2004 LETTERS
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Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

LETTERS
January 2004

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The "Roamin' Catholic" regular article by Stanford Espedal is excellent! We traditional, orthodox Catholics here in Oregon look forward to reading his insights each issue we get.

Multiply the crumbling reverence and respect shown there in Southern California by two and you have our own little "den of thieves" here. Espedal's irreverence innuendoes, as alluded to by the confused writer, F.R. Sprecco, of Lakeside are veritably Chestertonian! "Father Joe", or "Father Bud" indeed! Sounds like the beginning of a soccer match!

We particularly liked his reference in the article about Saint Gregory's [December 2003 issue] wherein he says, "Behind it stands a cross of intertwined wood and crystal, empty, as Protestants prefer." That says it all! The Protestantization of the Roman Catholic Church!

As long as there are defenders of this Protestantization/secularization like F.R. Sprecco -- we need and praise the work of Mr. Stanford Espedal!

God Bless your work,

Vernon Franklin,
Oregon


ARISTOTELIAN DOMINICANS VS. PLATONIST FRANCISCANS

I find your newspaper very enlightening concerning the conservative spectrum of Catholicism. I encourage your staff to focus in on the nation's failure to see the violence against innocents, humanity, and "the outsiders" as a great moral crime. The evil of pornography, materialism, and gluttony are becoming more deleterious to our culture and we need the media to be critical. However, I have trouble when the print media makes a statement this is blatantly erroneous: "...and [the magazine] America, which has been called 'not reliable on either moral or doctrinal matters' by Karl Keating of Catholic Answers." [see "What do they Teach Those Drawn to The Church?" December 2003.] When was this claim made? Do you subscribe to that statement? If so, I believe that you should clarify how you determined that this Jesuit publication is not reliable on either moral or doctrinal matters.

The Church has always had competing viewpoints on many such issues. Look at the debates in the Middle Ages at the University of Paris before the Reformation between the Aristotelian Dominicans and the Franciscan Platonists. And, unfortunately, many of these encounters lacked Christian love in their search for truth.

Corporate Catholicism has been alive and well since the Acts of the Apostles. And the Baltimore Catechism is a valid teaching tool. But as we Catholics matured, it is believed that we graduated to a more profound holiness and stopped majoring in minors. The two Great Commandments are encompassed in the words "...and the greatest of these is Love." And this journey is not relegated to exactions of shibboleths. Living in truth and in spirit trumps the intellect. There is so much to say, but so little space in our sound bite Letters column.

Pax tecum,

Tom Whaling,
Mission Viejo

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