Misguided Notion

Pertinent to “Letters to the Editor” in your June 5 issue:

Peter Hahn’s suggestion that allowing the children of gay couples to attend Catholic school is a method of forcing the homosexual agenda on people who are not homosexual is a misguided notion, in my opinion.

I will accept Cardinal O’Malley’s opinion, which is to allow children of gay couples to attend Catholic school, over Archbishop Chaput’s opinion, which is the opposite. I did not know that Christ’s command to love your neighbor had built-in exceptions. Love the sinner, not the sin.

Joseph P. Nolan

Waterbury, Connecticut

Great Year for Kansas

Relative to your coverage of “Kansas Defunds Planned Parenthood” (May 18, NCRegister.com):

Kansans for Life’s legislative team reports that Kansas also passed a law that will exclude future Obamacare-sanctioned state health exchanges from covering any abortions except those done to prevent the death of the mother.

Another provision eliminates abortion coverage from standard inclusion in private health-insurance plans, permitting the insurer to offer individually purchased riders. To clarify “defunding Planned Parenthood,” the state budget prioritizes that Title X federal tax money for “reproductive” services be given to full-service state-run health clinics and state-licensed hospitals — along with upgrading parental involvement from “notice” to two-parental consent, abortion facility licensure/regulation and a ban based on pain capability (not viability) at 20 weeks post-conception.

It has been a terrific year for life protection in Kansas.

Kathy Ostrowski

Wichita, Kansas

Editor’s note: Kathy Ostrowski is legislative director for Kansans for Life.

Sanger and St. Gianna

It was disturbing to read Paul Kengor’s comparison of St. Gianna Molla and Margaret Sanger (“Planned Parenthood’s Founder vs. a Saint,” In Depth, May 22) in the following: “Like Sanger, Gianna, too, was a professional, accomplished, educated, respected by peers — and remembered.”

By boldly declaring that Sanger was “a professional” like St. Gianna, Kengor gives credence to those who say that Sanger was a nurse who served the poor, but there is no proof of that.

And what of Sanger’s accomplishments? Promoter of sexual sin and abortion. Financier of the pill. Supporter of genocide. Founder of Planned Parenthood. Sex addict. Opponent of marriage.

St. Gianna was a medical doctor; Sanger was not a professional. St. Gianna’s greatest accomplishment was giving her life for her child; Sanger aided and abetted in the taking of the lives of millions, if not billions, of children; St. Gianna was and is respected by holy persons of every class; Sanger never had any peers; she out-Hitlered Hitler. If, by the mercy of God, Margaret Sanger had a conversion and is in purgatory, it is reasonable to believe that St. Gianna is praying for her soul. And we should, too.

George A. Morton

Hopewell Junction, New York

The editor responds: You illustrate the message Paul Kengor delivered in his column. By today’s society’s standards, they would both be considered “professional, accomplished, educated and respected by their peers.” And they are both remembered — for the very reasons you cite.

Regarding “Planned Parenthood’s Founder vs. a Saint” article by Paul Kengor (May 22):

Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee, et. al, are modern-day disciples of Margaret Sanger’s culture of death to control the population growth. Their specious morality was established by a political economist named Thomas Robert Malthus who pontificated in his (1798) “Essay on the Principle of Population” that nature has its own way of leveling population, which would lead to a catastrophe in the mid-19th century as a potato blight ravaged the countries of Europe. In 1845-52 its devastating effects struck the impoverished island of Ireland.

As the great famine stalked the land, an unprincipled government openly encouraged the export of foodstuffs, under military escort, instead of feeding a starving people. Westminster’s “free marketers,” and their apologists, justified this crime against humanity, using the Malthusian rationale that the famine was caused by God.

In other words, God was the culprit, not man.

Planned Parenthood’s rationale for “killing of the innocents” is in lockstep with the Bolshevist legacy of Margaret Sanger.

Séamus S. ÓhEarcáin

Sun City Center, Florida

Latin Mass Matters

Pertinent to “Summorum Pontificum Strengthened” (Vatican, June 5):

I welcome Pope Benedict XVI’s counterrevolution aimed at restoring the Latin Mass. Vatican II never called for the elimination of Latin.

The Pope’s decision to have it taught in all seminaries is meant to foster a more comprehensive and profound understanding of the Church’s liturgy.

Latin is the official language of the Catholic Church.

The universality of Latin also makes it conducive to all believers experiencing more fully the mystery of the Mass. It imbues a heightened reverence and sense of the sacred. It complements well the Latin rites’ traditional Gregorian chant, with its moving meditative cadence that touches the depths of the soul.

The Latin Mass is also more uniform and consistently Catholic in its theological and Christian cultural aspects.

The Pope has previously said, for example, how in the new Mass the “turning of the priest toward the people no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above [but] has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle.”

Both the priest and people should be facing east. The Pope also prefers that all people receive holy Communion kneeling and on their tongue — a staple of the Latin Mass.

The Eucharist is the all-encompassing source and summit of Christian life. A wider implementation of the Latin Mass will no doubt be an effective means of both preserving the Church’s faith and identity, while at the same time allowing her to carry out her mission of evangelization.

I hope the Pope’s new directive will encourage bishops throughout the world to actively and aggressively promote the Latin Mass.

Paul Kokoski

Hamilton, Ontario

Royal Facade?

Joan Frawley Desmond claims in “The Royal Wedding’s Lessons: Truth on Love and Christian Marriage” (May 22) that one sermon before “a congregation that included a global contingent of monarchs, the ex-mistress — and now second wife — of the groom’s father; Elton John and his ‘husband’” upheld the Church’s teachings on marriage to “diehard romantics.”

Really? Kate Middleton, while still a teenager, paraded before Prince William in a see-through dress. He then took her in as his live-in lover until he was forced to take a wife, and she married him wearing white in a lavish church wedding.

If she didn’t have a great figure, or if he wasn’t an heir of the richest woman in England, the “diehard romantics” might have reacted differently. I’m not accusing Kate of being a gold-digger, but I don’t think that the royal wedding is a defense of the sacrament of matrimony either.

Don Schenk

Allentown, Pennsylvania

Editor’s note: Your points are valid. But the morality of the couple was not the focus of the article. The article highlighted the wedding’s sermon, which did uphold the truth about love and Christian marriage. The article also pointed out that cohabitation is sinful by highlighting sections in the Catechism and the writings of Blessed John Paul II.

Thank You, Register!

Thank you for the opportunity to receive the scholarship from the essay contest sponsored earlier this year. I am very appreciative of such an award. I wish to express my gratitude to you for the selection. Thank you for awarding me the $750 scholarship.

Miles Linde

Woodinville, Washington

Editor’s note: Read “Christ’s Witness” at NCRegister.com by searching “How I Expect My Catholic Faith to Impact My College Career.”

Correction

The “Umbert the Unborn” cartoon in the May 22 issue inadvertently did not run in full. It is reprinted in this issue. The Register regrets the error.