Death Penalty

As expected, your editorial, Opposing the Death of the Guilty (March 7-13), supports abolition of capital punishment.

Nevertheless, it is refreshing to hear a voice for church loyalty and orthodoxy state that some call for capital punishment for “commendable motives and not simply revenge.”

It must be disheartening to many loyal Catholics to constantly hear Church and civic leaders suggest that revenge alone motivates supporters of capital punishment when, in fact, love and high regard for innocent life is often what commands their convictions.

Father Joseph M. O'Meara

Baltimore

Peter Singer

Your recent coverage of Princeton University's appointment of [infanticide-supporter] Peter Singer to its Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics post was an epiphany of sorts for me as it just confirmed the cancerous tentacles of the phenomenon of infanticide in this country.

While dining in a ristorante in Latham, New York, recently, I was confronted with a similar insight. My dining partners were discussing the possible next commissioner of a municipal department of health. One of them stated their opinion nonchalantly that no one who was pro-life would ever be selected. As the discussion continued, I sat in momentary silence, digesting what I had just heard: the head of a health department should not be pro-life; the chief officer of a public health department with the mission of making all its citizens healthier should be pro-death? …

Can we imagine the supporters of unrestrained abortion wanting to be appropriately labeled pro-death, even though that is exactly what they are? Of course not, so they came up with clever misnomers to deceive and propagate and rationalize their message of death: abortion is an acceptable form of birth control and must be allowed. It must be allowed because we at the doorstep of the new millennium lack adequate self control; we at the doorstep of the new millennium are so consumed with ourselves and instant gratification that morality and ethics get in the way. Infanticide becomes a natural next step in our throwaway culture. Discard the babies with the trash.

D. Bruce Malito

Westbury, New York

Feminine Genius

Father Thomas Williams touched my heart with his beautiful article “‘Feminine Genius’ Revealed on Good Friday” (March 28-April 3). One of the most endearing and enduring legacies to be left by Pope John Paul II will be his profound understanding and love for women. His clarion call for all women is to aspire to feminine holiness — to that transparent spiritual beauty which enables women to lead others to know the love of God.

Jesus had friendships with strong, holy women. His masculine, human experience was made even more manly, if you will, because he treated women with tenderness and sensitivity — which are usually thought of as more feminine virtues. Yet he showed these feelings without restraint and at a time when women were not treated very compassionately by men.

Pope John Paul II reflects that Christ looks to women for the accomplishment of the “royal priest-hood.” As Father Williams so eloquently pointed out, the most faithful companions Jesus had were women and He loved them — so why would his Church love them any less? More proof for the feminists that the Church, founded by Christ and molded by His life, reveres the vocation of femininity.

I pray that all of my sisters in Christ may strive to imitate the love of our Lady, to show the courage and compassion of St. Veronica, and to shed the redemptive tears of the daughters of Jerusalem.

Patricia Price Lebanon, Pennsylvania