Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010
December 15, 2008
WCR Letters to the Editor
Proclaimers must take their role seriously
The Word of God is essential to our liturgical worship and, although, we are repeatedly told how important it is to be proclaimers of the Word and not just “readers,” we are still allowing people to just “read”— and do a very poor job at that.
Proclaiming the word is a privilege and should be approached with humility and awe.
Year after year workshops are scheduled with little or no interest or attendance by “experienced” readers who feel they are too busy, too important or do not need to attend. The result is they are not updated, corrected of errors they are making, or critiqued.
We have all heard readers who cannot be understood, who cannot be heard, who give lacklustre readings with no emotion or feeling, who speed through it so fast so that nothing can be absorbed. They promise to prepare their readings for the full week before in prayer and then show up 15 minutes “early” to run over the reading.
I am so ashamed and embarrassed before God when I listen to bad readers that we would treat his word so carelessly.
Yet another problem is readers who have been reading since Vatican II and refuse to give up “their places.”
How can we encourage new parishioners and younger parishioners to become active if there is no place for them. A diocesan liturgical workshop some years back said that five years should be the maximum before changing ministries.
No one would be allowed in the music ministry if they could not carry a tune. It is a radical idea and I am sure subject to much criticism about being “judgmental” but I feel a panel of two or three people should audition those who would like to be proclaimers of the word.
B. McLaughlin
Sherwood Park
Obama is radical pro-abortionist
I cannot agree with your assessment of the coming presidency of Barack Obama (“Obama offers hope of new beginnings to the world,” WCR editorial, Nov. 10). He will be the most radically pro-abortion president ever elected.
He has a 100 per cent rating with the National Abortion rights League. He promised Planned Parenthood that he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would effectively remove all restrictions against abortion, such as the consent of a parent for a young child.
He voted against the law banning partial birth abortions, a particularly heinous crime, which even pro-abortion congressmen and senators did not have the stomach for.
He voted four times against the Born Alive Infants Protection Act in Illinois.
As one bishop in the U.S. said, “By voting for the pro-abortion candidate you make yourself a participant in the act of abortion. That is gravely wrong.”
The taking of an innocent life is so heinous, so horrible an evil and so opposite to the law of God that abortion must take precedence over every other issue.
Helen Trudel
Calgary
Church must attend to children already born
It is no secret that the Catholic Church gives high priority to the subject of abortion — the children unborn — through sermons, newspaper articles, news reports and editorials. Some Catholic organizations hold vigils, while some others are even going to the extent of erecting monuments to the victims of abortion hoping that these will catch the eye of the passersby.
While abortion is a subject of vital importance, the Catholic Church, regrettably, gives little emphasis to focus attention on the children already born but who are subject to terrible horrors like hunger, disease and malnutrition.
In addition, unspeakable crimes are committed against them such as physical and sexual abuse. Unfortunately, some of the Catholic clergy are guilty of these crimes. In Canada, horrible crimes have been committed against children in residential schools.
Then there is killing of children in the Middle East and Latin America. Children are forced to become “killing machines” in Uganda, Congo and Sri Lanka.
Even here in Alberta, thousands of children go hungry, live in poor housing, are subject to physical sexual abuse, live on the streets, become child prostitutes, juvenile delinquents, drug addicts, but how many Catholic priests refer to them in their Sunday sermons? How much publicity is given in Catholic media? How many vigils and protests against child victims have been staged in Alberta?
Meanwhile, there is, of course, the relentless beating of the drums and sounding of battle cries against abortion. Are the children born less important to the Catholic Church?
Albert J. Fernando
Edmonton
Letter to the Editor - 01/19/09
Alta. gov’t has turned its back on seniors
Is the current cynicism of many politicians chronic as opposed to episodic? Has the duty of fairness in all of its decisions prevailed in this government after 37 years in governance?
Not many months ago, senior drop-in centres, senior lodges and senior apartment complexes were inundated with countless candidates vying with hearty handshakes and smiling faces for their support as they were all seeking a niche in the Legislative Assembly.
The many assurances on issues followed by hugs of the elderly were heart warming to the seniors. Not many follow-ups of such visits have since occurred after the successful contenders took their places in the Legislative Assembly.
What a drastic change has taken place in the period of time since!
Representatives from senior organizations such as the Association of Seniors Helping Seniors, the Edmonton Branch of the Federal Superannuates Association and the Coalition of Senior Advocates from Calgary, to name a few, have been endeavouring in vain in seeking an audience with Premier Stelmach in their quest that the wrongs imposed on the seniors, the pioneers who built this province and those elderly seniors who no longer are capable of taking care of themselves; those retirees from public service who believe they have been short-changed in their pension benefit package — resulting in court class action suits in the latter two examples.
Class actions suits which would never have taken place if the duty of fairness had been applied by our government.
Our government’s failure to fulfill the assurance made to seniors in 1993 involving senior support programs introduced during the Lougheed and Getty eras; our government’s failure to provide the pioneer seniors their well-earned just dues and proper care in their twilight years; and our government’s failure to resolve the two class action suits in a proper and just manner without the courts intervening, will continue eroding the confidence entrusted in them by those who elected them to serve.
S. Michael Marlowe
Edmonton
Letters to the Editor
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