Dear Editor: The loud banging sound I heard while reading the May 25 Tablet was you hitting the nail on the head in your “As The Tablet Sees It” column “Keep the Hierarchy.” The last paragraph in particular was outstanding! It encapsulated today’s problems in the Church while at the same time offering a constructive way for us to deal with those problems: believe in the triune God and pray.
With sadness, tragedy, illness, problems, etc. none of us has an easy life and many people have it far, far more difficult than we do. As my father-in-law Julio says, it is always something. Nevertheless, I thank God for my faith every day and I pray that I never become stupid or lazy in losing and observing it. I also pray every day that God continues to bless me with good health so that I may always be able to practice it.
To James Carroll and Albert Camus cited in your column I say “Drop it!”. There is no need for endless analysis and hand wringing when it comes to the existence of God and our Roman Catholicism. It is all laid out for us in the events and mysteries iterated in the Old and New Testaments and incorporated in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. When you attend Mass, listen to the prayers and readings.
In his book “Prayers and Devotions – 365 Daily Meditations,” St. Pope John Paul II writes for December 1: “The liturgical year is an abridgement and summing up of the story of salvation, from its beginning down to its final completion. Jesus Christ is the culmination and center of this history. He gives their full significance to the single parts of the liturgical season and endows them with due order.”
Spare us James Carroll, Albert Camus and others with their endless doubts, naysaying and/or outright sarcasm and contempt. All that we need is contained in the Bible, the Mass, the sacraments and our prayers and the wise words, for example, in the last paragraph of your column and in what St. John Paul wrote above.
ALBERT K. DIMEGLIO
Woodside
Dear Editor: I suggest a mistaken literary assessment of Albert Camus in your editorial provides an explanation for what is really a similar arrogance by James Carrol venting the standard anti-Catholic bigotry popular with secular editors reflected in The Atlantic article The Tablet cited (“Keep the Hierarchy,” editorial, May 25).
Although capable of seeing through the phoniness of other atheists on occasion, Camus was no regretful wistful “struggling atheist” himself. Everyone committing the sin of pride enjoys it for substantial periods of time, and the sin of pride is at the heart of atheism.
Many intellectuals have little ability to accept the idea that a simple, uneducated peasant can have as much access to or understanding of God, if God exists, as some superior person like themselves. Camus enjoyed telling the world they should listen to his prescriptions of doing away with marriage, the family, religion, personal property, and the right of children to be born without permission from experts.
Standard anti-Catholic bigotry is boringly predictable, even when it is practiced by Catholics themselves. Its proponents tend to be as unaware that their proposals are as unoriginal, as in hundreds of years old, as they are in demonstrating obliviousness to the impeaching adage that says, some ideas are so stupid, only intellectuals can have them.
Our chronic temptation is to believe the world would be fine if everyone listened to me, a replay of the original sin.
Social management does not solve human problems, especially when handed over to vainglorious “experts” insisting on their “teachable” moments. Only humility before God solves problems.
It may come as a shock to us during our moments of stubborn conceit, but God is actually smarter than us, and Catholic doctrine is actually endowed by God on the basis of the will of God, which could even become understandable were we to make the slightest effort to understand it from sources that are actually not bigoted towards it.
JEAN STELLA
Astoria
