Letters 05.17.2009

Register’s Newsworthiness

I compliment you, Father Kearns, on the newsworthiness and readability of the National Catholic Register. Every week I look forward to receiving and reading the articles. In comparison to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The New York Times and The Georgia Bulletin, the National Catholic Register rocks!

Peggy Espinda

Atlanta, Georgia


Notre Dame Fallout

Father de Souza’s trenchant analysis of the N.D. issue, coupled with Mary Anne Glendon’s principled declining of the Laetare Medal (“‘No, Notre Dame,’” May 10), is the last word in this sorry episode.

John Imler

South Bend, Indiana


Kudos to Mary Ann Glendon, who defended our faith and stood up for the Church! It’s good to know that there are Catholics who are willing to speak up for what the Church teaches.

June Vendetti

Bridgeport, Connecticut


For Bishop D’Arcy, it must be both a blessing and a curse to be associated with Notre Dame. It is clear that he loves this university, referring to it as “our beloved Notre Dame” in the statement he released on Good Friday.

And yet, to the average person, those not in “dialogue” with Father Jenkins, its president, there seems to be a patience shown that transcends even the huge responsibilities of a bishop.

Does Father Jenkins think that he is exempt from answering to a higher authority, as we all will sit “on the judgment seat of Christ”? He must. And please, enough of the dialogue. If Father Jenkins doesn’t realize at this point in his life as a university president and priest that he is doing something incredibly wrong, then just leave this up to the Holy Spirit.

Notre Dame will suffer for this, there is no doubt. The Catholic faith takes another hit. In our secular society, it is just another day.

My son graduated from Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio) on May 9. This school is an oasis for the Church in the Midwest. Go Barons.

Mike Acheson

Port Angeles, Washington


What does it say that Bishop John D’Arcy is not going to attend the commencement at Notre Dame after not missing one for 25 years?

Further, the college is honoring Obama with an honorary degree, which implies some acceptance of his world view. You wouldn’t invite Hannibal Lector (Silence of the Lambs) to speak on what a great chef he is; neither should you invite a notorious anti-life celebrity to speak on his view of life or what he thinks the graduates should do with theirs. Clearly no Catholic perspective will be shared here. Shame on Notre Dame for not living up to its affiliation with the Catholic Church.

Barbara Levich
Seattle, Washington


The Church and Embryos

In reference to “Embryo Adoption: Why Not?” (April 5), I am so glad the Church continues to examine this subject. I am glad to hear Dr. Smith continue to stand on the side of life, even the most neglected and abused form of all, the embryo. We all could have been frozen embryos (up to a certain age). If I were one, I sure would be glad Dr. Smith continues to teach on my behalf.

Elaine Rainey

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania


My family has been following the debate over embryo adoption for the last several issues. We have three children who joined our family by birth and three children who joined our family by adoption. Each adoption decision was made after serious consideration, much prayer, and was truly an extension of my love for my husband and his for me. If we had the option of adopting our children anytime from the moment God formed them — even at the stage of embryo — we would have been open to the gift.

We believe that every new human life is formed by God and should carry no stigma from the means in which he or she was created. We know that adopting one of these whole and complete children would only expand the grace that God gives us every time our family grows.

My family’s concern for the children trapped in vials is greater than the concern that embryo adoption may ease the guilt of the fertility industry.

Our family has been blessed with the understanding that the love between spouses and for the children blossoms irrespective of the manner in which a child enters the family. The struggles, the worry, the giggles, the hugs — they are just as real. Our family prays for couples spending thousands on fertility. We pray they choose adoption instead. Because some are skeptics, we try to be a witness that children — by birth and adoption — are gifts straight from God!

Michelle Ervin

Brandon Township, Michigan


I too am troubled by Janet E. Smith’s thinking on embryo adoption, as expressed by Paul A. Trouve in his letter in the April 19 issue (“Embryo Adoption Debate”).

First, embryo adoption completes a progression designed to bring children into the world without sex, love, intimacy, intercourse or marriage. Second, the mother of the implanted embryo, being a fourth person contributing to the pregnancy, strengthens the unnaturalness of the setting, vitiating the trinity of father, mother and child that reflects the Trinity. Third, embryo adoption undermines heterosexuality, perhaps rendering it obsolete.

Embryo adoption, rather than being a rescue, may be an exploitation of the gravely immoral process of in vitro fertilization. As stated by John Paul II in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth), “It is never lawful, even for the gravest reason, to do evil that good may come of it.”

Dr. Hugh McGrath Jr.

Metairie, Louisiana


Without exception, the letters you have printed in opposition to Janet Smith’s exploration of the idea of adoption have referred to these babies as embryos. This is the same tactic that is used by the pro-abortion camp as a euphemism for a living human being — a baby — in order to rationalize the destruction of human life.

Let’s be straight up with our language. These are babies, and we should never forget it. When we say we should destroy these frozen embryos, what we are actually saying is that we should kill these babies.

In Mary-Lynn Ott’s letter in the April 26 issue, she states that “frozen embryos exist because of bad moral judgment” and “adopting them ... is aiding the industry” that creates them.

Thousands of children born in this country every year are a result of bad moral judgment. Do we tell the birth mothers — teenagers, the unwed, and the ill-prepared — that we won’t adopt their babies because of their immoral choices, and that instead they should kill their babies? No. We recognize that life is created by God and that all of these children have a right to that life.

The babies that result from fertility treatments might be frozen, but they are babies nonetheless. Man’s Frankensteinish aspirations might have lead to their existence, but the spark of divinity that lives within those children was not created by man. It was created by God.

Are we pro-life or not? Do not destroy those children. They, too, have a right to the life that God intends for them.

Elizabeth Bernard Higgs

Covington, Louisiana


I do not presume to go up against the reasoning of Janet Smith, whom I greatly admire. But I will pose a hypothetical situation for her to consider: If it would be ethical for a “sister or friend” to gestate a child, as she suggests, would it not then also be licit for a nun to do so? In fact, couldn’t we have whole orders of nuns dedicated to gestating frozen embryos until adoptive parents can be found, similar to what is being done now in orphanages? Would this be morally licit? Would it be good?

Difficult questions like this make me (once again) grateful for the magisterium, which is guided by the Holy Spirit.

Maria Key

Norwich, England


Response from Janet Smith: There is undoubtedly a hierarchy of those who are suitable for gestating orphan embryos, just as there is for adopting children already born. I believe those who are genetically related are likely the best adoptive parents of both born children in need of parents and of orphan embryos, married couples preferably over unmarried persons. This is not to say that any married couple would be better parents than any single individual. But children do better with both a mother and a father, and placing them in a suitable household should be a goal. Both Germain Grisez and William May have written in defense of single women gestating orphan embryos. They don’t take up the question of the propriety of nuns doing so. In 1996, 200 Italian women volunteered to gestate orphan embryos destined for death by thawing in England. Among them were two nuns. The response in Rome was very mixed to the proposal, but I can’t find evidence that the offer of nuns was treated differently from the offer of the other women. While I believe that it is vastly better that married couples and single women gestate the embryos and would hope that sufficient numbers would come forward to do so, I do not believe it would be intrinsically evil for nuns to do so. I believe it is moral for nuns to nurse infants; to offer their wombs to tiny human beings who otherwise are going to die would certainly be a generous and plausibly a moral thing to do.


Strong Christian Women

We have seen very strong and needed women stand up for what is good and just. Miss California (“Beautiful Convictions,” May 3) and Ms. Glendon (“Award Dropped,” May 10) have shown American males what faith and trust in Our Lord Jesus can do against the evil of the Democratic Party with its leader, President Obama.

Juan Campos

Modesto, California