Dear Editor: For a long time on my “bucket list” has been the opportunity to visit Haiti – the homeland of many families I have grown to love these many years in ministry. Of course “My Kids,” my teen group, some now with teens of their own, are high among them. From March 13-20, I will be part of an immersion experience in Haiti with some members of the Federation of Sisters of Saint Joseph. I am so grateful for this opportunity and am most certain it will expand a sense and need for care, compassion and unity with every “dear neighbor.”
Author: settinger
Negative Reviews of Film
Dear Editor: I disagree with letter writer Thomas C. Cullinane’s (Feb. 11) praise for Martin Scorsese’s latest assault on Catholic truth and wisdom by making a film that justifies the world’s oldest moral rationalization: the ends justify the means, or what the Church has always condemned as consequentialism. Each of the trillions of times this idea is advanced, without exaggeration, it is presented as a revolutionary original new way of thinking. It reflects our corrupt human nature and the vanity of original sin.
What Fake News?
Dear Editor: Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) said recently that “If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press.” He added that dictators “get started by suppressing free press.”
Normalizing Trump
Dear Editor: I beg of you, please stop! As a regular reader of the Tablet, I find your attempts to normalize President Donald Trump to be disturbing. Case in point: your Feb. 25 editorial, filled with pietistic language, attempting to make some kind of moral equivalence between Trump and his press critics. All presidents had issues with the press. Some journalists have always been unscrupulous. That is routine.
Trump’s Choice
Last week, President Donald J. Trump visited St. Andrew’s Catholic School in the Diocese of Orlando, Fla. Accompanying him were Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Governor Rick Scott. During his visit, the president told Bishop John Noonan, Orlando’s Ordinary, “You understand how much your students benefit from full education, one that enriches both the mind and the soul. That’s a good combination.”
Taking the Next, Challenging Step
“GO FORTH … TO a land that I will show you (Genesis) … Bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.” (2 Tim)
Meatless Fridays: Of Faith and Fish
by Maureen Pratt FOR CATHOLICS AND other Christians who observe meatless Fridays, fish figure prominently, and this makes me (pardon the pun) happy as a clam. But I understand that some people are not as enthusiastic as I am about fish. The smell might be off-putting, the texture “slimy.”
Trifecta of Feasts Coming on March Calendar
If there was ever a trifecta of Catholic feast days it would be that of St. Patrick, St. Joseph and the Annunciation. Celebrated on March 17, 19 and 25 respectively, these feast days fall during Lent, the most somber period of the liturgical calendar.
A Medicinal Tablet
Dear Editor: As a very long-time reader, I thank God for the modern Tablet. In those long ago years, I used to consider it a bitter pill, with the weekly columns of Fathers McBrien and Greeley, and lack of response to complaints of the political slant of the publication.
Talking About Immigration
Dear Editor: Kudos to Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio (Put Out Into the Deep, Feb. 18) for his outspoken and deeply Christian stance on immigrants, whether they be illegal or not.