non-negotiables) — Joe Biden has forfeited the chance to be considered a worthy candidate.

- Elizabeth Ebiner, Pomona, CA

In response to "The homeless Catholic Voter":

To be as short as possible: I am not a homeless voter!

You say the bishops state the “responsibility to make choices in political life rests with each individual in light of a properly formed conscience.” OK. Forming consciences in accordance with God’s truth? Is that what they think their document does? It is a farce, just as the comment of Bishop Rhoades that there are no easy answers? There is an easy answer: There is no future without life!

Religious freedom is at stake. We are at the potential threshold of total socialism. How can anyone justify voting for anyone who is an apostate Catholic and teamed up with a partner who is the most radical and anti-Catholic he could have chosen? Your statement that good Catholics can disagree on the issues today is wrong. In this case, a good Catholic cannot possibly agree with a bad Catholic.

Your column is not helpful, but rather misleading by justifying a vote for intrinsic evil to the uninformed and undecided voter. You have failed in your responsibility as a Catholic publication.

-Hilmar Rosenast
Valencia, California

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg brings a sharp focus to the primary political, economic and moral issue that consumes our country. We can camouflage it with many distracting current events, but the issue of abortion is the epicenter of all the important current political seismic shocks. It continues to fracture what little is left of political collaboration. It is a life or death issue and there is nothing in between.

Abortion is not a new issue nor is neonatal death, nor sex selection to determine who is eligible for life. Hippocrates addressed this long before Christ. We however live in an era in which abortion procedures are much safer for the mother, even though not for the child. We have indeed become used to what many assume is a necessary procedure.

Many years ago as a teenager I remember speaking with an older woman in her late 30s who was a young teenager in Germany during World War II. I asked her how her country could allow the destruction of so many Jews. She replied that we just had gotten used to it. It took a World War to bring us to our senses.

This, of course, was not the only time and place where we were used to things that we should never become used to. We were used to slavery until a Civil War brought us to our senses. We were used to taking land from Native Americans and called it Manifest Destiny. Turkey did the same with Armenians, China is doing the same today with Uyghurs, while Africa is littered with intertribal destruction. When trying to improve our place in life, we humans often try to appropriate what others have as their own.

When trying to recover from personal or national disasters, it becomes especially alluring to seek a weaker scapegoat from which we can extract some hope of recovering a better life.

Whether it’s a genetic or religious class of people such as Jews, Armenians or Uyghurs, a financial class of people such as all the Bezos of the world, an unwanted class of people such as immigrants or an ‘obstructing’ class of people such as Native Americans, we always seem to find someone.

An unwanted pregnancy could be viewed as the worst disaster, the pinnacle of oppression. Every plan, hope or dream that had ever entered the mind of a mother is immediately placed on the endangered list by a pregnancy. Everything could succumb to the power of a child.

I am an old white male and still doubt that I could ever grasp the power of that feeling. It seems immediate, inescapable, overpowering and suffocating. It is no wonder that we could get used to doing anything to relieve us of this feeling.

But we should never resort to, nor get used to the taking of innocent human life. When we do, no one is safe. The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as with the Indian Plains Wars, Tiananmen Square, and the Battle of Gettysburg should make us rethink what we’ve gotten used to. Hopefully this will not take a metaphorical war that could rupture the fabric of our Democracy and cut the heart out of our soul.

Tim McNicoll MD, MA Bioethics (Loyola Marymount University)

Simi Valley, California