I can't tell you how thrilled I was with Art A. Bennett's “Family Matters” response to the woman whose husband was depressed (Feb. 18-24). His answer was perfect and needs to heard, especially by Christians.

Treating the depression should take priority over all things.

I went through a terrible bout of depression that nearly destroyed me, my marriage and my family. I attribute my regained health to a husband who stuck by me in good times and bad, a good therapist and a priest-friend who e-mailed me every day. I had to heal the mind, body and soul.

My mental health insurance ran out, so we had to decide whether to make the commitment to continue and pay out-of-pocket or discontinue. I felt guilty about using so much money on my health (more than $10,000 a year for three years), but my husband insisted. We have five children and money was tight, especially with all of them in Catholic schools.

The hardest part of the depression was dealing with so many uninformed people on what depression is and isn't. I had many people tell me that I simply needed more faith in Christ. “I didn't need any medication; I had Christ. I didn't need therapy, just more dependence on God. Just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and deal with it.” The hardest knock was when a person told me that I was a hypocrite for going to daily Mass and frequent confession and then not having hope in Christ. All of these well-meaning people made it harder because in my deep, dark depression, I wondered where God was. I doubted my love and belief for Christ. Maybe I wasn't praying hard enough, good enough or trusting enough in God's mercy and love.

I wouldn't wish depression on anyone, but, because of it, I am a much better [person] emotionally, physically and spiritually. Having gone through depression, I feel like I have grown into a mature woman of God and that I can take on anything.

PATRICIA G. DI RITO

Norcross, Georgia

Co-ed Catholics

Regarding “Catholic Law School Debate” (Feb. 11-17): I was most concerned when I read that parishes throughout this country were offering financial support to students attending The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Doubtless, parents and their pastors desire a truly Catholic education for their children, but I question whether Catholic University is the place.

Let's for the present ignore the fact that the undergraduates are “taught” by graduate students, not professors, and that undergraduate classes frequently have more than 75 students to a class.

As a longtime D.C. resident — more than 20 years — I feel I can speak accurately on the real situation at CUA. Do Catholic parents want their 17-year-old to live in a co-ed dorm?

There are true Catholic colleges where students will get a true Catholic education — places where there are no co-ed dorms, no questionable clubs and, yes, they do expel those who indulge in disruptive activities.

OMA SCHICK

Washington

National (Ahem) Education Association

I read “Dioceses Boycott Education Convention” (Feb. 18-24) with interest.

The invitation of Sister Joan Chit-tister as a keynote speaker at the National Catholic Educational Association's Annual Convention is problematic. Educators who attend the convention might get the impression that the NCEA is endorsing this controversial nun as a mainstream Catholic. Her many writings indicate that she is not.

If the Catholic Medical Association invited an abortionist to give a keynote address at its national convention, that would be a problem even if the abortionist promised to speak about microbiology rather than abortion. It seems sensible to apply that same logic to a keynote speaker at a Catholic education convention.

DUKE HILLARD

Lafayette, Louisiana

Reversal Rehearsal

Vasectomy reversal is no longer “most often unsuccessful” as your otherwise commendable article “The Lynns' Second Chance” states (Feb. 18-24). Ads on the Internet by specialists claim 95% successful patency and 70% or more pregnancy rates for routine reversals. For complicated cases, results are still good, 60% patency and 40% subsequent pregnancies.

In Los Angeles, a specialist claims that his last 100 reversals resulted in 100 successful re-canalizations. For women, a site reports 95% successful re-opening of the passages, and 70% pregnancy success. The reversal cost for women is advertised at $6,500.

The growing microsurgery business in the United States also suggests that the priest's advice about no obligation to undo the operation may be outdated. Among the 15 million surgically sterilized couples in the United States, 25% of either the wife or her partner express a desire for reversal. Published stories abound of happier marriages after the repair work is done. Inquire for example at OMSoulЀOMSoul.com. See more at: http://zimmerman.catholic.ac/.

FATHER A. ZIMMERMAN, S.T.D. Nagoya, Japan.

Strings Everywhere

Your Feb. 18-24 issue rightly warns, “Bush's Church-State Plan: What Strings Are Attached?” We should ask the same question about other policy proposals of his — empowering faith based charities, funding school choice options, reducing the availability of abortions. What strings are attached?

And as this president, as any president, accomplishes less than we hope for, we must also not attack and destroy him. For the greatest warning of all should be: We must never expect a president or a government to make our people holier in action or purer in living than we can inspire them to be. And when, blessedly, secular authorities narrow the margins for trampling on life, we must still ask: “What strings are attached?”

The message and the example of Jesus were always on the order of “come out from among them; be not like them.” There is not a single recorded incident of Jesus demanding that the civil authorities establish, for his followers and all others, the ethical code he preached. Rather, his followers, in living that Kingdom ethic, would draw all men to it — would form a city set on a hill whose beauty and goodness would inspire those in the secular city to live likewise.

Let us never demand of him laws that make us live up to our own vision, certainly not laws that make everyone else do so. Let us remember that anything he can do as a secular leader will also always come with “strings attached.” That is the nature of the state — any state on any issue.

DOROTHY T. SAMUEL

St. Cloud, Minnesota

The Left Wing

We find some articles and photos in the Register quite annoying and feel that such do not belong in an orthodox Catholic publication.

As we read the Feb. 18-24 issue, our blood is really boiling as we see the photo from the leftist TV show with the headline “West Wing Award.” Shame on the Christophers for awarding this leftist show a prize! The misguided, including many cafeteria Catholics, think that Martin Sheen is another Mother Teresa. We recall that, just before the national elections, Martin Sheen, who demonstrates against the U.S. military, was wearing a T-shirt with a photo of George W. Bush with blood dripping from it and, in large print, the word “Gored.” How peaceful!

This same Sheen has said he thinks that Bill Clinton was the greatest president ever and that his adulterous affairs “only make him more human.”

This same misguided Sheen said a few years back that he felt that it was OK for Catholics to miss Sunday Mass.

It troubles us deeply that those responsible for your Catholic paper are either ignorant or, worse still, spineless and wishy-washy, when it comes to presenting the true faith.

CONSTANTINO N. SANTOS

Atascadero, California

Editor's Note: For the record, the Register has never recommended the show “The West Wing.” In fact, our “Weekly TV Picks” column recommends watching other shows during its time slot. We merely reported the news of the Christophers' award.

Getting the Point on Pro-Life

I have two comments on Paul Szymanowski's recent letter titled “Missing the Point?” (Letters, Feb. 18-24).

He mentions “exchanging one evil for another” as if we are dealing with equal evils. We are not. On the one hand, we are talking about issues that affect the “quality of life,” such as poverty. On the other hand is the very right to life of human individuals everywhere. It's possible to be in poverty and still lead a meaningful human existence (as both my parents did during the Great Depression). Not so if your life is snuffed out in your mother's womb.

We are dealing with a hierarchy of attacks on human life in which abortion is in a class of its own at the top of the hierarchy. I think this is why [the 1995 papal encyclical] Evangelium Vitae [The Gospel of Life] says “we all share in … the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life” (No. 28). The mental tradeoffs Mr. Szymanowski described in his first letter (“A Vote for Gore,” Dec. 10-16) — poverty and health care vs. the right to life itself — do not sound unconditionally pro-life to me. They sound like rationalizations.

Secondly, his most recent letter says that “a person who really wants to get an abortion will do it, regardless of legality.” He continues by saying that instead of making abortion illegal, we should focus on getting “people's actions and attitudes [to] change.” But rationalizing support for a pro-abortion candidate on this basis ignores the educational role of the law.

Pope John Paul II acknowledges this educational role of laws in Evangelium Vitae, No. 90: “Although laws are not the only means of protecting human life, nevertheless they do play a very important and sometimes decisive role in influencing patterns of thought and behavior.” What becomes legal becomes normative. What becomes normative gets accepted by the culture as moral behavior.

MARK OSBORNE

Montgomery Village, Maryland

A Real Page-Turner

I have just recently become a subscriber to the National Catholic Register. I have found most of the news presentation very informative, especially those things not covered by the secular press, [but] the Feb. 25 issue had several errors which made it difficult to follow the front-page articles.

Of the six major stories covered on the front page, four of them had the wrong page number to continue the article. Since I also read that you recently received a third-place award [from the Catholic Press Association] for “Best Front Page,” the problem has become even more noticeable.

You have been running an ad for [a proofreader]. This indicates that attempts are being made to correct these errors. I will continue to read the National Catholic Register, and hope for your success.

FATHER ROGER NOLETTE, O.S.B

Hingham, Massachusetts