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Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

LETTERS
February 2003

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Re your December issue, I applaud Father Richard Perozich of Our Lady of Sacred Heart for condensing the available voter guides into one that was more relevant to his parishioners [see "Big Brothers Allow Gay Mentors"]. He then told his people to vote Catholic!

Our dioceses advance a pro-life and social justice program that places heavy emphasis on social justice while playing down pro-life issues. As Catholics we must support life no matter how unpopular that cause might be.

Father Perozich again demonstrates great leadership by preaching the importance of life and familiy issues to his people. The good folks of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart are fortunate to have something most parishes in this diocese have not -- a pastor.

C.E. Hansen
Alpine


ALONE WITH GAY MENTORS

Who is kidding who? How can Big Brothers of America allow gay mentors [see "Big Brothers Allow Gay Mentors"]?

Any heterosexual will try to impress a member of the opposite sex and hopefully leave a favorable impression, so what makes homosexuals any different?

You wouldn't leave a child all alone in a candy store without supervision, nor should we be putting our children at risk of being alone with gay mentors who have an agenda to promote - to show how normal gays can be. Why can't they just leave our children alone?

Craig Galik
Duquesne, PA


USING MR. FOXMORE'S LOGIC

In Jeffrey Foxmore's letter to the editor [See "Are you out of your mind?," Jan, 2003], Mr. Foxmore states unequivocably, and without substantiation, that "...most of the men who molest boys [are] homosexual." From this alleged fact, Mr. Foxmore concludes that "any person not legally responsible for himself should not be permitted in the unchaperoned company of a adults who are oriented to be sexually attracted to them."

Using Mr. Foxmore's logic, why shouldn't I conclude that because all men who molest girls are heterosexual, heterosexual males should always be chaperoned when in the presence of girls?

Goodbye to male teachers, male counselors, male doctors who try to help girls without a chaperone. The list goes on, and the conclusions are laughable.

It is wrong to condemn an entire group on the basis of the foul deeds of some members of that group. Using Mr. Foxmore's logic, heterosexual men become the most feared group of humans on this planet. Just think of the rapes, murders, wars and other butcheries committed by this group. Mr. Foxmore might find even himself persecuted for the innumerable sins committed by heterosexual males.

R.D Bryan
La Jolla


CIRCUMCISION -- LIKE ABORTION

As a pro-life Roman Catholic and an advocate for children who cannot speak for themselves, I am writing to bring to your attention a moral law violation that occurs every day in the United States at Catholic hospitals -- the elective circumcisions of baby boys. Catholic hospitals in the U.S. follow the moral law by not allowing abortions, sterilizations, and genital mutilations of females, but they violate the moral law by allowing non-therapeutic, elective circumcisions of male infants at their facilities. This occurs mainly in U.S. hospitals, but not in hospitals in most other countries where the rights of male children are respected.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, under "Respect for bodily integrity," states, "Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law." Elective circumcision (i.e. healthy foreskin amputation) fits the definition of an amputation, which means to cut off. (In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics described circumcision as "amputation of the foreskin." In 2000, the American Medical Association described elective circumcisions as "non-therapeutic.") Circumcision is done usually for social and cultural reasons, not medical ones! (Much as most abortions today are done for social reasons, not medical ones!) Catholic hospitals don't use the line that parents have the right to make a choice for abortion, and that the hospital should remain neutral. Neither should Catholic hospitals or bishops use the parental choice line for circumcision, which ignores the baby's choice and his right to his own bodily integrity.

U.S. Catholic hospitals send a mixed message to parents by allowing medically unnecessary, harmful circumcisions to continue, thus appearing to give tacit approval and legitimacy to a non-therapeutic procedure that clearly violates the moral law as expressed in the Catholic Catechism. Catholic hospitals that ask parents of male newborns if they want their children circumcised (usually after providing incomplete information about the risks of circumcision and the benefits of non-circumcision) are soliciting for medically unnecessary surgery.

Petrina Fadel
Groton, New York

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