Remembering Msgr. John O’Brien
Dear Editor: The beautiful column by Father Christopher O’Connor (“Remembering Msgr. O’Brien: ‘A Voice For Many’,” Sept. 25) prompted us to write about Msgr. John O’Brien, too.
We were fortunate to have Msgr. O’Brien as our pastor at St. Francis Xavier parish in the 1980s, and lucky enough to have him as a friend who was with us in joyful and sad times.
Msgr. O’Brien participated in each step of Nancy’s life as a School Sister of Notre Dame.
We will always remember his wonderful bi-lingual Masses at SFX. We cherished our friendship with him. Msgr. O’Brien will be missed.
Cecelia Gilchriest, Claudia Gilchriest, and Sister Nancy Gilchriest, SSND
Brooklyn
COVID Vaccine Mandates
Dear Editor: The imposition of vaccine mandates is an unconscionable abuse of power.
Proven alternative therapies are available to cure and prevent COVID but have been deliberately suppressed and people are subjected to incessant one-sided propaganda without any objective discussion of the harm caused by the vaccines.
The vaccines are touted as being safe and effective but no one knows what the effects of these vaccines will be in the coming months and years. And vaccinated people are still able to get COVID and spread it.
Yet we are losing our basic freedoms to travel, to work, to gather, and even to eat, unless we submit to the invasion of our bodies. Those who question the mainstream narrative have been viciously maligned and censored. Not everyone needs to be vaccinated.
The choice to get the vaccine is personal and should not be coerced by the government or private agencies.
Adrian Calderone
Bay Ridge
Wise Up, America
Dear Editor: This White House and many of the mainstream media have nothing else to talk about besides COVID-19 and vaccinations. Can anyone explain to me why this vaccine is stopping people from working, traveling, and having any kind of normal life?
We have hundreds of illegal immigrants being bussed and flown to all parts of our nation and no one in this administration has said a word about these illegal immigrants coming from many different parts of the world being tested or vaccinated before they step foot in this country.
Does anyone wonder what America is going to do with the normal flu and this predicted bad winter, both of which I am told are going to be the worst in years?
Many Americans cannot go to work, cannot go into businesses, and cannot travel because they did not get the COVID vaccine? Come on, people wise up.
We cannot have an administration telling us what to do and how to live.
Enough is enough. We, the people, need to come together and fight back for the freedom and liberty that was once America.
Margaret Ann Inerlandi
Bay Ridge
Rallying Together After 9/11
Dear Editor: As the U.S. marked the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Shanksville, Pennsylvania. and the Pentagon, we must always remember all of those who perished on that day, those on the jetliners that crashed, and including all of those brave first responders and others who rushed to rescue people, as well as all of those people who died as a result of these heinous and unprovoked attacks. Our nation rallied together as one on that day, and that unity is what brought it back from the depths of that terrorist attack.
Now, 20 years later, our country is experiencing a pandemic, civil and social unrest, severe weather, a faltering political system, and severe racial and political polarization.
Despite all of these things, we are still the greatest country in the world, and how we reacted after September 11, 2001 was positive proof. Our country now, at this very crucial and trying time, needs that unity once again. May God Bless always this wonderful country, the U.S.
John Amato
Fresh Meadows