A Beautiful Story
Dear Editor: We greatly appreciate the beautiful story of the children of Sacred Heart Parish contributing over $3,000 to help build a well to bring fresh water to the village of Adzonkor in Ghana in the May 20 issue of The Tablet (“Sacred Heart Kids Give Villagers Clean Water”).
The children contributed the monies to the International Help of Missionaries charity founded by Mr. Donald Magnotta of St. Margaret’s Church of Middle Village. Mr. Magnotta has helped bring fresh water to over 80 villages in Africa through his charity, a truly outstanding accomplishment.
Mr. Magnotta is also a long-time sidewalk counselor for The Helpers of God’s Precious Infants, where he attempts to help women decide for life as they arrive at All Women’s Medical Pavilion abortion facility in Kew Gardens.
Don has been able to reach and help many women over the years, and recently one of the children of a mother he counseled made her first holy Communion. He has also helped Father Peter Hesse, also of Ghana, establish a pro-life pregnancy help center and is raising funds to build a new hospital there.
We salute Don Magnotta and wish him continued success in all his endeavors for life, both here and in Africa.
Mr. & Mrs. Kevin Moore
Maspeth
Msgr. George Deas
Dear Editor: I am sure that I am joining hundreds of Cathedral Prep Alumni in giving thanks to Our Lord for the life and ministry of Father Deas (“A Priest Who ‘Brought Out the Good in People,” May 27).
He was the spiritual director of the Brooklyn school during my years there. He was instrumental in saving my spiritual life at that time and several times since then.
He was a holy presence and a superb educator. My wife, Irene, our daughters, and I will hold his memory in our hearts until we meet again in the presence of the Holy Family.
Mike Crowley
Class of 1967
Bay Ridge
Latin in the Liturgy
Dear Editor: In Genesis, God cursed the proud who would build a tower to heaven by shattering their speech into a confusion of languages.
At Pentecost, the founding of the Church, the curse becomes a blessing.
The Holy Spirit empowers the people of many languages to understand the apostolic preaching “each in his own language,” and the people are joyfully amazed.
Some dozen languages are listed, and Latin is included as the language of “visitors from Rome.” Greek was the lingua franca at that time.
The Holy Spirit did not privilege Latin but rather the many languages of humans.
Today Latin has become a bone of contention — as it was during the Reformation — dividing, not uniting.
Peter Paul Farley
Bay Ridge
Migrants Search for Hope
Dear Editor: I think we sometimes miss the point of migration.
If every migrant believed that there was little hope, there would be no United States today.
My parents’ parents came here for a better life.
They also knew that a better life might not happen for a few generations.
My father (all 117 pounds of him) carried 50-pound bags of root vegetables on his back 12 hours a day, six days a week. He had to leave school in the third grade. He and my mother raised three sons and one daughter.
If money were their measure of success, then they failed.
But if pride in their children’s success was the measure, they left this world very rich and successful.
My grandparents left a country where the potato blight almost killed them for a country where potatoes were available to all.
The streets may not have been “paved with gold,” but their stomachs were full, and their grandchildren got an education to fulfill the dream.
It ain’t easy, but it gets better.
John Fitzgerald
Jackson Heights
Sisters of Amityville
Dear Editor: I work in Communications at the Sisters of St. Dominic of Amityville, and I just wanted to say thank you so much for covering the sisters’ 170th anniversary (“Amityville Sisters Built a Legacy Starting From Brooklyn Origins,” May 20).
The reporter did an amazing job interviewing sisters and also gathering all the information. We were honored to be included in the issue.
The other thing was that our sisters were recently at the Jubilee celebration and had posed for pics with Bishop Robert Brennan. I was wondering if you had pics from that event with our sisters?
Thank you so much for all you do.
Lena Pennino-Smith
Amityville
Editor’s note: The picture you are inquiring about is on page 4 of this edition of The Tablet.