Letters 04.28.19

Readers respond to Register articles.

(photo: Register Files)

Preach Divine Mercy

I am writing to thank our priests for their service to the Church and to the People of God.

Without you, we would have no access to the sacraments. The narrow road to heaven would be longer and narrower, if not impossible.

Every Catholic throughout the country and the world owes them a debt that cannot be paid in this world.

I am also writing to beg our priests to preach Christ’s Divine Mercy.

You, who look out Sunday after Sunday at your dwindling, uninspired, discouraged and confused congregations: Listen to what Christ asked you, through St. Faustina, to do many times and the great rewards he has promised to those who do.

He asked that you preach on his unfathomable Divine Mercy.

Pope Leo the Great directed priests to proclaim God’s mercy, saying, “The priest does not have the right to refrain from preaching about so great a mystery, about which enough is never spoken” (Sermo I, de Passione).

Pope John Paul II, in the encyclical Dives in Misericordia, also speaks about proclaiming mercy: “The Church of our time ... must become profoundly conscious of the need to bear witness to God’s mercy” (VII, “Introduction”); and, again, “The Church must consider it one of her principal duties — especially in our modern age — to proclaim and to introduce in life the mystery of mercy, supremely revealed in Jesus Christ” (14).

Our world has a great need to hear this. Don’t be timid in doing what Jesus asks. Go out into the deep, and cast your nets into his merciful love. So many souls are in the balance.

Mary Kiely

Baltimore, Maryland

        

 

College and Problem-Solving

Regarding “College Admissions Bribery Scandal” (page one, March 31 issue):

As a math teacher at a community college for 53 years, I have had a lot of experience; this includes witnessing the desire of many of my students wanting to attend UC Berkeley. I have to assume that their well-to-do parents are not aware of some logical things, such as:

1.      A big college is less likely to provide as much personal attention as a small college.

2.      Class sizes tend to be large and, commonly, graduate students provide a large portion of the course content.

3.      Professors usually are required to do research and publish, which is sometimes taken into greater account than teaching capabilities in their hiring process.

From my own experience in the industry for 10 years and my teaching encounters, I have one major piece of advice for those wanting to attend Berkeley: In most cases, the advantage of graduating from a prestigious university is in your first job interview. From then on, your success will depend on how well you can solve problems.

So, go to a small college to get more help and study hard to learn how to solve problems.

Ed Lodi

Goodyear, Arizona

 

Hidden Abortions

Laws expanding the numbers of abortions have gone so far as to endorse infanticide (“Countering Cuomo Catholicism,”  Editorial, Feb. 17 issue).

A baby born alive in a botched pregnancy termination can now, legally, be left to die on a table or in a garbage can, at least in New York state. My term for this atrocity is “fourth-trimester abortion.”

Many people are rightly outraged about the law’s permissiveness and are calling for the defense of human life from conception to natural death, at least as far as surgical terminations are concerned.

But what about the far greater number of chemical abortions?

Life begins at conception, when the sperm and ovum combine to make one cell.

This cell is human and contains the complete DNA and chromosomal blueprint of a human life. It is not a carrot, giraffe or any other life form.

This single cell begins to divide and grow, moving down a fallopian tube as an embryo to implant in the womb.

The RU486 drug can terminate early life by making the uterus hostile to the embryo. However, many other drugs and devices do exactly the same.

Hormonal contraceptive drugs like the pill or injections have several ways of preventing pregnancy. The first way is to prevent ovulation, but if that fails, the backup is to make the womb inhospitable for the embryo, causing it to be flushed out and die.

Please check the Physicians’ Desk Reference to verify this for any given hormonal birth control. By the way, IUDs also function by making the uterus hostile for the embryo.

Given the ubiquitous use of contraceptives and their known failure mechanisms, it has been estimated that these very early, hidden abortions caused by hormonal contraceptives and intrauterine device action account for five to 10 times the number of surgical abortions.

It therefore seems somewhat hypocritical for many birth-control users to be upset about the lack of protection of human life from conception to natural death.

We Catholics are fortunate when we follow the teachings of our Church: The use of contraceptives is intrinsically evil and cannot be morally accepted (Catechism, 2370 and 2377).

No hidden abortions for us, thank God.

Wendell Neugebauer

Ballston Spa, New York