She can't get no respect.

BUILDING A CASE FOR HER RESPECTABILITY IN "WHO framed Mary Magdalene?" (April) is more a commentary on the position of women in the U.S. Catholic Church today than on the status of Mary Magdalene at the time of Christ. I fear that it is because U.S. Catholic women have felt so disenfranchised in the church that such scholarship is undertaken.

But beyond the implicit challenge in Heidi Schlumpfs article, I fear it obscures a central message in the gospel: God's Son came to minister not to the well, the well-off, or the respectable but to the sick and those in need of spiritual healing. To keep things in perspective, Jesus' male disciples frankly were nothing to write home about: some fishermen, a petty and hated bureaucrat who squeezed tax money from working people, a wild-eyed revolutionary.

These were not the models of respectability, and it was Jesus' association with sinners, the low, and the disreputable that seemed to provoke so much anger and indignation from the spiritual leaders of His time. The reassuring thing for me as a Christian has always been that I didn't have to get right or become respectable before approaching Jesus. Just the opposite. I got right when and after I approached Him.

Whether Mary of Magdala was a model of respectability before she encountered Jesus is not as important as what she became after her encounter with Him--during His life and after His Resurrection. It was in fact the Resurrection and the gift of His Spirit that changed fishermen into orators, cowards into martyrs, and sinners into saints.

Dan Sullivan 

Herndon, Va.

What we're called to be

Just what does it mean to be Catholic seems to be the focus of your interview with James Davidson ("U.S. Catholics: Who do we think we are," February). It means a direct historical connection to Christ and struggling to live a Christian life. Scripture is explicit: the entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Gal. 5:14). "Love your neighbor" is not limited to immediate family, friends, or even the people next door. It refers to all those who are in need and not just those with whom we would be comfortable.

We are called to provide for the needs of people we are likely to find repulsive, contagious, or dangerous. Christ tells us to do this. This is what Christian living is and what salvation is about. It is not a suggestion. It is not an optional matter. It is not just for those called to it. We are all called to it.

Leo Morin

Buckhead, Ga.

Your February cover story, "U.S. Catholics: Who do we think we are?" reminded me of a story.

Shortly after Vatican II there was a basketball game between the Georgetown Hoyas and Catholic University. Catholic U fans began chanting, "What in the hell is a Hoya? What in the hell is a Hoya?" Georgetown fans responded, "What in the hell is a Catholic? What in the hell is a Catholic?"

It seems we never did get a satisfactory answer. Davidson did a fine job on what Catholics believe now, but the answer is in flux from time to time, culture to culture, individual to individual.

Kay Olson

Waverly, Iowa 

No two ways about it

I must take issue with Robert E. Burns' column "When the punishment is the crime" (The Examined Life, February). Burns states that about half of the 1.6 million people in American prisons are there for their "involvement" with illegal drugs. Burns stresses "involvement" because he asserts that most are imprisoned merely because they possessed drugs and had no part in distributing them. People who possess drugs either sell them or use them.

Burns disregards any correlation between drug possession and violent crime. People do kill each other for that white powder. Laws that make drug possession illegal have evolved because we as a free people have enacted these laws through a legitimate process. It is only through this process that we can collectively act in a decent and humane way.

Tom Leva

Chicago, Ill.

The battle in Seattle

I see that Kevin Clarke's "Common senseless in Seattle" (Margin Notes, February) portrayed the "poor law-abiding peaceful protesters" as somehow put upon. Folks, they were blocking traffic, preventing the delegates from entering their meetings and preventing everybody else from exercising their rights.

Clearly these protesters were out to commit civil disobedience. Unfortunately, they don't know what that means. Civil disobedience is not just peacefully breaking the law; it's also accepting the consequences for it.

Sorry, those poor peaceful protesters lose.

Name withheld

Seattle, Wash.

I agree with Clarke and I think his opinions and views are right on the mark. However good the intentions of some protestors, the unruly actions of a few bad apples ruined it for us.

I feel that there is no place for that sort of behavior. I think it's important to remember that those sorts were the minority and that overall the protests stood for good things. Thank you for bringing this to public attention.

Brett Coppage

Seattle, Wash.

Share the blame

As past immediate chair of Shomrei Mishpat/Rabbis for Human Rights, I read Heidi Schlumpf's article "Unsettled in the Holy Land" (January) with great interest. We are the only organization in Israel with members who are Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform rabbis. RHR is a human-rights watch group. This past year we have been intensely involved in preventing home demolitions and rebuilding demolished homes in the West Bank, one of the issues mentioned in the article.

The miracle of renewed Jewish sovereignty is mixed with tragedy and suffering. We are committed to fighting injustices so that we may be worthy of this miracle. For this, we are severely criticized by the political right in Israel and by world Jewry.

However, to report only on the tragedy and the pessimism, as Schlumpf did, is an unfortunate misstep in addressing the real issues we face. How unfair that only the Jewish role in Palestinian suffering was reported.

This is not the place to address the part the Arab world in general and the Palestinian Authority play in the ongoing tragedy of the Palestinian people. Nor will I detail the suffering of Christian Palestinians at the hands of Muslims, which went unmentioned in the article.

Jews and Muslims do fine blaming and accusing each other without your help. Jews and Muslims both need to learn forgiveness and reconciliation. Perhaps that is the unique role Christians have to play in the Holy Land.

Levi Weiman-Kelman

Jerusalem, Israel

Frankenfood fights

I would like to comment on Kevin Clarke's "Hold the hormones" (Margin Notes, November). I've worried about the food America grows for years now. I've seen an increase in organic foods, and have in past years even doubled my food expenses by buying it.

Now I can't afford to spend so much on food and am now settling for what's on our shelves, but my family and I have noticed that after eating lots of food, we still seem hungry. I've learned that the reason for that is the food grown on conventional farms in the U.S. today is lacking nutritionally and our bodies are actually craving more nutrition from the foods we eat.

I believe we need to grow more organic foods, then maybe prices will be more affordable.

E. Leahy

Warrington, Pa.

I farmed for 44 years and fed cattle until recently, and I haven't yet seen a cow soaked in hormones. We used a few small pellets of a natural hormone placed under the skin of their ear (which is discarded upon slaughter) 90 days or more before marketing them. Scientists who measure two parts per trillion can't detect whether cattle are growth-enhanced with hormones.

GMO (genetically modified organisms) crops are safer for the grower than using chemical pesticides and safer for the environment. The Native Americans who first grew corn genetically modified them by years of natural selection of the most productive. These were natural mutations. Many plants we eat, such as tomatoes, contain stronger natural insecticides than Bt corn, which only has it in the stock.

If we all went to sustainable agriculture and organic farming we couldn't feed the U.S., let alone export to Europe. The yields per acre can be as high as current farming practices, but only on small portions of the land because the rest is in legumes, grasses, and less productive crops.

Denis Sweat

Ceder, Kan.