Birthday Congratulations
Dear Editor: Happy 110th birthday to Sister Francis Dominici (“Many Birthday Wishes for the Oldest U.S. Nun,” April 29).
During the 1950s, I had the privilege of being one of sister’s students at Dominican Commercial High School in Jamaica.
Not only was she a good teacher, but she also had a lovely and sweet demeanor. May God bless her.
Helen Tillman
Richmond Hill
How Does He Gather Us In?
Dear Editor: For weeks now, Father Robert Lauder’s articles (“Faith in Focus”) have focused on culture and the prominent works of “secular culture.”
Why is culture important, and why does “secular humanism” (ostensibly beyond the pale of “faith”) speak to us? Matthew Arnold described culture as “the best which has been thought and said in the world” (over many eras).
How true it is that many giants of secular culture, persons of tremendous integrity, have been, in Lauder’s quote, “brooding and solitary,” searching and skirting the truths of revelation yet remaining “outside” of formal faith.
As Eugene O’Neil is quoted, “Perhaps they also serve those who only search in vain!” Faith and the intense search for faith certainly intersect here.
So our challenge goes deeper in how we must try to understand the ways God uses in drawing souls to himself.
And caution is implicit in considering anyone of integrity truly outside the Church. Never underestimate the creative, redemptive, and forever alive action of God, who continues amidst the darkness and mists of the times to invite us all to His table.
Robert F. Roberts, Jr.
Bergenfield, N.J.
A Great Loss
Dear Editor: My wife, Marie, and I read with interest and appreciation Father James Sheehan Jr.’s column in praise of the late Msgr. Martin Geraghty (“Remembering a Good Priest, Msgr. Geraghty,” April 22).
We knew Msgr. Geraghty in the 1980s when he would serve weekends at St. Joan of Arc Parish in Jackson Heights while being assigned as a professor at Cathedral College. As related by Father Sheehan, Msgr. Geraghty was an intellectual, learned priest while still being able to easily relate to and sympathize with all kinds of people, even in the midst of tragedies.
We have fond memories of discussing music with him, and exchanging classical and folk music recordings, often related to religious themes.
He was a true servant of God and a Renaissance Man who will be deeply missed by the many people who were fortunate enough to cross his path.
Rick O’Connell
Little Neck
Remembering Msgr. Geraghty
Dear Editor: We were sad to read of Msgr. Marty Geraghty’s passing in the April 22 edition of The Tablet.
The articles surely expressed what a wonderful priest he was. When I read the Up, Front & Personal column by Father Sheehan, he ended by asking for any stories about Marty.
I will always remember meeting Msgr. Geraghty in Rome in December of 1963. My brother, Msgr. William Varvaro, was going to be ordained on Dec. 18.
Our family group had flown to Rome a few days before, but he was on retreat and was not going to be with us until his ordination. Msgr. Geraghty was a seminarian at North American at that time, too, and he spent those days before the ordination with our family showing us around Rome and being there for any questions the group had.
What I remember most was how my Italian relatives so enjoyed conversing with him and hearing how he spoke such perfect Italian.
Fran Kaley
Wantagh
The FBI’s Investigation of Catholics
Dear Editor: Regarding John Lavenburg’s article in the April 22 edition of The Tablet (“FBI Targeting Catholics Similar to NY’s Post- 9/11 Surveillance of Muslims”), the NYPD had good reason to conduct investigations into groups that cloak themselves with First Amendment rights to mask jihad that led to thousands of lost American lives.
What threat or history of violence comes from traditional Latin Mass devotees? The FBI would be well disposed to expose itself to the sanctification available in the old Mass — a Mass that endures attack not from the government as much as from some of our Church leaders.
Michael Patrick Crowley
Bay Ridge