China Watchers

Your article “China Watchers Divided on Religious Freedom Issue” by Tracy Early (Sept. 7-13) will give many readers a wrong impression that the religious persecution in China as debated by the Congress and reported by the media worldwide is “overdone,” does not “correspond with that coming from China,” and is politicized to serve “other causes.” The article will further mislead many readers into believing that the Chinese government “had changed [its] policy to allow more religious freedom.” These statements are contrary to the fact.

Mr. A.M. Rosenthal has the vision, courage, justice, and compassion to editorialize through his many articles in The New York Times to wake up people to the fact that there are serious, on-going religious persecutions in many nations—including China.

Rosenthal should be commended for his insistence and persistence in commitment to freedom of religion and to the prompt reporting of religious persecutions. If the persecutors of religion have spared one life, or lessened sufferings one degree as the result of Rosenthal's prodding, his articles would be worth millions and he would be rewarded by God manifold. I for one believe that he has already done both, because what the communists fear most is for the truth to be revealed. These governments thought that they could hide from world opinion of their religious persecutions. Rosenthal certainly can claim his share of credit in awakening the world to these atrocities.

Early used about one dozen people to refute or to downplay Rosenthal's many Times articles. None of them could even remotely prove him wrong, however. They are all from similar ideological and religious backgrounds. Furthermore, their opinions on the severity and the effect of religious persecution are all at the opposite end of the spectrum from what have been expressed in Mr. Rosenthal's column. Moreover, most of them are known sympathizers and supporters of the communist government sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic association.

Joseph Kung, president

Cardinal Kung Foundation

Stamford, Connecticut

Kiryas Joel

Michael Scaperlanda's article on the formation of the Kiryas Joel school district “State Religion or Religious Tolerance at its Finest” (Sept. 21-27) needs some comment.

Scaperlanda insists that the school which the Hasidim of Kiryas Joel were (are) running is a secular school. That is simply not true; it is a Hasidic school. All students in the school are Hasidic as are all the teachers. The drawing of the district lines was done specifically to exclude non-Hasidim and especially gentiles from the school.

This is yet another case of Jews demanding separate treatment from the laws which apply to everyone else in this country. Mennonite and Amish communities have been consistently denied any recognition of their desire to remain separate from the surrounding communities. They have actually been legally forced to send their children to public schools where they have subjected to a great deal of ridicule and even contempt because of their distinctive dress. No state legislature—especially New York—has ever attempted to accommodate them.

What should be especially galling to Catholics is that over the last thirty years Jewish groups have been in the forefront of the movement to deny tax support to Catholic schools. But now we are told that the formation of the Kiryas Joel school district should be allowed to accommodate the distinctive culture of a Jewish group. The tactic fools no one. This is nothing more than an attempt to gain tax support for Jewish schools—coming from the same people who have adamantly opposed any tax support for Catholic schools.

If this blatant exercise in Jewish ethnocentrism succeeds, I hope that Scaperlanda will support special school districts for Catholics as well. But somehow I doubt it.

William Gallagher

Clifton, New Jersey