Let’s Leaven Our Libraries

I wanted to thank you for your article some while ago about libraries (“Vatican Library Loans Rarities to Israel,” Oct. 9-15).

I wish you’d bring up the subject again. The fact is our (public) libraries — paid for with my money and yours — rarely carry any Catholic books. If your library is like mine, it stocks thousands of books on feminism and none on Mary; thousands of books on homosexuality and witchcraft but none on the saints; plenty of Bible studies written by atheists like John Dominic Crossan and not one by an orthodox Catholic.

Look, Catholics are one-fifth of the taxpayers. One fifth!

It is outrageous that libraries do not carry books for Catholics. You can change things. Make a list of Catholic books you want to read. Submit it to the library.

Also, it’s important to request Catholic books through inter-library loan. This is a free service available at every public library. If they do not carry that interesting book by Scott Hahn or the new biography of Mother Angelica by Raymond Arroyo, put in a request for it through inter-library loan service.

This will not get the book to you for free, but it will also reinforce the idea that there are people out there who want, and will demand, books for Catholics.

Things will never change unless you make them change.

Anne Moore

Paradise Valley, Arizona

Fight for Religious Freedom

Regarding “Military Chaplains Find New Anti-Discrimination Policies Discriminatory” (Nov. 20-26):

Once again, we see significant evidence that many in this country are involved in a hostile, devious attack on our religious freedom. For me, attacking Christian military chaplains’ freedom to minister in Jesus’ name is very personal. I was confined to an aircraft carrier for most of my four years in the Navy. Many others are confined, in varying circumstances, in all branches of the military. Limiting what chaplains can do could mean no priest, no Mass and no confessions for indefinite periods over which we had no control. Never was freedom of religion so immediately important.

I heard an Archbishop Fulton Sheen rerun on EWTN just before the suit attacking chaplains was filed. He started by saying we could prove God had a role in the founding of America. He had my attention. His point was simple. In the debate on the Bill of Rights clause on religious freedom, the Founding Fathers debated who would control enforcing the First Amendment — the legislatures? The people? State government?

They could not agree because any of these human entities could take away those rights they had put in. They finally agreed to enable the amendment by certain inalienable rights — including, but not limited to, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The point was that those rights given by God could not be taken away by anyone else!

It seems that, today, no one understands this, or is hostile to it. For example, consider the media. When papers quote the religious-freedom clause, they deliberately omit the second half of the clause: “Congress shall make no law … prohibiting the free exercise (of religion).”

People get confused by suits based on the establishment clause, because they feel that they are being accused of forcing their religion on someone. What they forget is that they are not Congress. On the other hand, if the suits directly took away someone’s free exercise of their faith, people would know immediately that their freedom was being taken away. They would almost surely rebel.

This devious way of operating is nothing but a hostile attack on a basic freedom we have — one that, as Archbishop Sheen pointed out, can only be removed by God himself. We must, therefore, forcefully defend ourselves against these attacks on our rights as attacks on God’s own will for us, or be in danger of losing them.

Joseph B. Callagher

Shingle Springs, California

Doll Decisions

Regarding “Shopping Wars: American Girl Dolls Boycott” (Nov. 20-26):

I’m so glad so many people are willing to take a stand for life by boycotting American Girl dolls, because American Girl donates money to an organization that supports abortion.

Register readers might be interested to learn that similar dolls in a similar price range are available from the Vision Forum, Inc. Call (800) 440-0022 or visit visionforum.com on the Internet. An added plus is that the focus is on Christian values, true femininity and a Christ-centered character. It’s called the Beautiful Girlhood Collection.

Also check other religious stores and catalogs for alternatives. For example, Leaflet Missal Co. in St. Paul, Minn., has saint dolls. Call (800) 328-9582 or visit leafletonline.com.

It’s encouraging to see families defending life and being concerned about what they are financially supporting — an active way to live our faith.

Helen Bressler

Belle Plaine, Minnesota

Another Alternative

Regarding “Shopping Wars: American Girl Dolls Boycott” (Nov. 20-26):

There is a totally Catholic alternative to the American Girl dolls: The Glory of America! series offers stories for girls and boys ages 7 to 12. The main characters are children whose lives are changed after meeting American saints.

Studies on Catholics in American history follow the stories. Activity books and beautiful 18-inch dolls accompany the stories. For more information, go to eccehomopress.com.

 

Joan Stromberg

Ellettsville, Indiana

Noble Knights

Relevant to “Giving Thanks by ‘Giving Back’” (Nov. 20-26):

This letter is in praise of the Knights of Columbus. I have been trying for some time to obtain a life-insurance policy for my ward, a young man of 26 who has resided with me since age 5. Because he is a special-needs person, diagnosed as mildly retarded, insurance companies have turned me down — that is, until he joined the Knights of Columbus and was accepted for life insurance.

Paul is very active. He has participated in Special Olympics programs since high school and has won many medals for swimming, track and bowling. He is been very active in right-to-life activities. He pickets outside our local abortion business every day they are open. Except for winter months, he rides his bicycle there. As a member of a local health club, he exercises and swims at least four times a week and participates in swim practice once a week for Special Olympics training. He also bowls in a league once a week.

I write these things to offer evidence that Paul is a capable young man, yet he could not obtain life insurance from any of the companies I applied to, until we applied to the K of C. This is blatant discrimination against a special-needs person.

On applications for insurance, you are not asked to describe your lifestyle. There are lifestyles that, in the majority of cases, shorten one’s lifespan, such as homosexual activities. This lifestyle is not a disqualifying quality. I pointed this out to the companies after being turned down by them for insurance. No reply was forthcoming.

I have written my legislators asking them to review the regulations placed on insurance companies. Discrimination against special-needs persons needs to be investigated. I doubt my letters will do any good, so instead I am urging men to join and support the Knights of Columbus, and families to support their activities. They offer many benefits to families. Their works of charity are many, benefiting the handicapped, the missions, seminarians and the pro-life cause, to name a few.

The Knights have chosen a great man for their model. Hopefully Christopher Columbus will someday be listed among those we acknowledge publicly as a saint.

Joan Solms

Aurora, Illinois

Hungry Hispanics

Leticia Velasquez’ letter, “How to Hold on to Hispanic Catholics” (Dec. 4-10) was right on the mark. It’s too bad some people don’t get the point.

A number of years ago a Hispanic Catholic deacon wrote in our diocesan newspaper that the Church is losing Hispanics because we are not welcoming them. No one of reasonable mind and goodness of character will deny that a cold community does not exactly help the cause of the Catholic faith.

Nonetheless, the almost exclusive emphasis on social justice as an end in itself, rather than as a corporal work of mercy — along with the de-emphasis of the need for personal conversion, sacrifice and living a morally upright life — will fail to attract a Catholic people. This is especially true of a people with the religious and moral values that our southern brethren bring to faith in the United States.

I wish that I could count the number of times I have heard a Hispanic evangelical-Protestant preacher tell his congregation to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and him crucified and risen from the dead.” Wouldn’t it be something to hear a Catholic priest or deacon from the ambo during Holy Mass say something similar — at least once a year?

James B. Coffey

Albuquerque, New Mexico

‘Wholly and Entirely Present’

Several readers have written to us about our reply to a letter regarding Christ’s presence in the Eucharist (“Really Present, But How So?” Letters, Nov. 20-26).

Some seem to think that a bishop we quoted was out of line when he said, “Christ is present sacramentally but not physically in the Eucharist.” We understand their concern. At first glance, it might seem that the bishop was downplaying the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

However, the bishop was in fact repeating what is settled Catholic doctrine, in full communion with the magisterium and the Tradition of the Church. That’s why no one corrected him at the Eucharistic synod at which he said it — including bishops from around the world and Pope Benedict XVI.

As the Catechism and Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Ecclesiae de Eucharistia show, the Church refrains from referring to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist as a “physical” presence. That phrase has a particular meaning which the Church reserves for Christ’s bodily ascension into heaven, from whence he has promised to return. Nonetheless, in the Eucharist, says the Catechism, “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of Our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really and substantially contained … it is presence in the fullest sense … Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”

By acknowledging that his true presence in the Eucharist is a sacramental presence, the Church’s teaching encompasses both the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the truth of his bodily ascension and promised return.

— Editors