Faith on Ice
Re “Meet the Most Catholic Team in Hockey,” by Michael McKinley (3/18): My boys have both played hockey since they were four and look up to so many N.H.L. players as role models. The players may not wear their religion on their sleeves, but they are the most humble athletes of any professional sport, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Jennifer Tapak Beaucage
Growing the Kingdom of God
Re “Walking Away From ESPN,” by Nick Genovese (3/18): This is an awesome and beautiful story. Mr. Genovese, you were right to turn down a corporate job that has as its only purpose to grow markets and hence revenue. You are growing the kingdom of God and growing hearts for God. Your return on investment is out of this world.
Jorge Luis Luaces Rabaza
Work in Progress
Re “A History of Catholic School Sports, From Babe Ruth to LeBron James,” by Tom Deignan (3/18): The last line of Mr. Deignan’s article gives me hope. This is a work in progress and one that requires some serious soul searching. I am so torn when it comes to athletics. As a high school principal for 24 years in two Catholic high schools, I saw sports over-emphasized by some for their presumed role in building character and, at the same time, under-emphasized by others who saw competitive athletics as unimportant.
Barry Fitzpatrick
Unwinding Pain
Re “A Profoundly Spiritual Art Exhibit About the Abuse Crisis,” by Jim McDermott, S.J. (3/18): This seems like a very potent art exhibit. I like the idea of using art to help unwind the many knots of pain. I can almost picture in my mind the part of the exhibit that displays children’s sacramental-type clothes in the wind to make them appear
as moving children.
Nora Bolcon
Transformation
Re “Brandi Carlile’s Biblical Imagination,” by Justin Klassen (3/18): Thank you for this moving article, which weaves such pertinent and transformative pieces together so coherently. It touched my heart in a time of personal transition.
Paula Pavanis
Play Ball
Re “Of Liturgy and Line Drives,” by James T. Keane (Of Many Things, 3/18): I like watching my grandkids play sports. Girls were not able to do that when I was growing up. Does my heart good to see them grow and excel and enjoy—to play with a team, to mature, to learn discipline.
Linda Gonzales
Consistent Ethic of Life
Re “Why I Am Pro-Life,” by James Martin, S.J. (3/4): Thank you, Father Martin, for articulating so eloquently the consistent ethic of life expressed by our Catholic social teaching. In his apostolic exhortation “Gaudete et Exsultate,”in 2018, Pope Francis says: “Our defense of the innocent unborn...needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person.” Equally sacred are the lives of the poor, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable and elderly. Would that every parish pro-life group would express the same truth.
Elizabeth Gavula
Flourtown, Pa.
Church Renewal
Re “Catholic Schools Reimagined,” by Betsy Shirley (2/4): I read this with interest. The late Msgr. Olin J. Murdick, of the Diocese of Saginaw in Michigan, was an early pioneer in efforts to promote shared responsibility by lay and religious people in Catholic schools in the United States. He developed a theory of Catholic school boards in his doctoral dissertation at the Catholic University of America, and his work remains a valuable model for this church renewal.
Frances Forde Plude
Cleveland, Ohio
