Women of All Racial Backgrounds Can Feel Safe
Dear Editor: I am very pleased to see that the life-affirming work of Alecia Jones, CEO of New Beginnings Center of Hope, is being highlighted (“Doctors Call Out Disparity in Health Care for Pregnant Women of Color,” August 8). Women of all racial backgrounds can feel safe and secure that their concerns will be taken seriously.
We, at The Bridge To Life Women’s Support Center, refer our pregnant clients to NBCOH. We enjoy a wonderful relationship with them. Women need to know, that when facing a crisis pregnancy, they don’t have to go to Planned Parenthood. We all know what the outcome will be.
There are women’s support centers in our neighborhoods that will support the best choices for their clients’ families. Please visit our websites to see how you can assist us.
Catherine Donohoe
Flushing
Editor’s note: Donohoe is the president of the board of directors of The Bridge to Life Inc.
The Threatened Strike By The Teachers’ Union
Dear Editor: The threatened strike by the teachers’ union against opening public schools creates an opportunity for Catholic leaders to advance a proposal to partially meet the educational crisis.
They should suggest public provision for all students — whether those enrolled in the public schools threatened with closure or those currently in parochial, private, or charter schools — money equal, or at least partially equal, to the per-student cost of running the public schools.
That money would pay the tuition in the open schools and enable the displaced students to have a place to be educated. Naturally, the schools that would remain open would comply with appropriate conditions that would protect faculty and students from the virus.
John P. McCarthy
Jackson Heights
Editor’s note: McCarthy is a professor emeritus of History at Fordham University.
Prayer Is Always the Answer to Our Challenges
Dear Editor: It was a welcome return when churches and houses of worship were allowed to reopen under certain restrictions.
As for myself, I serve as Lector at St. Anastasia Parish in Douglaston and I belong to Our Lady of the Snows in Floral Park and serve as an usher.
Now I am most delighted with the return. To be able to worship with others brings most comfort in these difficult times because of the pandemic of COVID-19.
There is a gospel song by Cochren & Co. called, “Church (Take me back)” I would like to share: “Take me back to a place that feels like home, to the people I can depend on, to the faith that’s in my bones. Take me back to a preacher and a verse, where they’ve seen me at my worst, to the love I had at first, Oh, I want to go to church.”
That is so true.
In Matthew 18: 20 Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Prayer is the answer, no matter what our religious faith might be. America
is facing many problems from the pandemic to our economic situations.
Therefore our churches and houses of worship need to be open to the many who are suffering.
Frederick R. Bedell Jr.
Bellerose