All for Alito

President Bush is to be enthusiastically congratulated for his outstanding appointment of Judge Samuel A. Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court (“Miers Out, Alito Up,” Nov. 6-12).

While [the Senate was] under Democrat control, Judge Alito was unanimously confirmed as an appellate judge in 1990, by both the Judiciary Committee and full Senate. At that time, Sen. Ted Kennedy said Alito has “a distinguished record … [w]e look forward to supporting you.” Judge Alito has since served with distinction on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

President Bush has honored his commitment to appoint Supreme Court justices in the molds of Justices Scalia and Thomas. Judge Alito has acquired the nickname “Scalito” because of his similarity to Justice Antonin Scalia.

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Judge Alito voted to uphold informed consent, parental consent, and reporting and public disclosure requirements. He also supported that the husband first be informed if his wife was having an abortion.

It should be noted that Judge Alito voted to strike down a partial-birth abortion ban, citing that it is the “responsibility” of judges “to follow and apply controlling Supreme Court precedent.” As an appellate judge, he was powerless to overturn a Supreme Court decision, and demonstrated judicial restraint. There is little doubt, however, that, as a Supreme Court justice, he would vote to stop this grisly abortion procedure.

Judge Alito is a nominee the entire pro-life movement can, without hesitation, get behind. President Bush has hit a home run by nominating Judge Alito. We call on the liberal pro-abortion senators to give Judge Alito a fair up-or-down vote by the end of the year.

This is a great day for unborn babies and their parents!

BRADLEY MATTES

Executive Director

Life Issues Institute

lifeissues.org

‘Eagles Soar Together’

I have just finished Raymond Arroyo's biography of Mother Angelica. To Mr. Arroyo I say, “More, write more for us! More on Mother Angelica, Padre Pio or Mother Teresa!”

To Father C. John McCloskey I say thanks for the wonderful, inspiring commentary on the book, “The Triumph of Rita Rizzo” (Oct. 23-29). I truly hope that a clarion call occurs to make the biography into a movie, as Father McCloskey mentions. As for keeping the book on file in the Congregation of Saints in Rome, I couldn't agree more.

I first saw Mother Angelica while in the hospital in 1997 after delivery of my first child, and I couldn't wait to get this network into my home. Mother Angelica, through EWTN, adds another Catholic facet to my family's daily lives, especially for my school-age sons.

Also, more than once I have heard the Franciscan Friars of the Eternal Word during the homily of their daily Mass mention the National Catholic Register and recommend it as superior Catholic reading. It only makes sense that the Register, through Father McCloskey's essay, would echo the “Triumph of Rita Rizzo” and EWTN. Eagles soar together, through God's grace.

MARY ANN WENSKE

Moulton, Texas

Mother Angelica's Mettle

Relevant to “EWTN Energizes” (Letters, Oct. 30-Nov. 5):

May I add my comments to others thanking God for Mother Angelica and EWTN, please?

I would like to ask your readers if they remember the confusion following Vatican II. Or the even-more confused state of catechetics, when children and their parents followed blindly into a Eucharist-before-penance mindset — even when that meant that first confession was put off until seventh and eighth grades? Do you remember being told that going to confession was just “going into a black box with a grocery list of sins”?

If you remember even these few items, though there are many more, you will know how far we've come when you consider, for a moment, the vocations of beautiful young men and women to the religious life now, the growth and identity of orthodox Catholic colleges and the World Youth Days of recent memory. We owe this, you might say, to John Paul II, of blessed memory. Yes, we do.

But, we owe it, too, to that strong woman of faith, who — often alone and publicly ridiculed — upheld, taught and promulgated the faith, the devotions and the teachings of Mother Church that our Holy Father spent himself throughout his life to spread.

A former writer said that EWTN embodies the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. She was right. Many of us will never see Jesus in a stranger, or feed him in a hungry child, or visit him in the loneliness of a prison cell — but EWTN does. That bit of charity will stand us in good stead when we face him at the end of our personal journeys.

ANN KIELY

Baltimore, Maryland

Not Defined by Down Syndrome

I loved your editorial “A Turn in the Tide?” (Oct. 30-Nov. 5).

I agree with Patricia Bauer; it is extremely painful for my husband and me to realize that some of our acquaintances believe that we should have aborted our 15-year-old son, who happens to have Down syndrome. Our James has a happy, rich life and “suffers” no more than the average 15-year-old with terminally dorky parents.

One small point, however: There is a movement among advocates for persons with disabilities to refer to them as “people first.” For instance, Patricia Bauer has “a daughter with Down syndrome,” not “a Down Syndrome daughter.” With the former, her “daughter” is seen first and the “Down syndrome” is secondary to her personhood, just a small part of who she is, as it were. Which is probably true.

MARY SALTER

Miami, Florida

Order in the Historical Court

Your reply to the letter titled “Catholic Chief Justices” was somewhat confusing (Oct. 23-29).

Edward White was an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1894 to 1910. In 1910 he was appointed chief justice by President W.H. Taft, who was president from 1909 to 1913. Edward White served as chief justice from 1910 to 1921, when he died.

He served as an associate justice for 16 years, as chief justice for 10 years.

Interestingly, he was succeeded as chief justice by W.H. Taft, the president who had made him the chief justice back in 1910.

FATHER PAUL ZYLLA

Saint Cloud, Minnesota

Public-School Blues

Responding to “Professor Calls Intelligent Design ‘Dangerous’” and “Some Worry Hurricane Relief Aid for Schools Helps Voucher Cause” (Oct. 9-15):

I think it is a Godsend that this paper printed these two articles on facing pages. I believe it shows the link between the two topics and another topic from the previous week, the previous topic being about the United States and China being on the same level for funding religious schooling.

Here's the thing. If the government wants to dictate what gets taught in public schools, such as evolution (an unproven theory) as fact, then they should provide those families who want different for their children the means to provide such — whether it be Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or private schooling.

As it stands, if you have no money to send your children to a tuition-based school you have no choice. Yet to send those children to public schools is to indoctrinate them into secular and atheistic ideologies, and to brainwash them with erroneous propaganda on life matters such as abortion, euthanasia and birth control/sex education. I was a product of such public schooling. It caused me much grief before learning the truth.

I'm not saying to teach religion in public schools. I'm saying that, if the public school system is to teach ideological theory as truth, then other schooling options must be made available. Otherwise public schools should teach the numerous theories about how life on this planet started, as such: theories.

The entire debate between church and state has been thrown so far out of proportion that the youth of this country are paying for it. It's another case in this country where the people that have, get. And the people that have not, get the bottom of the barrel.

WILLIAM M. BISSON

Westfield, Massachusetts

Exorbitant Catholic Education

Relevant to “Back to School (Barely)” (Sept. 18-24):

It is time that all of us make up our minds that we are going to have good, affordable Catholic education for all our children. It is unjust that parents with ordinary incomes, who are trying to live their faith, often find it impossible to send their children to the high-tuition Catholic schools.

It is wrong that some parents, in order to bear the cost of reinforcing the precious teachings of our Church by Catholic school education, often feel they need to severely limit their number of children, thus depriving their offspring of the priceless gift of brothers and sisters, and/or the mother must work outside of the home, which causes little preschool children to be separated from their mother for a large part of the day. Both of these things are contrary to the wishes of the Holy Father.

Some parents are struggling valorously, and overworking themselves in the process, to help their children know and follow the wonderful truths of our faith. The days of such parents are often filled with fatigue and stress, and at times their children suffer imbalance in their lives because of the emphasis on achievement and activity, perhaps to the detriment of holiness.

We are responsible for passing on the truths that Jesus spent three years teaching his apostles, so we are obliged to make affordable Catholic education a higher priority than it is now. In some parishes, parishioners tithe especially for this and those who don't have school-age children also contribute. Dioceses also need to help parish schools.

When more of our children know and obey the teaching of God's Church, we will find that we need not spend so much money on charitable and social-service works. It is lack of strong Catholic teaching that causes the problems that make many of these works necessary, and which fiscally drain our dioceses.

CONNIE DERRICK

Nashville, Tennessee

Dispose of Darwinism

“Intelligent design is evidence resulting in a conclusion,” declares Dr. David Stevens (“Design or Dumb Luck? Origin of Life on Trial in Pennsylvania,” Oct. 30-Nov. 5). Any child who has had to prepare and defend a science project knows this. Intelligent design is the core of every hypothesis.

It is remarkable that, even after all these years, some academics still anchor their reputations and their universities to Darwin's un-provable theory of evolution. What they call the science of evolution is actually the political science of evolution; little wonder that the ACLU is involved.

It's about time that Darwinism joined Marxism in the trash heap of failed ideologies.

GEORGE A. MORTON

Hopewell Junction, New York