Letters To The Editor
Hooray for Harriet
Regarding “Give Miers a Chance” (Editorial, Oct. 16-22):
Considering all that's been written and said lately about Harriet Miers and President Bush, you may be wondering whether Miss Miers was a good selection for the Supreme Court. Some of our pro-life friends have aggressively criticized both President Bush and Harriet Miers for her nomination. Many have said they felt “betrayed.” Here's a very important consideration in the debate over the Harriet Miers nomination.
George W. Bush is a solidly pro-life president. He has demonstrated a passion for the well-being of millions of unborn babies during his presidency. I know that the 3,200 daily deaths of preborn children haunt him as much as they do you and me. President Bush grieves the loss of their lives, as well as the emotional devastation abortion inflicts on the parents of these babies. He shares our heart on the abortion issue and fully understands the critical role he plays in ending this modern-day holocaust.
President Bush has rightly earned the trust of America's pro-lifers. Tens of thousands of pro-lifers diligently worked to reelect President Bush, knowing the next president would likely fill multiple Supreme Court vacancies. Are we now willing to say we don't trust him to fill these positions?
Look at the many excellent court appointments President Bush has already made. They include solid pro-life individuals like Janice Rodgers Brown, Edith Clement, Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering and William Pryor.
Further, the president has reappointed many of these sterling people in the face of an obstructionist minority of senators. And he has demonstrated that he is willing to pursue the constitutional option, also known as the “nuclear” option, to confirm them on the courts.
History is working against President Bush because some of his Republican predecessors have appointed pro-abortion justices to the Supreme Court. We believe President Bush has wisely learned from their past mistakes and is steadfast in his understanding of how the Supreme Court impacts each and every one of us, including generations to come.
One advocate for Harriet Miers said conservatives and pro-lifers should “connect the dots” to get a complete picture of what this nomination means to our nation. We at Life Issues Institute believe this is sound advice. We believe the bigger picture shows Harriet Miers to be a solid, pro-life vote on the Supreme Court.
BRADLEY MATTES
Executive Director
Life Issues Institute
lifeissues.org
Preemies Feel Pain
As a subscriber to your newspaper, I am always amazed at the great information your paper gives. I read the article “‘I Don't Feel Your Pain’” (Sept. 25-Oct. 1), about infant pain, with complete amazement. How absurd for anyone, but especially the American Medical Association, to assume infants less than 29 weeks’ gestation do not feel pain.
As a neonatal intensive-care nurse, I strongly disagree with this opinion. In the Level III NICU where I work, we frequently take care of preterm babies whose gestational age is less than 29 weeks. These babies do feel pain! When we are forced to do necessary procedures that are painful, such as IV access or heelsticks, these babies react. They will attempt to withdraw the limb and many of them actively cry.
As nurses, we are so aware of this, we keep these procedures to an absolute minimum. I am appalled the AMA would take such a position. Part of the Hippocratic Oath is “First, do no harm.” When truth meets politics, the line between right and wrong becomes very blurred.
BONNIE A HOLLAND
Picayune, Mississippi
Taking Back Religious Ed
As a director of religious education, I have enjoyed your Catechism series. But I have to say, our program is on the verge of being the greatest of all. At least that is my goal.
Five years ago, our pastor took me into my new office. There was so much junk in the way that we could hardly get the door opened. My husband and I filled one dumpster with magazines that had been cut through so much that there was nothing but shredded paper left. We filled another dumpster with yarn. Later, I found much more and, feeling bad over the previous waste, I donated the new find.
You get the idea: Religious educations had been all about arts and crafts. The textbooks were, in my opinion, not worthy of our children's formation. Surprisingly, they were on the conformity list. There was almost one full chapter dedicated to the “Chinese New Year.” Most CCD and religious-ed programs only have the children for 90 minutes each week. There is no time to spare on information that does not teach Catholic doctrine, precepts, history or identity.
I have developed a new, orthodox program over the past five years and I am proud of it. But my pride is not without humbling moments, all of which I dread and feel thankful for at the same time.
The last five years have been a blessing in my life. I have grown as much as I have encouraged growth in others. My desire to understand drives me to share what I learn with those around me. I would love to encourage other programs to be as solid as ours, for the benefit of the children and the Church.
As a side note to all pastors, I have worked in this position from my home for five years while I have raised my family. We have four children. With Christ, it can be done!
KALAH WILLIAMS
St. Patrick Catholic Church
Rochelle, Illinois
Voice for Vocations
I am a very loyal reader of the Register. In fact, my bride of 19-plus years, Tori, and I are very grateful for it and pray for its continued success. The editors, writers and contributors perform admirably a good and noble service. Keep up the good work
And, as a long-time, loyal supporter of Ignatius Press and its founder, Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, I naturally read with great interest and appreciation the recent interview, “‘Tall, Thin, Dark, Foreboding’ … and ‘Tremendously Happy’” (Inperson, Oct. 9-15). However, I can't let a comment he made in the article pass without responding in the hopes that the vocational community in general can benefit from it, or will see fit to correct me if I'm wrong, however charitably.
I am a father and educator (home-school teacher of three children) and a coach of a team of young people who are learning how to develop their speaking and elocution skills. All of them are in the process of discerning their vocation. In my research on the topic of vocational discernment, I find that sometimes, unwittingly, those involved in religious vocations fail to take advantage of opportunities to impress upon young people that vocational discernment is the responsibility of each and every Christian.
After all, vocational discernment, especially for those not called to a religious vocation, is not about doing what you decide to do with your life, but instead, it is all about being open, receptive and obedient to God's call — no matter how loudly or quietly he speaks, or in what manner he chooses to get his message across.
In the interview, Father Fessio says that, at Ave Maria University, “we have a wonderful program in which college students who are discerning live on a floor together with priests and a spiritual director, and they're able to be ordinary college students and at the same time discern a vocation.”
That statement raises the questions: What about those students who are not or have yet to discern a religious vocation? Doesn't Ave Maria University have a program that helps all students discern their vocation, be it a religious, lay or secular vocation? I'm confident that, given its sterling reputation, it probably does, although I'm not aware of the particulars.
With reverence and respect, I urge all our good bishops, priests, religious and lay people who are involved in vocations work to clearly remind people, especially young people, that vocational discernment is a very important part of being a faithful Christian — regardless of whether or not one's calling is to a religious, lay or secular (non-religious) vocation.
T.J. (TOM) O'MALLEY
Danville, California
Pink-Ribbon Blinders
Relevant to “U.N. Scientists Warn of Pill's Link to Cancer” (Sept. 18-24):
According to the American Cancer Society, 40,000 American women will die this year of breast cancer and 200,000 women will be told by their physicians that they have the disease. There has been only a slight decline of 2.3% per year in breast cancer death rates since 1990; the greatest in women under age 50, owing to earlier detection and better treatments. Who can blame women for being highly motivated to find a cure for this dreaded disease?
But the real question we should ask is: How can we find the cure if we won't acknowledge the cause?
Since studies done in 1957 on Japanese women who had abortions, science has known that there is a proven link between elective abortions and breast cancer. Five medical groups and a bioethics journal recognize the 29 international studies that have confirmed the “ABC” link and call on doctors to inform women about this highly plausible relationship.
As of 2003, 18 out of 21 retrospective studies show that women who take oral contraceptives prior to their first-term birth incur an increased risk in developing breast cancer, as documented by the Polycarp Research Institute. The World Health Organization recognizes that combined oral contraceptives are carcinogenic to humans.
Why aren't women being told? Why are they being held as hostages by the abortion industry and drug companies who profit by using their bodies as laboratories for a vast population control experiment under the façade of “reproductive choice?” Why are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the cancer research organizations, and their own physicians complicit in the cover-up? Why do the mainstream media insist on a “black-out” of the most relevant topic to women's health concerns today?
It must be more important to protect the breast cancer research “businesses” than save women's lives. These pink-ribbon “cash cows” have no desire to either prevent breast cancer or blow the whistle on the government's 48-year cover-up of the abortion/contraceptive/breast cancer link. When will women finally wake up to the fact that they have been duped by the very organizations that they have been counting on to help them?
ARLENE SAWICKI
South Barrington, Illinois
Catholic Chief Justices
You had a good heading into the story “Roberts Is the Third Catholic Chief Justice in High Court's History” (Oct. 9-15). It is too bad you fumbled the ball and never named the two previous Catholic chief justices.
I have been a lawyer for 46 years and I didn't know there were two other Catholics who served as chief justice. My guess is that one of them was Roger Taney of Dred Scott fame. Let me know the names of the two, which I expected I would learn reading your story.
CHARLES W. O’CONNOR
New Haven, Connecticut
