Inspiring Response

In response to “Your Prayers” (Feb. 15), I am not a Regnum Christi member, but I know many people who are and several of the religious who are Legionaries of Christ, including priests and consecrated women of this relatively new order. The dignity with which their community is dealing with this profoundly disappointing revelation about their founder is inspiring. The stark humility of their actions and words has thus far been translated in loving, forgiving and such completely human terms. Much like the father who abandoned you when you were small, you are mindful of his hurtful offense, but grateful he gave you life.

It seems precisely what Christ would expect of us — leaving his infinite wisdom to handle the rest.

J. S. Passafiume

Louisville, Kentucky

My Prayers

I have read about the reports concerning the founder of the Legion. It is very shocking, and you and your brother priests must be heartsick. So many prayers are storming heaven for your order. You have so many good priests and laymen, too. God works through weak instruments, and sometimes, very sinful ones. It is a mystery how where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

May God grant you and all good priests in your order peace, consolation and wisdom — that you may keep ministering to his people in “Justice and Charity” (Feb. 22), as you wrote.

Roberta Trew

Chagrin Falls, Ohio

Awaiting a Response

I agree wholeheartedly with Father Raymond J. de Souza on the First Things blog. As he says, “But it would frankly make the newspaper look absurd if the whole Catholic world is discussing Fr. Maciel and the Register’s pages largely ignore the whole matter.”

I love the Legion, but have been disappointed in your silence on this matter.

Please honor your obligation before Christ to report on important Catholic matters, regardless of self-interest.

Aaron Miller

Spring, Texas

Editor’s note: Father Raymond J. de Souza has written for the Register since 1997 and was the Register’s Rome correspondent from 1999-2003.

Our publisher, Father Owen Kearns, knew of Father Raymond’s concerns when he wrote in his publisher’s note for the Feb. 22 issue, “I’m also grateful for those who have expressed their indignation and their hurt. I know that it comes from their love for the Church we all love so well, and which the Register is dedicated to serving.”

We also appreciate Father Raymond’s kind words about the Register and his pride in being associated with it.

The paper covered the Holy See’s 2006 communiqué regarding Father Marcial Maciel with a wire service news story. Father Owen Kearns wisely limited any defense of Father Maciel to two pieces bylined by himself, one in 2001 and another in 2006. We have told Father Raymond repeatedly that the Register fully intends to correct the record on that coverage as soon as we can do so accurately.

The Register is dedicated to follow this story in as responsible a way as possible. This will mean, for the most part, relying on journalism produced independently of the Register to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest.

At the Register, our mission is to form and inform Catholics. We are more than a newspaper — we have a mission to bring readers closer to the Church. But we are also a newspaper, and accuracy is our fundamental value.

We will keep readers informed about this situation in a way that is accurate, above all, and in keeping with our mission to form and inform.

No Hallmark Moments

Joseph Pronechen’s “Hold the Chocolates” (Feb. 8) mentions “Hallmark moments.” I hope your readers will boycott Hallmark cards and contact the company about their selling same-gender marriage cards. They have defended the activity to “provide what their customers need.”

  Ann Craig

Robstown, Texas

Wake Up, America

In response to “The Trojan FOCA” (Feb. 22), there were 500,000 American casualties in World War II, and as a Navy Wave, I witnessed firsthand the physical, mental and psychological effects that our servicemen endured. (The man I later married was himself a prisoner of war.) Our servicemen and women valiantly served to protect and defend our liberties as are stated in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

However, because of the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, 50 million American citizens will not see the light of day because of the procedure “liberating” the baby from the mother’s womb.

It is an outrage to those of us who served to witness in our own beloved country the taking of innocent life and having our taxes pay for this, thanks to moneys that Planned Parenthood receives from the government.

As a result of these abortions, one-third of a generation has been wiped out. This will result in fewer workers who will contribute to Social Security, causing a greater burden on them. In 1950, there were 16 workers paying Social Security taxes for every retired person receiving funds. Today, there are 3.3, and by 2030, there will be only 2. (Source: 2005 Social Security Board of Trustees Report, Table IV B2.)

Abortion is forever. We will never know or benefit from the talents of all those who have been lost to abortion. Even Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,” a pagan who lived 600 years before Christ, recognized how wrong abortion is. His oath states, in part, “I will not aid a woman to procure an abortion, even though I be asked to do so.”

America needs to wake up and defend the most defenseless among us.

Elizabeth Meyner Connelly

Hillsborough, New Jersey

Pro-Life Education

Regarding “The Trojan FOCA” (Feb. 22), it is time to grow up and do some educating. We have, for too long, left the education to the pro-abortion folks.

We can win this war. However, in this post-modern era, we must do more than stand in front of abortion mills praying the Rosary. We must counter their misinformation with the real thing — and not push it as a moral issue, which gives them the chance to get all relative about it. Neither can we continue the “let George (Supreme Court) do it” attitude.

Regina M. Burke

Stockton, California

Speaking Against Smut

Your article “High Court Won’t Hear Smut Case” (Feb. 22) concerning the Child Online Protection Act comes at a time of other related bad news: Any day now, the U.S. Senate is expected to vote on the confirmation of David Ogden to become President Barack Obama’s deputy attorney general.

President Obama’s selection of Ogden comes as a shock to families across the nation. How could the president nominate a man whose career has been focused on making pornography increasingly widespread and within the reach of our children? Mr. Ogden has profited from representing Playboy and Penthouse magazines and for attacking legislation designed to ban child pornography. Having a deputy general whose record is nothing short of obscene is a disgrace to our nation. The position of deputy general is tasked with making the most important decisions of the department.

The Chicago-based pro-family group Fidelis has reported that Ogden opposed the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 as counsel of record for an amicus brief supporting the American Library Association. The case challenged mandatory anti-obscenity Internet filters in public libraries.

In the 1986 case American Council for the Blind v. Boorstin, he successfully sought a court order forcing the Library of Congress to use taxpayer funds to print Playboy’s articles in braille. In his career he has argued against parents being notified that their 14-year-old daughter had an abortion, saying that “there is no qualitative . . . difference between minors . . . and adults.”

Ogden’s record is nothing short of obscene, and the president was well aware of this.

Jo Garcia-Cobb

Mt. Angel, Oregon

Abortion and Vaccines

You discuss Geron Corp.’s embryonic stem-cell research in “Catholics Reject Cures That Kill” (Feb. 22). A federal court recently decided that studies did not support claims that certain vaccines cause autism. Conspicuous in its absence in the case and studies was any mention that the meteoric rise in the incidences of autism has paralleled the time abortion has been legal. The use of fetal tissue in the production of vaccines is not something that the government or drug companies are willing to bring to light in this issue.

Right reason tells us that injecting a substance containing part of a dead baby into another child makes for a Frankenstein-like disaster. People need to demand from our legislators and drug companies vaccines which are not produced using products from aborted babies. Ask your doctor about this before vaccinations are administered. For vaccine sources, see COGForLife.org.

Just as in stem-cell research, adult (ethical) stem cells have already produced nearly 80 successful cures of diseases, while research using embryonic stem cells (from killed human embryos) have produced zero cures, only tumors and death. Yet, our government spends billions of dollars funding this fruitless and immoral research with the approval of ignorant voters.

Aggie Joseph-Langschied

Lambertville, Michigan