Who Cares?

I noted the somewhat negative review of my book, The Saints Show Us Christ (“Role Models and Friends in Heaven,” May 12), in your pages. Unfortunately the reviewer missed the whole point. The book is not for monks and scholars, but the people in the pews. Imagine him counting the number of entries of each saint, or being disturbed that the one entry of St. Paul was not on the feast of St. Paul. The people say “Who cares?”

The people love this book; the hardworking, family people—the backbone of the Church—who have been confused so much in recent years by the scholars. Many proud writers in the Church have all but done away with the saints. The people are glad they are back, and are presented in daily readings for inspiration each day. How do I know this? Because for more than 45 years I have worked in the parish, with the people, laughing and crying with them, talking with them. They are the neglected people of the Church but they are “the salt of the earth.” Let us not begrudge a book written for them.

To complain that a book for the people is not a scholarly tome is quite beside the point altogether.

Father Rawley Myers Colorado Springs, Colorado

RU-486

With all due respect to the American Life League, I feel that the approach that they are using to argue against RU-486 is not effectual in prevention (“RU- 486 Foes Use Risk Factor in PR Campaign,” Aug. 11).

I do not feel that a woman in a desperate situation will care at all about the risk she is taking with her body, considering that she took the chance on pregnancy in the first place.

The argument with RU-486 is best applied when its consequences to society as a whole is perceived.

Was human life meant to be flushed down a toilet? Can our society, so threatened with violence and apathy, afford to allow human life to become so disposable? Can we allow this pill to enter our materialistic society when the poor are being so oppressed?

Most people are appalled at partial-birth abortion, an obvious massacre of human life. Yet the implications and inevitable effects of the RU-486 pill on society are, in a sense, much more damaging. Not only will this pill destroy human life, but it will allow our nation to subliminally target and destroy our nation's poor as it threatens the sanctity of the remaining survivors.

Valerie Terzi Manhattan, Kansas

Absolute Wrongs

Capital punishment, euthanasia, voluntary abortion— that they are logically, reasonably, and justifiably wrong is a certainty, therefore an absolute.

The acceptance, notoriety, glorification, and publicity these wrongs receive, need to be stopped. Yet many high courts, legislative bodies, educators, politicians, media and news representatives, some religious leaders, and large percentages of society do not reject, but accept and even support these monstrosities. Why no presidential candidate has enough fortitude to publicly reject these collective wrongs is a disgrace.

With this blatant disregard for the absolute, how can we expect to prevent wars, stop terrorism, reduce crime, or lessen social problems. Human dignity, legitimate self-defense, justice, and common sense have been made a mockery of by the acceptance of these wrongs.

Hopefully with work, sensibility, and prayer, our local, state, national, and world leaders, along with society, will reject these wrongs, and honor and abide by the absolute.

I believe future historians, when they review and analyze the past, will in retrospect say, “Surely they must have known.”

Zeno Boehmer Nacogdoches, Texas

LA Cathedral

Allow me to make two corrections to David Finnigan's story on the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to be designed by JosÈ Rafael Moneo for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (“L.A. Picks Design for Cathedral of the Year 2000,” Aug. 11).

The archdiocese never intended to incorporate the old cathedral of St. Vibiana into the new Cathedral Square project, although the original plan was to build anew on the same site. The old cathedral suffered more than $20 million in earthquake damage and there is neither the money nor the desire to repair it, especially since it was so woefully inadequate.

(Indeed, Pope St. Pius X authorized its demolition in 1904 in favor of a new cathedral that would be better able to serve the thriving community of Los Angeles. When St. Vibiana's was dedicated in 1876, there were about 10,000 people in all of Los Angeles; today, the Archdiocese numbers about 4.5 million Catholics!)

Second, the Los Angeles City Council took the old cathedral off the list of historic places on July 17, 1996. The archdiocese removed all significant historic, religious and liturgical items from the old building so that they will be available for the new Cathedral Square complex. It has always been the intention of the archdiocese to “memorialize” the old cathedral in the new. The mortal remains of St. Vibiana, virgin and martyr, will rest in a prominent devotional chapel in the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

Father Gregory Coiro, O.F.M. Cap. Director of Media Relations Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Icon

While iconography is a treasured and valued asset in the Eastern Church, the West often seems to misunderstand or misinterpret it. In the Aug. 4 issue on page 5, in a description of an icon of the Last Supper stating “the beardless figure of Jesus blesses the chalice….”

The figure of Jesus is actually on the left side of the table. In iconography, Christ is depicted with a halo containing a cross and the Greek “0 WN” (the one who is).

Edmund Gronkiewicz Chicago, Illinois

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