Letters to the Editor.

Notice

Editor: Catholic Insight welcomes letters to the editor sent us by e-mail. We request, however, that e-mail correspondents add their home address and telephone number to their message. We will not print letters from people we cannot contact. Also, letters to the editor sent by fax or in the post must also include an address and daytime telephone number.

From Mrs. Linda Jenkinson on the Catechism

The teachings of the Catechism are now available in a marvellous video series by Father Coraphi, S.O.L.T. When these were made available at our parish on Monday nights, a group of us returned week after week.

Father John Coraphi will enrich your Catholic life with his powerful, dynamic, and love-filled teachings. Don't miss them.

Burlington, ON

From Mary Wand on the CWL 

Enclosed is my renewal for Catholic Insight. I am convener for Legislation and Resolutions on our parish (Sacred Heart) C.W.L, and have presented resolutions for the protection of the unborn, and the banning of the use of foetal tissue. So I would be very pleased if other CWLs would promote these resolutions also.

I was pleased to read in the Dec. 30th edition of The Wanderer that Mrs. Kathleen Gallagher presented a similar challenge at the annual prayer breakfast for Friends of Life in Syracuse, N.Y., on December 11, 1999.

Walkerton, ON

From Joe Dornan on the media

The battle against the ridiculous media continues. They are now "insulting our reason" in a very brazen manner. They are so stupid as to believe that their ludicrous logic can defeat the Church. I do not think so.

Willowdale, ON

From SMH on Foster Parents Plan

Upon reading the letter from "Gift of Sight" in Calgary to Mr. O'Callaghan last year (Jan/Feb 99, pp.5-6), regarding population control assistance through community health clinics, I decided to research Foster Parents Plan (also called the Plan) for their stance on this issue.

As you can see from the booklet they sent me, Policy on Family Planning (copy enclosed), they wholeheartedly support all aspects of population control assistance. Page 3 of this booklet is particularly clear:

Statement of Policy

PLAN will make sure that all adults and adolescents in affiliated communities have access to appropriate family planning information and services. This will allow them to prevent pregnancies which are too early, too closely spaced, too late, or too many. PLAN will make sure all adults and adolescents have access to such information and services in the context of its overall maternal, child, and primary health programs.

I have ceased all donations to this "charity."

Edmonton, AB

On Cardinal Ambrozic's letter

From Robert Eady

Having read "What is Cardinal Ambrozic's position on same-sex benefits?" (Dec 99) and the letters in response to it (Jan-Feb 2000), I wondered why there was no mention of Suzanne Scorsone's November 15 '94 paper to the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops entitled Uncoupling Legitimation from Benefits and Protections: Church Teaching and Secular Legislation with respect to Same-Sex Relationships. Mrs. Scorsone, an anthropologist, is currently employed as the spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Toronto. The Cardinal's stand appears to be the same in essentials as that expressed by her in 1994.

In the July-October 1995 edition of The Orator, Father Michael McCarthy, OMI, stated that the core thesis of Mrs. Scorsone's paper to the Ontario bishops "is that the benefits normally given to married couples should be given to other groups, including homosexuals, who may have a relationship involving dependence, without changing the definition of marriage."

Father McCarthy condemned this perceived position as nothing less than "appeasement" of homosexuals. I heartily agree. It is fine to try to protect marriage as a special state that does not include homosexual relationships. It is not fine, however, to give homosexuals any new rights that, despite meaningless disclaimers, cannot help but make their so-called lifestyle appear normal or acceptable.

One must always keep in mind that the "sin of the Sodomites" is so hideously offensive in the sight of God that it is one of the few listed, along with "the blood of Abel," that "cry to heaven" (The Catechism of the Catholic Church).

Under our Catholic Prime Ministers like Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, homosexuality has gradually moved through federal legislation from an aberration to a human right. Regrettably, Cardinal Ambrozic's recent letter supporting benefits and pension rights for homosexuals will only serve to give the appearance of a stamp of approval for immoral same-sex unions.

Kanata, ON

From Marie Stukel

Coming from a prelate whose decisive action in 1995 helped to defeat the proposed same-sex marriage bill of Bob Rae, the unsigned and undated letter comes as a letdown.

Its many ambiguities, evasions, and equivocations leave the reader genuinely puzzled as to the intentions of its writer. Paragraph 4 is wildly incoherent and paragraph 5, its verbal gymnastics notwithstanding, gives the impression, not of the clearly and precisely enunciated message contained in the documents recently made public by the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding the pastoral care of homosexual persons, but rather of a watered-down moral code intended to please the world. To bend the knee to the world, as Jacques Maritain once said, would be to betray our ancient heritage.

We expect homosexuals and civil libertarians to be upset by the Church's teachings, but many of us are at a loss to understand why there are so many Catholic bishops and theologians who insist on handing down an impoverished version of faith, adapted to whatever society there is. Against such vacillations, the Church Universal maintains her unshaken belief that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and that no civil legislation is to be introduced to protect behaviour to which no one has any conceivable right. On Pastoral Care is clear and incisive on this point.

The easiest thing in the world is to follow one's times. Protest appears less fashionable than acceptance even in clerical circles nowadays. But Christ was obedient unto death. To take a stand on truth is not synonymous with being uncaring or unmerciful, for truth is at the heart of the moral order.

Rather than round off the edge of the moral law, the shepherd's call should unite us all around the Gospel truth, On Pastoral Care makes much of the teaching role of the bishops; when the role of the bishops is not clear, the result is confusion and dissent.

Ottawa, ON

From John Mahony

In his letter of May 1999 regarding the M v. H decision, had Cardinal Ambrozic stopped at the end of para. 3, there could be no serious objection to his statement. In para. 4, however, he sympathizes with "the Court's understandable desire to see justice done in the dissolution of the relationship between M v. H." What relationship? What dissolution? There was no relationship known to the law between two lesbians living together. The Court invented a legal relationship and forced it on a legislature without the courage to resist it. For a Cardinal of the Catholic Church to sympathize with a court that makes a mockery of traditional marriage, by bestowing rights normally reserved to heterosexual couples, is shocking.

But it is para. 5 of the statement that defies understanding. "The time has come" the Cardinal says,

"for legislation that fully protects the traditional understanding of family and marriage and that also provides basic legal protection to individuals involved in non-traditional domestic relationships of economic interdependency whether sexual intimacy is present or not."

The last half of that sentence is purely and simply an acknowledgement that he thinks domestic partners who are sexually intimate, in other words homosexuals, are entitled to the benefits normally reserved for spouses. Any such affirmation is plainly contrary to Church teaching as enunciated in 1986 (Pastoral Care) and in 1992 (Letter to Bishops on discrimination). It explicitly directs that no affirmation can be given to homosexual practice and that civil laws requiring such cannot be assented to.

As late as January 13 of this year, after a decision by the district of Rome to grant cohabiting couples some of the same rights as married couples, the Pope urged regional and city officials to vigorously defend the institution of marriage and to avoid any initiative which could favour or guarantee legal equality between the family and other forms of living together.

Calgary, AB

From Diane Watts

Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic's letter to society and to his flock is a tortured piece of work. It recognizes the "understandable desire to see justice done" in the dissolution of relationships which involve what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has called gravely depraved, morally evil acts. The letter calls for basic legal protection for non-traditional domestic relationships of economic interdependency. Homosexual activists identify these as lesbians, sodomites, catamites, sado- masochists, and possibly pedophiles cohabiting from one to three years depending on the legislation targeted for "modernizing".

The Cardinal's letter calls for marriage and family to be fully protected while expressing a sympathy with the Supreme Court's desire to change the laws already in place to do this. The only action the letter chooses to highlight as "wrong" is unjust discrimination. The only time the Church is invoked is to remind the Catholic flock that the above individuals engaging in gravely depraved, intrinsically moral evil acts should be treated with the utmost respect, compassion, and sensitivity. The letter is notable for several omissions:

* The CDF's reminder that Sacred Scripture condemns the above non-traditional acts as "the tragic consequence of rejecting God" (Romans 1:18-32).

* The Congregation's warning of the "deceitful propaganda" promulgated by a "movement within the Church" to undermine her teaching, using methods "to manipulate the Church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with the view to changing civil statutes and laws."

* The Congregation's pastoral concern that "there is a danger that legislation which would make homosexuality a basis for entitlements could actually encourage a person with a homosexual orientation to declare his homosexuality or even to seek a partner in order to exploit the provisions of the law." And that "a truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin." And that "there is no right to homosexuality, which, therefore, should not form the basis for judicial claims."

The ominous prediction of the Congregation (under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) in the letter to bishops that "when civil legislation is introduced to protect behaviour to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase."

The Catholic Church in Canada has failed to follow through on directives from the CDF. The Church in Canada did not mount a sufficiently vigorous offence against the earlier legislation which placed the undefined term "sexual orientation" in the Criminal Code of Canada (Bill C-41), 1995, and in the 1996 Canadian Human Rights Act (Bill C-33).

Catholic church leaders in Canada failed to speak out in support of marriage and family when the Supreme Court of Canada decided on M v. H (May, 1999) and when lower courts lowered the age of consent for gravely immoral acts. These leaders failed to effectively protect families when they did not publicly speak out against Bill 5, which was passed in the Ontario legislature in October 1999 under the Conservative Mike Harris government. The Catholic hierarchy has not taken action to mobilize the flock to work within the democratic process to prevent the passage of Bill C-23 at the federal level. This is a betrayal and dereliction of duty which will affect Catholic families and vulnerable souls for many years.

Finally, those who have the charity to labour against unjust legislation would do well to quote the Holy Father's simple words spoken on January 13, 2000: "To protect the family, the basic element of society, I ask those in authority to avoid any initiative that could encourage or endorse the equalization of the family with other forms of cohabitation."

Alymer, PQ

Editor: This concludes the correspondence about Cardinal Ambrozic's unsigned, undated circular of May 1999. It has been pointed out that its central idea goes back to earlier proposals, for example, by Mrs. Suzanne Scorsone. By asking for financial help to other economically dependent people, it glosses over the homosexual aspect. Thirteen of the fourteen letter writers have found this an unacceptable course of action, as I do myself.

The presentation of the delegation from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to the committee hearings on Parliament Hill on Bill C-23, March 2, was cut from the same cloth. Instead of rejecting Bill C-23 in clear-cut terms for directly undermining the unique status of the normal family, it presented a compromise of the same kind as the circular letter.

From Bernard Pickles on AIDS program

Dr. Jeanne Ferrari, in her article "AIDS program still deceiving" (March 2000), gives support to the "true compassion" style treatment of sodomites to overcome their inclination of sodomy. None would disagree with her if the sodomite was voluntarily desirous of giving up this evil lifestyle. However, I read into her article a suggestion that "true compassion" will changeover the practising ones, and she goes further to state: "No one is suggesting that this (change-over) be done violently--this would be against Christian charity." In my opinion, this so-called Christian charity would be liberalism gone overboard and a Doctor of the Church convinces me in this matter by advising physical punishment for these evildoers.

Surely it is never wrong at any time or in any place for a man to love God with his whole heart and his whole mind and love his neighbour as himself. Sins against nature, therefore, like the sin of sodomy, are abominable and deserve punishment wherever and whenever they are committed.... Our Maker did not prescribe that we should use each other in this way. In fact, the relationship which we ought to have with God is itself violated when our nature, of which He is the author, is desecrated by perverse lust (St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 3:8).

We would do well to remember that, certainly within my lifetime, active sodomy used to be punishable by the state. That was in the days when the family was regarded as being sacred. Too much of this "compassionate charity" has led us to our present state of family collapse.

Tweed, ON

From Teresa de Souza on Dr. Ferrari's critique

There is a better approach than the one suggested by Dr. Jeanne Ferrari for the Ontario bishops' sex ed program Fully Alive, in her otherwise excellent article on AIDS (March, p. 10): "It is apparent that Fully Alive also requires a major revision."

We should have learnt from the AIDS program "revision" that "revision" does not work. The better approach would be to withdraw the Fully Alive program.

Fully Alive is so deeply flawed in concept and execution that this is the only right thing to do. Why waste more money on it? One reason given for Fully Alive not being withdrawn is that the bishops are too dependent on the revenues generated by it. The fact that the bishops have not released Fully Alive's finances, even though they have been specifically asked for this information, supports this reasoning.

If Fully Alive were truly Catholic in concept, respecting parents' rights, it would be an "opt-in" program, not the current "opt-out" at your and your child's discomfort. The first reading for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception from Genesis refers to the shame Adam and Eve felt because they were naked. In this light, the very explicit pictorials of male and female genitals, in texts for students nine to 13 years old, have no place in any program which thinks it is Judeo-Christian, let alone Catholic. I have personally experienced the disturbing effect these pictorials have on young children's innate modesty.

The two pages detailing devices to enable artificial contraception which the Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2370, defines as "intrinsically evil," versus a weak one-third of a page on chastity in the Grade 8 text for students aged 13 years, is incomprehensible to me.

It is perilous to provide such information to very young children who should have no need of it, at an age when they are curious, experimental, and have not yet developed mature judgement and a sense of responsibility. That is irresponsible and dangerously bad pedagogy. Tragically, it is the children who suffer physically and emotionally.

Toronto, ON

From J. K. MacKenzie on homosexuality

The author of a letter in the March 2000 issue asserted, "It has surely been stated by the Church, over and over again, that people of homosexual orientation should not be discriminated against in matters such as housing, education, employment, etc...."

Following an amendment to the Catechism, the expression "sexual orientation" now reads "sexual inclination." The document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith regarding "Legislative Proposals on the Non-Discrimination of Homosexual Persons" (1992) declares:

"Sexual [inclination] does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc., in respect of non-discrimination. Unlike these, homosexual [inclination] is an objective disorder and evokes moral concern" (10).

Paragraph 11 provides examples of what constitutes just discrimination in that regard

"There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual [inclination] into account; for example, in the placement of children for adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or athletic coaches, and in military recruitment."

In addition, we are told in paragraph 13:

"Including 'homosexual' [inclination] among considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights, for example, in respect to so-called affirmative action or preferential treatment in hiring practices. This is all the more deleterious since there is no right to homosexuality..."

Therefore, our Church does not insulate those homosexuals "who [do not] engage in homosexual activity" from all forms of discrimination.

London, ON

From Paul Morgan on editorial

Are you really surprised that more people haven't expressed outrage at our dictatorial government's Bill C-23 giving privileged and preferential status to the homosexual lobby? You shouldn't be.

Minority groups to-day, feminists, homosexuals, pro-abortionists, et al., have perfected a tactical strategy for getting what they want. First, they embark upon a campaign to ridicule and vilify those who would oppose their ideologies. They are successful in this vilification since many of them, not having wives, husbands, or families to look after, have secured influential positions in government, education, and above all, the communications media.

Next, they hurl unverified and unsubstantiated accusations of hatred, bigotry, intolerance, discrimination, etc., at their opponents. They then invent a selective vocabulary of names to further intimidate their critics. "Anti-woman", "anti-choice", "homophobic," etc. You know the lexicon. But let us look at the word "homophobia" In "gay" vernacular this is defined as a "fear or hatred of homosexuals." But, according to my dictionary, "phobia" means only "fear of," not "hatred for," something.

Like the majority of people, I and my family have a fear not of homosexuals (who have my utmost sympathy and compassion for their unnatural sexual tendencies), but fear of the sexual activities in which they engage, activities and practices which have been conclusively proven to spread such deadly diseases as AIDS, and other sexually-transmitted diseases, and cancers such as Karposi's sarcoma.

The original medical acronym for AIDS was in fact G.R.I.D., meaning Gay-Related Immuno-Deficiency, but a small but very vociferous "gay" lobby successfully bullied and intimidated the medical profession into the name change. Why? Because they did not want the public to know it was almost exclusively a disease propagated by homosexual activity.

One of the first casualties in any ideological battle is always truth, as, for example, "It's not a baby" in the abortion controversy. The irrefutable truth is that "gay" sexual practices are responsible for the wildfire spread of one of the most deadly infectious diseases since the bubonic plague-the Black Death.

Due to the "bisexuality" of a preponderance of homosexuals, the heterosexual population is now caught in the spread. And they say I have no right to have a phobia, a fear, of what they do. Call me "homophobic" if you like, but don't tell me I should not be afraid. I'm scared to death for my children, my grandchildren, and for those of my family, friends, and neighbours. Speak up, Canada, and tell your bosses in Parliament that you want to be heard, not the special-interest minorities.

Peterborough, ON