Readers Speak Out: January 30, 2022

Open the churches

Many thanks to Dr. Pascal Bastien and Dr. Lucas Vivas for expressing so beautifully my own thoughts, and I’m sure those of many others, on the closure of our churches. We can only hope our bishops and priests are listening.

Angela Rutledge,

Toronto

Father deserves better

Regarding The Catholic Register’s Jan. 16 article “Evading Church role harms reconciliation,” I was present when Msgr.  Owen Keenan delivered the homily your paper cited.

Msgr. Keenan did not ask parishioners to “ignore media reports regarding residential schools.” In referring to the institutions as tragic and deserving of apology, he asked parishioners to wait for information on the “who, when and why” of the remains that are yet to be determined.

On many occasions, Msgr. Keenan led our congregation in prayer for the survivors of residential schools and for healing and reconciliation with our Indigenous brothers and sisters.

Msgr. Keenan has lovingly and tirelessly served the parishioners of Merciful Redeemer and the community at large.  He deserves better.

Flavia Fernandes,

Mississauga Ont.

Deadly dignity

The anti-life organization, Dying with Dignity, was the driving force behind the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to allow physician-assisted suicide.

The procedure is now euphemistically called medical assistance in dying (MAID). It attempts to whitewash the horrifying fact that physicians in Canada may now legally kill patients. This is a grievous departure from the Hippocratic oath, which has guided physicians for centuries to do no harm.

Dying with Dignity, aided by sympathetic, woke media, achieved this legislative goal by distorting the truth about what happens during the deadly procedure.

Dean Clark,                                                                

Langley, B.C.

All is vanity

I’m concerned by the trending practice of “celebration of life” for the deceased. I don’t criticize the intention of families since it is their prerogative how they bid goodbye to their loved ones. Certainly life needs to be celebrated as we do in birth. But celebration of life in death is a contradiction given the reality of the very presence of a lifeless body; hence, it’s a denial of death. It confuses celebration of legacy with celebration of the life of the person. Celebration also contradicts the natural human reaction to lament the loss of a loved one.

Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. He did not “celebrate” it. Neither did anyone celebrate Jesus’ death on the cross nor at the time of His burial, except probably His enemies. Celebrating death blocks, suspends or chokes the grieving process and desensitizes us to the implications of death’s finality. It erases the sobering effect of our view of death, and the lesson of humility it teaches with the indisputable evidence of the finitude of earthly life. Death reminds us to live a fruitful and purposeful life.

The “celebration of life” during burial is a departure from the Ecclesiastes principle; there is time for everything. A time to lament and a time to celebrate. So this “celebration of life” during burial overrules the time required to process grief, but the reality is we do not rule time, we are ruled by it.

Rufino Ty,

Brampton, Ont.