The Catholic Register - Readers Speak Out

Written by Catholic Register Readers,

God and execution

St. Augustine said that if we love God, we may do what we like. Obviously, if God is love, He can do whatever He likes and it will always be loving. Hans VanLeeuwen’s Feb. 17 reply to Frank Chatigny’s earlier letter suggests strongly that if God is love, He must do what Mr. VanLeeuwen likes.

Believing that God is love doesn’t necessarily mean capital punishment is wrong. Establishing that capital punishment is wrong would show that a God who is love could not approve it. The Catechism of the Catholic Church doesn’t do that, and certainly not “firmly.”

I suggest that Pope John Paul II, with his distaste for “violence,” would have liked to do that but knew he couldn’t, so that is why the catechism fudges on the issue by discussing it from the point of view of “protecting society” without suggesting it is unjust. But no society may protect itself by unjust means, so that seems to settle that.

Colin Burke
Port au Port, Nfld.

Leave scandals alone

You have no idea how upsetting it is to read the washing of dirty clerical linen in a Catholic newspaper (“Healing priest barred in Toronto faces Philippines complaint,” Feb. 10). I have attended a holy Mass in Sudbury, Ont., recently celebrated by Fr. Fernando Suarez where he spoke about the healing power of God. At no time did he draw attention to himself or make any personal claim to the power to heal.

My family and friends have also had the good fortune to hear Fr. Suarez being interviewed by Fr. Bob Bedard recently on Food for Life. Again at no time did he make any claim that this healing was due to any personal power. This humble man gave the power and glory to our heavenly Father.

If the former cardinal archbishop of Toronto did ban Fr. Suarez from ministering in the archdiocese, he was in error and as a human being is capable of such error. Hopefully, this matter was corrected and your newspaper is just not in possession of the facts.

Please, in the future do not put such items in the newspaper. A letter to the parties involved to resolve the issues and to encourage them not to involve themselves in scandalous behaviour would be a far better solution. As a newspaper you bear a tremendous responsibility not to lead some innocent reader away from his/her faith.

Joseph O’Neill
Elliot Lake, Ont.

They’re copycats

The York Catholic District Catholic School Board is right to want to name a high school after Jean Vanier. Once again, however, they show their laziness and complete lack of creativity in choosing a name already in use in the city of Toronto.

There are thousands of saints who have no schools named for them in Ontario, including hundreds recently canonized by Pope John Paul II. Why not chose a unique name as a way of promoting a new saint or role model to young people?

I thought that the controversy over copying the names of Toronto schools was made clear in the significant opposition in 2005 to poaching the St. Jean de Brebeuf name, but I fear the York board won’t rest until it also has its own St. Michael’s, De La Salle and Loretto as well.

Michael Feeheley Da Costa
Teacher
Brebeuf College School
Toronto, Ont.

Mary did die

In the March 2 edition of The Catholic Register in the article “Dogma and Mary,” regarding the fourth dogmatic teaching on Mary, it states “the Assumption of Mary was pronounced dogma by Pope Pius XII in 1950.” The Register then goes on to say: “It declares that rather than dying Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven.”

This last sentence seems to be at odds with the teaching of Pope Pius XII in his apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus (The Most Bountiful God) Nov. 1, 1950, when he declared the Dogma of the Assumption. In that document the Holy Father recounts the teachings of the early Fathers of the Church.

In paragraph 20, he writes “that the holy Fathers and great Doctors in their homilies and sermons that they gave the people on this feast day… offered more explanations of its meaning and nature, bringing out in sharper light the fact that this feast shows not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin remained incorrupt but that she gained a triumph after death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ…”

I believe a correction is in order.

Fr. J. Basil Breen
Toronto, Ont.

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