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Written by Catholic Register Readers
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Thursday, 24 May 2007 |
Promote chastity
Sara Loftson’s April 22 article, “Couples chat about chastity,” is one of the best I have read so far on the importance of chastity before marriage and how to make it work. It shows well that chastity is not only to refrain from having sex but to respect each other, physically and spiritually.
God teaches the men in the Scriptures to be good leaders, not dictators, in order that the affairs in the world will be run as He wishes and as He knows to work best for men.
In many countries, women are automatically blamed for adultery and killed or tortured, without anyone finding the truth. Even in our country, many women and children are forced into prostitution and then put in jail, but not their persecutors. There are also too many men put in jail for beating or rape that are not given true justice. They were raped first by our media and entertainment industry.
This article is a breath of fresh air and I thank you for publishing it. I pray that our Catholic education board will promote that it is not by knowing how to have sex that will make a successful marriage but by applying the virtues we find in the Scriptures. We need good examples more than just preaching, so I am encouraging you to print more of these articles.
Pierrette Gagnon
Etobicoke, Ont.
Gays pushed out
Your report on the homosexual issue as it dogs the Anglican Communion deserves comment (“Anglican schism a real threat, says Canterbury,” April 29).
The wonderful strength of the Anglican Communion is the openness and honesty with which it entertains debate over the thorny issue that homosexuality represents for the church in general. All kinds of profound reflections are being made that could be the basis for the renewal of the church and its role in the world.
Conflict is not new to the church but stifling it, as the Roman Catholic Church does, is a serious breach of the Gospel message of Christ’s non-violent love. Here the issue is not homosexuality but rather one’s capacity to remain loyal to the church while in disagreement with her on a question of discipline, not doctrine.
Being loyal to, but in disagreement with the church, is a non-thought for many bishops, to say nothing of the laity. That has been our culture in Roman Catholicism — blind obedience to authority, justifying the magisterium’s refusal to live out its obligation to dialogue with those most affected by its teaching authority.
Mutuality is a characteristic attributed to the persons of the most holy Trinity. The church has simply ignored that fundamental characteristic of all relationship (so eloquently expressed in much of the church’s liturgy in its dealing with homosexuals). Homosexuals are not an issue; they are people and there is very little real love or acceptance for them in the Roman Catholic Church as long as there remains no push to create a space for open dialogue.
J. Phillips
Toronto, Ont.
Lured into false belief
Regarding the April 29 article, “Green Party’s May interested in the common good, but supports abortion, gay marriage,” by Deborah Gyapong, hoping to “attract Catholic voters,” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May claims that “non-violence” and the “common good” are at the heart of her party. In fact this could not be further from the truth since both May and her party vehemently promote homosexuality, same-sex marriage and abortion.
Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently branded homosexual marriage an evil and denounced abortion as a form of “terrorism with a human face.” He called abortion clinics “slaughterhouses of human beings.”
May rails against politicians who “appear to think that the way to get votes is to appeal to every person’s selfish drive.” But is she not doing the same thing herself in posing as a kind of semi-Catholic with talk of a “common good” in order to lure Catholic voters away from their own beliefs and towards their passions?
Also abortion and same-sex marriage are not “charter rights” as May claims. These are nothing but positive laws of human creation based on false interpretations of the charter as a “living tree” — a tree that supposedly allows for morality to evolve. If this were true, the preamble of the charter would not have referred to human rights as rights that are under the “supremacy of God.”
While politicians, lawyers, judges and even some Anglicans like May are moving toward the acceptance of homosexuality and abortion, God is not.
If there is a “dark age ahead” it is because of people like May and the Green Party. This gives me pause to wonder why May is being promoted, or at least being allowed to promote herself, in a Catholic newspaper.
Paul Kokoski
Hamilton, Ont.
The Liberals did it
We are disappointed with your April 29 editorial, “Mired in Afghanistan.” Your information is very inaccurate.
It was the Liberals who set the date of 2009 for pulling out. The prisoners regulation was also in the Liberal era. The army is finally getting “tanks” and equipment that the Liberals never had the money for, maybe because the Liberals spent the money on boondoggles.
Sorry if this seems very political, but your editorial was also incorrect and unfair.
Give Stephen Harper a chance. He is a Christian family man.
Betty and Frank Barrett
Vanier, Ont.
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