Last Updated:Thursday - 07/15/2010
May 28, 2007
WCR Letters to the Editor
Graphic fetal photos tell the story
Re: "Henry nixes support for group using graphic fetal photos" (WCR, May 7).
Dear Bishop Henry, with all due respect, in this one you are wrong. Your comment to Stephanie Gray, director of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) - "I think you would accomplish more if you showed a picture of a human child in the womb of the mother " - shows a lack of perception.
The child in the womb is warm, comfortable, well fed and full of the God-given gift of life. There is no problem here.
On the other hand, abortion has nothing to with comfort and life, but rather the pain-racked deaths of millions of small trapped human beings. That is the truth GAP portrays.
No words can express this world-wide plague. These pictures only show the aftermath, which doesn't even begin to show the grotesque agonizing murder and disposal process.
At the back of the smelly abortion mill is a bloody table or counter where the aborted babies, some intact, some not, gasping and whimpering in the last painful throes of death, are stacked and waiting for the medical waste truck.
For what horrific use we can only conjecture - scientific experiments, serums for the living, harvesting for body parts, eggs, fetal tissue, pet food, the garbage dump? No pretty white coffins for these little ones. It is here in this abortion mill where dignity and human rights are stolen forever.
No matter how repulsive to our sensibilities, we must show the truth and put an end to abortion once and for all. This is not doing evil so good may come from it. It is a grievous evil to hide it, aiding the abortionist.
People need to be brought to their senses and made fully aware. GAP needs everyone's help and support.
Helen Ferguson
St. Albert
Letter to the Editor - 06/25/07
Call to 'social activism' for Catholics decried
I was quite disappointed to find in WCR (May 14) direction for Catholics to engage in, "social activism" from Kathy Vandergrift, because our current "charity mode" is not working without it.
There was similar counsel to Catholics recently from our Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. We were encouraged to petition our government representatives to penalize corporations for not paying enough attention to the plight of the land and the poor in areas where these primary resource corporations are operating.
The names and addresses of these corporations were not provided in case anyone chose to bring their concerns to the CEOs of these corporations directly.
I have been involved in the oil industry domestically and internationally most of my life and I have never seen a corporation without a conscience. I know that expressing these concerns to the corporation directly can get the results we are looking for as Christians.
Ms. Vandergrift's focus was to the advancement of children's rights. If parents could maintain the strength of their convictions - or better yet their grandparent's convictions - there would be no need for concern over children's rights.
These Christian convictions have long been assaulted and worn down by the kind of activism that Ms. Vandergrift now espouses.
Corporal punishment works when it is administered with intelligence by a loving parent. The right to discipline a child as the parent sees fit will be the first victim of this activism.
We must never entrust our children to "the better judgment" of a social order with no focus on God. Nobody can love our children like we do and nobody can protect them like we must.
With charity we take from our own pocket and give to the needy. With activism we find people we can gang up on and take from them then give a percentage to the needy.
Chris Hansen
Edmonton
The Great Works of Thomas Berry serves as a powerful compass
In theMay 14 WCR, Father Paul Hansen rightly points out that "The biblical story has to be retold for our times."
But such a new story has already been given to us in The Great Work of Thomas Berry as well as in his many other books and articles addressing this most critical issue of our times not only for Christians but for the whole human community.
Berry states "The story of the universe . . . is our sacred story. It is our way of dealing with the ultimate mystery whence all things come into being."
Not only does Berry give us a marvellous story of creation that can make sense to a child, but one that is adequate to enlighten mature minds. He not only clearly presents the ecological crisis of our planet and life on it, but points the way forward.
Gerry Hedican
Newmarket, Ont.
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