Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor Week of February 1, 2025

A Letter to God

Dear Editor: I hate to be a pest, but I’m going to keep on knocking at the door until I get an answer, so get used to it. I don’t mean to sound brash, but the clock is still ticking, and the war is still going on In Ukraine.

Different people come up with different solutions, and almost all of them disregard the Ukrainian people. If Russia wins this
war, the only thing to which I can compare Ukraine’s loss would be the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. The priests with
whom I live are used to seeing me wear blue and yellow as a sign of my solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

I have also committed to saying only the sorrowful mysteries until I can say the glorious with the people of my grandparents’ homeland. It’s impossible to imagine the physical pain that Jesus suffered, just as it is impossible to quantify the physical ruin
of the war in Ukraine. But even more devastating than the physical pain that he suffered is the pain of betrayal, mockery,
and hatred that he had to suffer at the hands of the Romans, the occupiers.

Should Ukraine have to sacrifice any of its ideals in a negotiated peace, her people will suffer a similar fate. There must be
a better way to make people more like Jesus. America is about to enter a new realm of political identity, and so far, that
doesn’t bode well for the future of Ukraine. “Our help is in the name of the Lord, we see in our prayers,” who made heaven and earth. Please use that same power to end this terrible war.

Father Michael Perry
Douglaston


James Joyce and Thornton Wilder

Dear Editor: Father Robert Lauder’s column, “A Prayer Explosion Celebrating Two Feasts” (Nov. 16), praises Thornton
Wilder’s play, “Our Town,” because it beautifully depicts a young girl’s (Emily) relationship with God. Wilder’s play echoes James Joyce’s description of a young Stephen Dedalus (“Half Past Six”):

“He turned to the flyleaf and read what he had written there; himself, his name and where he was. Stephen Dedalus, Class of Elements, Clongowes Wood College, Sallins, County Kildare, Ireland, Europe, The World, The Universe. … What was after The Universe? … What a big thought that must be, but he could think only of God.” — A Portrait of the Artist.

Brother Ed Kent, O.S.F.
Fresh Meadows


After Further Thought …

Dear Editor: I wore rose-colored glasses when I commended George Weigel for compassionate moderation vis-a-vis J.D.
Vance in my last letter. Weigel’s (“Stacked Decks and the Catholic Faith,” Jan. 18) shows that his binary, Manichaean instincts are alive and well. The history of our Church post-scripture has demonstrated nothing but the “stacked decks” of hyperbolic self-righteous condemnation from Arianism to Jansenism down through Charles Coughlin and Leonard Feeney.

Like all of such campaigns, those asserting “right” have blasphemously presumed the authority to accuse their opponents
of “Catholic Light (ness),” “cafeteria Catholicism,” and the like, with their own opinions, of course, being the voice of God.

The best refutation of that approach is in this Sunday’s reading, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. In Chapter Three of the same
letter, St. Paul describes the opposite, Weigelian tactic as “infants in Christ.”

Edward R. Dorney
Park Slope


A Most Bright Christmas

Dear Editor: Thank you for your generous support at this pivotal time of the year. The Bright Christmas Campaign has
helped make Christmas brighter for your most vulnerable residents.

Through this initiative, we were able to continue our annual tradition of celebrating the Christmas season by bringing joy to vulnerable seniors and children through the act of gift-giving, which many of our clients would not be able to participate in otherwise.

Christmas is one of the most joyous times of the year, and no one should be left out from celebrating it due to a lack of material means.

Justin Falk-Gee
Borough Hall

Editor’s note: Justin Falk-Gee is Director of Grants for Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens.