You May Be Right.

The Creed is worth saying--slowly

WHAT A GREAT article by R. Scott Appleby in the December issue ("The Creed: Do you believe what you just said?"). Appleby, by reviewing the questions faced by the church in those early years, has revealed to us the reasons and importance of the Creed's wording.

Appleby's explanations for the various passages has made the Creed, which we say at our church at Mass, much more meaningful. Let us hope that we never waver in our beliefs as set down by the early church fathers in the Creed.

Perhaps we should recite it a bit more slowly so that we can appreciate the depth of its meaning. There is the hazard of our just droning through it and not realizing the important statement of faith intended therein.

Charles Voelkel

Baltimore, Md.

I find it humorous that Appleby criticizes the heretics of the early church for their willingness to selectively listen to the apostles in order to accommodate Christianity to the philosophical and cultural trends of the age. In the same article, Appleby used a version of the Creed never accepted by the bishops, the successors of the apostles.

By deleting the word men from the Creed, Appleby is no better than the heretics he condemns. It is a blatant attempt to accommodate Christianity to the politically correct philosophical and cultural trends of 1990s America. It's just another small part of a disturbing trend of U.S. CATHOLIC to put its beliefs above those of everyone and everything including church hierarchy.

Unfortunately, readers will find it more disturbing that I am questioning the motives of U.S. CATHOLIC writers and editors than they do your magazine's constant disagreement with the magisterium.

Sean Fouts

Akron, Ohio

Appleby's article was one of the best articles I have encountered in 15 years of reading U.S. CATHOLIC.

I have had too many friends and family leave or not take seriously the church and her doctrines, because repetition does get boring if we let it, and go other places because of the excitement of something new and different. The church has it all, and your article states it exactly.

Dean Baldwins

Fallston, Md.

Well-built foundation

I agree entirely with the article "Please pass down the faith" by Karen Sue Smith in the November issue.

As a student at Benet Academy, a Catholic high school in Lisle, Illinois, I feel that I have a lot in common with the issues Smith addressed. Before attending Benet Academy I attended a public junior high school, but while many think there is a huge difference between the schools, I find that there is little difference when it comes to students acting out their faith.

There is a very big influence here at Benet to cling close to our faith, but the same push is evident to other students I know in public high schools. Despite Benet's certain efforts to draw students to their Catholic faith, it simply comes down to whether the student is willing to accept it. The only way students can accept it is if they are comfortable. This comfort comes only with something they are familiar with, and that comes from home.

My parents instilled in me moral values according to our Catholic faith at a very young age. Regardless of what type of school I attended--public or Catholic--or whether I attended religious education or not, I feel that I have a deep connection to my faith.

Amy Artates

Westmont, Ill.

Smith's article opens up the most troubling problem the church faces today. A great many parents quietly confess their doubts about the possibility of transmitting their own love of the church to their children. Smith lays out possible parish family initiatives that offer hope.

Sally Cunneen

via e-mail

Do you see clearly?

Patricia M. Robertson's "Through a glass, darkly" in the November issue was arresting reading. The poignancy of her own predicament--failing sight--lent compelling credibility to her observation: we are better off not allowing that which we see to blind us to what is real. I found myself looking at my own life attachments, things I believe to be so important, through her eyes.

Robertson has helped me better understand that seeing is not believing. Unreflective seeing can blind us to what God has for us.

Reverend Thomas M. Ball

Spring Arbor, Mich.

Children know best

It was such a pleasure to read Eileen Love's "A visit to Grandma" in the November issue. This affection for the burial places of our beloved dead goes way back to the very first decades of the Christian church. The faithful routinely visited the graves of the martyrs and even shared meals there, which finds its contemporary parallel in Love's memories of Sundays at the cemetery. There is a part of us that senses a communion between the living and the dead.

Children know this better than we adults, which is why a visit for a child to the cemetery to "see grandma" seems like good theology.

Kathy McGovern

Denver, Colo.

Please address letters for publication to You May Be Right, 205 W. Monroe St., Chicago, IL 60606. Or fax your comments to 312-236-8207. You can also e-mail us at editors@ uscatholic.org. We will withhold names upon request, but all letters must be signed. We regret that space limitations force us to condense letters and that time limitations prevent us from publishing letters commenting on already published letters. --The Editors