Sportsmanship Gets Iced

Regarding “Pro Hockey And Social Justice” (March 6-12):

Donald DeMarco did an excellent job critiquing the National Hockey League situation, drawing from it a new image of hell as a place of limitless luxury and billions of dollars readily available. The devils and new arrivals are not able to agree on how the money is to be divided, leaving all sides eternally calling each other greedy, arrogant and intransigent.

Unfortunately, the NHL labor dispute is simply the tip of the iceberg as sports go. It’s hard to find a true sport anymore, given the equipment and rules changes to accommodate entertainment tests, not to mention salaries and hero worship. I enjoyed season tickets with excellent seats to the NHL’s Washington Capitals for many years, but decided to give them up in 1992 because, being a purist, I could no longer endure the declining level of play, modified rules changing the tempo of the game, goon squads and the uncivil behavior of the so-called fans in attendance.

The Capitals’ owner’s rep contacted me to find out why and, after listening to my explanation, he asked: “What can I do to get you back as a season ticket holder?” Obviously, he didn’t get the point.

Fortunately for me, NHL hockey was one of the last major sports to go the “way of the crowd.” My major concern is that “pure” sports, having declined down to the lowest levels, seriously affects our kids, grandkids and great grandkids. I grew up in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and, if it wasn’t for sports, I’m not sure where “life” would have taken me. In my day, I believe, sports not only built character, but also revealed it, while promoting a level of sportsmanship. In high school, you didn’t get the opportunity to play sports without meeting scholastic requirements.

Today, in too many cases, sports is given primary consideration in our academic institutions. In my view, given the direction of sports over the past 30 years, it would be well to remove sports, as we know it today, from our colleges and universities (maybe high schools, as well) — and institute an elaborate intramural sports program optionally available to all students.

Sports, as we know it today, could be absorbed in an American Athletic Union of sorts to feed talent to the various professional teams, which, let’s face it, are pure entertainment businesses. The primary redeeming benefit of this change would be to restore some integrity to the academic arena without losing an athletic-sports connection — while at the same time providing an opportunity to those not interested in education to pursue a sports career.

K. Dale Anderson

Randallstown, Maryland

Courts Run Amok

Regarding “High Court Ends Executions of Minors” (March 13-19):

Have we reached a new benchmark in hypocrisy? Our Catholic leaders rejoice in the judicial activism that eliminates the death sentence for juvenile murderers on the one hand — while lamenting the abortion rights and homosexual “marriage” rights invented by similar activist courts.

What makes this court decision so activist? It not only overturns U.S. state law, but also a previous Supreme Court decision based on changing standards of decency since 1990. If the court can invent a change of national consensus on the death penalty since the first Bush presidency, then it’s no wonder that other activist courts can invent homosexual “marriage” rights after a few seasons of Will and Grace.

The pinnacle of court activism is the claim by some of the justices to essentially be the conscience of the nation. The role of the judicial branch was never intended to include the moral authority to override the judgment of the state legislatures. Un-elected justices with life terms are not in a position to reflect the will and morals of the people.

Also, in the process of overriding the death penalty laws in a majority of our states, the court decided to give weight to the great moral authority of present-day European society and the United Nations.

By submitting a brief in support of this Supreme Court decision, the Conference of Catholic Bishops has, in essence, helped open our Pandora’s Box of judicial activism a little wider.

Justice Scalia’s dissent to the court’s decision is a must read for anyone interested in this subject.

Michael Pratt

Wallingford, Connecticut

Singer and Hitler 

In Robert Brennan’s article “Life or Death” (Feb. 20-26), he refers to Professor Peter Singer as “intelligent.” I have been wondering for a long time now what it means to say that a person is “intelligent.” Professor Singer obviously cannot reason consequences from ideas or actions.

In a documentary I saw a few years ago called The Killing Films of the Third Reich, a professor in Nazi Germany was shown teaching his students that there were people not worthy of life. He showed his students a film of a mentally ill man. The man was filmed with a light below his chin, shining upward, so that the shadows it reflected made him look grotesque.

Hitler did not start out killing Jews, homosexuals or other healthy people. He began by killing the mentally ill, the handicapped, orphans and other people he called “useless bed wetters.”

As much as he may protest, Professor Singer’s ideas reflect those of Hitler. The worst lies we tell are the ones we tell to ourselves.

Beverly Ann Thewes

Naples, Florida

Peter Singer’s Targets

Regarding “Life of Death” (Feb. 20-26):

My son has spina bifida. At the Spina Bifida Clinic you will see children paralyzed, in braces, some walking. You will also see them playing, racing each other with their wheel chairs. You will see them reading. You will see a child completely paralyzed from the neck down smiling at another child.

These children were born with a hole in their back and with their legs hanging limp. They were born with water on the brain. But these children will grow up just like any other. They will get job and be part of society. They are a living witness to the “sanctity of life.”

I was horrified by what Peter Singer was saying. There is no other word.

What will be next? Killing people who don’t have a college education?

Rosemary Huss

Bergenfield, New Jersey

Scientist of Faith

Regarding “Intelligent Design puts Darwinian Evolution on Trial” (March 6-12):

As a PhD in biology and a daily Mass-goer, I should like to respond to your front-page article about what I take to be a religiously-oriented think-tank (the Discovery Institute) and various academics who, for some reason or other, have decided to declare as untrue a huge swath of truth that we humans through the ages have painstakingly accumulated.

Early on in my life, I knew I wanted to be a scientist — most likely because I love to figure out how things work and I wanted to figure out how I could help people with what I found out. This was for me a calling. This has been, was and is my vocation; discernment of that (which was a hard process) helped me to get to this point.

At all moments, again in every living second that I exist, I live in a constant and very personal awareness of God, who is at my very center. I feel myself in union with the eternal in the present in this world in which I find myself, and I feel connected in a profound and complete relationship with my fellow man. This is, I feel, what being human is about.

I am aware of many scientists who have the same sense of vocation. We try our best and we get solid information through painstaking and logical processes about this, our world. Thinking and doing is what we are about. We are passionate about this delving into the truth of the world. We want to help. We hope and trust that we are doing good for our fellows.

Thus, it pains me when peoples’ good efforts, carried out in love for their God and for his creation, are discounted; or, what is worse, ignored and dismissed as being irrelevant and bad intentioned. It is bad enough when our enemies do this, but we as Catholics must not begin to do it also.

Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, has endeavored through his many writings to foster this love of God and his creation, and would and must be heartbroken at this hatred of the works of truth of other fellow humans. We also should be heartbroken and mourn that some of us have seen fit to allow ourselves to be used to this end.

This is my motto as scientist: God is love, and he who believes in love believes in God, and God in him. Holding this thought in mind may help all of us to greater love and to less distrust of the works of another.

Jon Miller, PhD

Champaign, Illinois