Last Updated:Thursday - 07/15/2010
July 14, 2008
WCR Letters to the Editor
Cancer struck despite chastity
Re: Guidance, not needles, immunizes girls (WCR Editorial, June 30)
I am a Catholic woman who at the age of 27 was diagnosed with cervical cancer. I had only one partner in my life and that is my husband who I married at the age of 18. He only had one other partner before me.
I am a 20-year survivor of cervical cancer and a supporter of cancer research. I am thrilled that in my lifetime a vaccine has been developed that significantly reduces the risk of cervical cancer.
My aunt died of cervical cancer. She was a devout Catholic and married to her husband of more than 30 years.
While I agree that abstinence and the sanctity of marriage is to be upheld as the model, we also need to recognize that people are people with all their flaws and imperfections. Not all Catholics marry in their faith or can say that they have only one partner in their lifetime or that their partner never had another partner.
Just look to the abuse in Catholic churches and you can understand that even those entrusted to be pious can fall from God's grace.
I only ask that in future editorials you show the other side of those of us who have had cervical cancer.
I appreciate that any new vaccine is of concern until it is well proven to be safe and effective, so I plead caution and encourage those considering this vaccine to speak to their doctor.
My cancer was found through a regular routine Pap test. I had no symptoms. I had surgery rendering me unable to have children, which I dearly desired.
My aunt was originally misdiagnosed and only lived a few weeks once it was found to have spread throughout her body. I am sure she would want to see her grandchildren vaccinated.
Mary da Costa
Coquitlam, B.C.
Even St. Augustine had time of promiscuity
I am a family physician and the father of three young children. I have followed the debate over Gardasil with interest.The Alberta Bishops' statement on the HPV vaccine is well thought-out and appropriately offers the Church's guidance while allowing parents the ultimate choice in whether their children should be immunized.
I for one want my daughter immunized. Why? I recognize that to be a Catholic is to be open to repentance, to turning away from sin and embracing Christ and accepting his gift of salvation. My daughter may be perfectly chaste and wait until she is married until engaging in sexual intercourse, but she may marry a man who has not lived that way.
He may be a man who (like St. Augustine, for example) lived a life of sexual promiscuity before turning to Christ and becoming chaste.
Or, despite the best efforts of my wife and me in teaching her the proper way to honour her body, she might decide that waiting for sex is not what she wants to do, and then realize the error of her ways and return to Christ.
The HPV vaccine is not 100 per cent effective, it does not cover all of the strains of HPV that cause cervicalpathology, but it is more than we have now. HPV infection is certainly more common than Hepatitis B, the other sexually transmitted disease vaccine thatis offered to Grade 5 children. There no longer seems to be a whole lot of debate around that vaccine.
HPV immunization is a health issue that is tightly linked with morality. I do not think that this is an "either/or" situation. I will immunize my daughter and teach all my children how the Lord wants them to honour their bodies.
Andrew Spak
Edmonton
Governor general ignored better candidates
Many Canadians are outraged by Henry Morgentaler's Order of Canada award.
I did a bit of research and found an article written a year ago by Rory Leishman for the London Free Press. According to Leishman, Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean has chosen Brent Hawkes, a proponent of same-sex marriage, and Michele Landsberg, a journalist and a notorious abortion-on-demand advocate, as Order of Canada recipients before. Morgentaler isn't the first one.
She chose these people over the likes of internationally renowned pediatrician and oncologist, Dr. Barrie de Veber, distinguished for his pioneering work in palliative paediatric care and a staunch prolifer. He was able to collect more than a million signatures to petition Parliament for a legal protection of life of the unborn.
"As a medical researcher, professor, clinician and community volunteer, de Veber ranks among the most accomplished contemporary Canadians. Yet he holds no rank whatever in the Order of Canada," Leishman said.
What a shame! It shows that the Government of Canada has become so secular, devoid of the moral values that once what made this country great and strong.
Toronto's Archbishop Thomas Collins' has urged Catholics to write letters, emails and petitions to ask the governor general and the prime minister to revoke the Order of Canada award to Morgentaler.
Granting this award to him appears to be a direct insult to millions of Canadians who believe in the respect for life from conception to natural death.
Let's heed Archbishop Collins' advice and write to offices of the prime minister and the governor general that they revoke this award from Morgentaler. Let's hope and pray that they will listen.
Celia Paz de Castro
Edmonton
Order of Canada has lost its prestige
There was a time in this country when recipients of the Order of Canada helped to unite the country. True medical heroes like Banting and Best made us all proud when deserving civilians were recognized for a lifetime of outstanding achievement and dedication to the community.
That was yesterday.
The Harper government was quick to distance itself from the decision to award the Order of Canada to Henry Morgentaler. And for good reason. When Morgentaler successfully had the high court strike down the Criminal Code restrictions on abortion in 1988 he opened the floodgates for unrestricted abortion in this country and Canada remains the only western democracy with no restrictions on abortion.
By honouring Morgentaler we are endorsing this outrage. Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto said it right when stating the Order of Canada has been "debased."
Not only has the Order of Canada lost its prestige with this award but our judges and politicians must bear the responsibility for making Canada the only country in the world with no abortion law whatsoever. For that we should all hang our heads in shame.
Gerald Hall
Nanoose Bay, B.C.
Needed: lay theologians who speak the truth
I want to commend Lynell Prediger for her courage in writing a letter about her concerns on the increase of clericalism in our diocese ("Newman grad senses growth in clericalism," WCR Letters, June 30).
Like Lynell, I received my bachelor of theology from Newman.
I commenced studies while living in northern Alberta. At the time, I was coordinating the catechetical program for our parish. There were no Catholic schools in the area and the children's faith development was supported by this volunteer program.
Ironically, the first Scripture course I took at Newman was on the letters of Paul. I could not help notice the article on St. Paul in the same issue of the WCR.
One assignment was to write a letter to St. Paul as a woman of this age. I remember the excitement I felt writing this letter and begging Paul to forgive my ignorance prior to taking this course.
This was just one course and its impact on my family life, communal and parochial life cannot be measured.
I turned the pages of the WCR and reflected on the advertisement with Archbishop MacNeil and the request for persons to leave a financial legacy to Newman College. The inclusion of laity as integral in Newman's mission is noted!
What Lynell omitted is that the focus towards clericalism is annihilating the role of women as future viable members of the Church's leadership.
I want to say to Lynell, the Church needs people like you who have the courage to voice what many others are feeling. I appeal to all who are feeling bereft by the changes, to thank God for the legacy that Newman has given and pray that its future will be as fruitful.
M.R. Kane
St. Albert
Letter to the Editor - 06/30/08
Letter to the Editor - 06/30/08
Letter to the Editor - 07/21/08
Letter to the Editor - 07/21/08
Letter to the Editor - 08/25/08
Letter to the Editor - 08/25/08
Letter to the Editor - 08/25/08
Letter to the Editor - 09/08/08
Clergy need enlightenment
Re:"Newman grad senses growth in clericalism" and"Cuts put end to vibrant Newman programs" (WCR Letters, June 30).
Two wise and courageous women, authors of the letters referred to above, are to be congratulated for telling it like it is.
Since Vatican II, there has been a slow, steady undermining by the clerical and hierarchical corporate institution of the vocation of the laity.
We are the people of God. We are a royal priesthood. We are the Church.
Without the engagement of men and women who live in the real world and who are able to connect the Gospel to contemporary life, the Church is dead, irrelevant.
The unhealthy focus on obedience to the hierarchy and the abuse of the Eucharist to subjugate the laity are unchristian. May the Holy Spirit enlighten and forgive our clergy.
John Zyp
Edmonton
Letter to the Editor - 06/30/08
Letter to the Editor - 06/30/08
Letter to the Editor - 07/21/08
Letter to the Editor - 07/21/08
Letter to the Editor - 08/25/08
Letter to the Editor - 08/25/08
Letter to the Editor - 08/25/08
Letter to the Editor - 09/08/08
Thanks to all who made Eucharistic Congress possible
I wish to thank the Eucharistic Congress Liturgy Committee whose members, with the generous help of so many people, must have worked so hard to prepare the celebrations. Intercessory prayers were translated into 30 languages.
My week together with all congress pilgrims (10,000 to 15,000) from around the world allowed me as a member of the Body of Christ to celebrate in a presence this gift of God par excellence.
Various activities featured numerous ways for us to express our faith: catecheses, witnessing, liturgies, adoration, a procession, communal meetings, workshops for reflection, times of sharing, music and song.
Thanks to all the organizing teams across Canada who made all of this possible. Thanks to all who shared the richness of their faith. Thanks to the many cultures and languages who shared together in hope. And especially thank you to all those who took responsibility for the various tasks during my time away.
May I bear a witness of love in the unity shared in this encounter of the 49th Eucharistic Congress.
Annette Marie Williams
Pilgrim
Edmonton
Letters to the Editor
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