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Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

March 1998 LETTERS

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Have you lost your reason -- or just your Catholic faith? How could you publish the blasphemy of attributing divinity to a creature of God with the statement on page 4 ("Child Murderer or Boy Saint?", February) that: "The followers of Juan Soldado believe in the power of his divine intervention"? Or again, considering the reverence all Christians owe to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, how could you publish the noxious statement on page 3 that: "Javier has returned to the shrine every June 24 to give thanks to his savior"?

If your goal was to bring discredit on the Catholic faith, you have undoubtedly achieved that in abundance with those whose hatred for Catholicism will simply lead them to delight in their conviction that those statements are the reality of Catholicism. But you should know better!

-- James Harris
Clairemont

"Divine intervention" is inaccurate; it should have read "divine intercession." Calling someone a "savior" in this context -- not to be confused with the proper noun reserved for Christ -- is akin to members of the Underground Railroad who were referred to as "saviors" by the slaves they smuggled to freedom. -- Editor


LARGE FAMILIES BEGET RELIGIOUS VOCATIONS

My good friend Msgr. George A. Kelly's article "Why Are There So Few Young Priests?" in the San Diego News Notes of June 1997 is excellent, but he left out an essential point.

In the last ten years, when before groups of priests, religious or seminarians, I have asked each the size of his/her family. Priests came from families of five to six children, religious from families of slightly less, and seminarians again from families of five to six children. The smallest family from which seminarians came was a seminary in Puerto Rico, where the 24 seminarians came from families with an average of four children. However, the average family in Puerto Rico has two children, so the vocation was twice the size of the average family.

Recently I gave a lecture to 27 Benedictine cloistered nuns in south France. The average nun came from a family of between four and five children. The average-sized French family is 1.8 children.

The average American completed family size is 2.1 children. For the last 25 years the native American (non-immigrant) married couple has not reproduced itself. It is the larger-sized families of the more than one million immigrants who come to this country yearly who bring our birthrate to 2.1; this hovers around replacement.

No bishop or religious superior should think he/she will fill his or her seminary or novitiate with a generous number of priest or religious recruits from families averaging 2.1 children.

One of the chief reasons for the shortage of priests and religious is the unchaste living of married couples. It is safe to say that 80 percent of fertile Catholic couples in this country are using sinful means of birth control, including sterilization, the fastest means of fertility control in the world. Surely one essential and fundamental purpose of sexuality in married life is to build a loving home into which the devoted Catholic couple invites children from the hand of the Lord.

Given the sex mess, given the enormous abuse of God's great gift of sexuality in this country, ruined by a litany of sexual aberrations, it is strange that our bishops have not issued a national pastoral on chastity in and out of marriage.

As an ancient man once said, "God always forgives, men sometimes, nature never; she is jealous of fertility; she strikes back." Indeed! No generation should understand this better than our own, living in a culture of death and non-love.

The great English convert G.K. Chesterton once said that if there is one doctrine in the teaching of the Catholic Church you need not prove, it is original sin. Today we ought to know there is another: the absolute need of chastity before and within marriage. The lack of loving sexual control in and out of marriage destroys the family -- and with it much else. For the virtuous married couple this means the proper and generous use of their God-given procreative sexual natures to bring into the world a generous, responsible number of children -- above all, in a nation that is dependent on immigration for its future existence.

-- Rev. Paul Marx, OSB
Human Life International
Front Royal, Virginia


BE YE NOT LUKEWARM ABOUT ABORTION!

It has now been a quarter-century since the Supreme Court legalized abortion. Frankly, I am tiring of the rhetoric. Call me impolite if you must, but I do not want my daughter to have to fight my battles for me. It is time for the women of America to make clear that the feminist leadership does not represent the best interests of the majority of women.

Do not forget these facts: The majority (75 percent) of abortions are not performed on teenagers. And of the teens, over 50 percent were impregnated by adult males. Rape and incest make up only 1 percent of all abortion cases.

It may be impolite to speak the truth. But this foolishness has got to stop.

I hosted a coffee recently for the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life membership organization. This organization identifies and trains pro-life women who plan to run for Congress. I cannot think of a more effective strategy than this one to ensure that my daughter will not have to teach her children about the sad facts of abortion in America.

Since the founding of the Susan B. Anthony List political committee in 1993, eight new pro-life women have been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. There are still no pro-life women in the U.S. Senate. For every pro-life woman in Congress like Rep. Helen Chenoweth, there are nearly nine pro-abortion women like Sen. Patty Murray.

Pro-abortion women candidates have six organizations backing them. They raised over $20 million in the past year. Emily's List (supporting "pro-choice" Democrat women candidates) alone raised over $13.7 million and has nearly 66,000 members, making it the largest political action group in the country. Pro-life women candidates have only one organization dedicated to helping them: the Susan B. Anthony List.

One of the difficulties faced by the Susan B. Anthony List is reaching pro-life women. Many of the organizations dedicated to the pro-life cause are not allowed for tax purposes to have any political activity, including advocating the Susan B. Anthony List. My hope is that you will copy and send my letter to as many pro-life women as you can. If you wish to retype it and e-mail it to others, please feel free. Let's get the word out to our pro-life sisters!

Here's what you can do: 1) Send this letter or e-mail it to as many family members and friends as you can think of. Go out on a limb. Take a chance on your aunt. If you offend, so be it. But be ye not lukewarm!!! (Rev. 3:16)

2) Join the Susan B. Anthony List. They can be reached by e-mail at info@SBA-List.org, by telephone at (703) 683-5558, or by mail at 228 South Washington Street, Suite 105, Alexandria, VA 22314. Be sure to include your name, address, phone and they will bill you for the $25 membership fee.

3) Contribute money to the Susan B. Anthony List, above and beyond their membership fees. If money is the only language spoken in Washington, those of us who can must speak that language. Better yet, host a coffee in your area to introduce pro-life women to each other, and to help the SBA List build its membership.

4) Pray without ceasing for an end to abortion in America. As Mother Teresa said, "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die that you may live as you wish." Offer up the various sufferings of your days for this special intention.

I know you are busy. I am asking you to sacrifice a little time for the unborn. Please! Do not put it off until later. Perhaps this will be the last Easter we spend in a country that supports infanticide.

-- Kristen West McGuire

Kristen McGuire (kwmdwm@gte.net), formerly of Coronado, California, now lives in Virginia.

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