Compassion
You’ve done something wrong, repented and have spent the following years, even decades, in faithful, compassionate service to others. Then, without warning, you’re placed on extended medical leave, and your calling is gone overnight (4/22). The resultant trauma is mind-boggling.
We need to remember such priests now with a note that details their kindnesses to us and ours. We need to let them know how their counsel, homilies and actions have made us better people, and how, through us, this good continues in the world. As even that flawed place tells us, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Joan Huber Berardinelli
New Directions
Many, many thanks for your honest and forthright consideration of the current horrible scandal. The entire April 1 issue was the best I have seen in 40 years of subscribing. I am sharing it with my friends in our parish, and I expect it to become thoroughly worn out in its labor of love. Thanks too for the attitude of hope and new directions that the articles contain.
Robert F. Hanlon
Continuities and Gaps
The trenchant review by Katarina Schuth, O.S.F., of Passionate Uncertainty, by Peter McDonough and Eugene C. Bianchi, (3/25) fairly raises issues of method, interpretation and context, to which the authors are rightly challenged to respond. In particular, more attention to the global Society of Jesus and its official documents would have helped contextualize the Society in the United States. But it would be unfortunate were potential readers to be persuaded by Schuth’s review to ignore the book, which vividly offers numerous insights, bracing but not hostile, into the experiences, perceptions and choices shaping American Jesuit life today. It does not disappoint on almost all accounts, nor do the 34th General Congregation documents offer an adequate substitute. Better to read both official documents and this book and ponder the continuities and gaps between what we Jesuits say and how we live.
Francis X. Clooney, S.J.
Credit Where Due
In reading through the items in Signs of the Times of your March 11 issue, my eyes went to the picture of the unidentified woman waving the youth day flag at the World Trade Center in New York. And yes, even from the side view I recognized her. She is Francine Guilmette, F.M.A., a Salesian sister, who is the associate director of the World Youth Day Organizing Committee in Toronto, and one of the best youth ministers Montreal has ever had on the diocesan level. She worked many years with me when I was in the diocesan pastoral office and really changed the face of what we call youth ministry. I think she deserves full identification. Much thanks for a superb magazine, to which I look forward every week.
(Msgr.) Francis Coyle
Gospel Message
Thanks to John R. Donahue, S.J., for his beautiful, reassuring words, so badly needed in the shadowy dim and darkness of this unusual Eastertide (The Word, 4/1).
For the past four or five weeks, our local newspaper has featured a major news feature almost every day on some aspect of priestly misconduct. For all Catholics, and certainly for our priests, the vast majority of whom are deeply committed to Christ and to his people, this has been vastly upsetting and troubling; and as Father Donahue suggests, we are, indeed, walking with flagging spirits. But then...from the shadows, in the midst enters our Christ, transforming, consoling, lifting up, reminding us again and again, I am with you...peace with you.... It is I.
As we walk through these troubled days, may we journey with hope and courage, to rise up in our beloved church stronger, more loving, more deeply committed to Jesus, more compassionate and more determined than ever to live the reality of the Gospel message.
Rose Christine Wagner, S.S.J.
Not Deterred
The article Guatemala’s Violent Peace, by Robert B. Gilbert, (3/25) must have tugged at the heart of every New York Sister of Charity as we recall with sorrow the assassination of our sister, Barbara Ann Ford, on May 5 of last year.
Barbara had served the poor of Guatemala for almost 20 years as a nurse and trained counselor when she was fatally shot by someone determined to steal her vehicle.
Your graphic piece leaves one appalled at the level of cruelty people are capable of when they inflict such horror on others for an economic, social or racial pretext.
The situation in Guatemala described in the article ranks right up there with the malice of the terrorism we experienced here on Sept. 11. By the grace of God, it has not deterred the five remaining Sisters of Charity who continue working among the Guatemalan people.
Yolanda De Mola, S.C.
Our Own Penance
To add to the tragedy of pedophile priests (Signs of the Times, 3/18), there have been no words of sorrow, no admissions of complicity, no words of compassion from the pope or his Vatican officials addressed directly to the victims (and their families) of sexual abuse by priests. The victims have been stonewalled and ignored. The only thing we hear about is damage to the church.
Pope John Paul II has repeatedly exhorted us that there is no peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness. In order to make just amends, we must begin by doing our own penance at the highest level in the church. Anything less only adds to this continuing injustice that eats away at any credibility we may yet have.
(Rev.) Charles E. Irvin
Our Own Penance
To add to the tragedy of pedophile priests (Signs of the Times, 3/18), there have been no words of sorrow, no admissions of complicity, no words of compassion from the pope or his Vatican officials addressed directly to the victims (and their families) of sexual abuse by priests. The victims have been stonewalled and ignored. The only thing we hear about is damage to the church.
Pope John Paul II has repeatedly exhorted us that there is no peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness. In order to make just amends, we must begin by doing our own penance at the highest level in the church. Anything less only adds to this continuing injustice that eats away at any credibility we may yet have.
(Rev.) Charles E. Irvin
Vision
Thank you for the insightful article by the Rev. Robert Kress on the priest-pastor (3/11). I have found the model of the overseer to be a useful tool for encouraging pastors to delegate responsibilities to qualified members of the parish. This frees the pastor to be about the equally important work of articulating and maintaining a vision in both pastoral and liturgical contexts.
(Rev.) Joseph C. Doyle
Cautionary Note
Thank you for publishing Thomas A. Shannon’s clear and concise article (2/18) about the complex moral and ethical issues surrounding attempts at human cloning to obtain stem cells for therapeutic use, and the related question of induced parthenogenic cell division of human eggs for the same purpose. This article documents the need for care and caution by the scientific community in continuing such research and, importantly, emphasizes the very preliminary stage of our knowledge in the use of stem cells. Implied also is a cautionary note for the magisterium in its authoritative pronouncements about the beginning of human life, when it fails to consider at all the advances in the science of embryology over the last several decades. I hope we can all benefit from the expertise of Professor Shannon and his colleagues.
Robert M. Rowden