Readers Speak Out: October 23, 2022

Magazine huzzahs

I want to extend my congratulations to the staff of The Catholic Register for the excellent commemorative magazine Penance and Progress. The articles are thorough and thought-provoking. 

In particular, I congratulate Michael Swan for the article, “What the Doctrine of Discovery means for us today.” It has specific references, dates and other relevant information indicating the author did excellent research to explain why the Doctrine is so important and how it contributed to and continues to contribute to the exploitation of Canada’s Native peoples and in fact Indigenous peoples throughout the world today.

I picked up a copy from Holy Family Parish in Bolton where copies are available for the congregation.

Joe Grogan

Bolton, Ont.

Quote unquote

I am troubled by Sr. Helena Burns’ column of Sept. 25. The column expressed her view that the prohibitions against contraception is immutable. In support, she quotes 2 John 1:9: “Anyone who is so progressive that he does not remain in the teaching of Christ does not have God.”

I checked the quote in the New Jerusalem Bible and the quotation is more properly rendered as follows: ”If anybody does not remain in the teaching of Christ, but goes beyond it, he does not have God with him: only those who remain in what he taught can have the  Father and the Son in them.”

Note that sister’s quote uses the term “progressive” when the correct quotation does not. “Goes beyond it” does not suggest progressive or conservative or regressive. It is neutral in that regard.

I realize a column is likely to express an opinion, often one with which I might disagree, and I accept that. What I cannot accept is the twisting of a Biblical quote to support a particular stance.

Patrick Davis

Calgary, Alta.

Elgar’s glory

Deacon Kinghorn’s column of Sept. 18, “The wounded who heal broken hearts,” recounts an anecdote from the life of the English composer Sir Edward Elgar.

Indeed, Elgar’s music offers great solace because it emanates from a well of suffering whence he mined transcendence. And it is suffering that is imbued with a Catholic sensibility. Mainly self-taught, Elgar followed in his father’s footsteps as organist at his local church. Prior to that he had been a bell-ringer. Beset by constant rejection, poverty and despair, his rock and mainstay was his wife Alice who never wavered in her belief in his genius. He got his break when he was in his forties and it was a choral work called The Dream of Gerontius based on a poem by St. Cardinal Newman.

Both Newman and Elgar had delved deeply in the crucible of pain to become heralds of hope and glory.

Michael Dias

Markham, Ont.

God’s will

In her Oct. 9 article on the theological virtue of hope, “Hooked on a feeling? Choose hope instead,” Sr. Helena Burns observes that it is possible to be strong in faith yet weak in hope.

She emphasizes the link between the divine promises and hope for the individual. Therefore, Christians who lack hope would do well to study the marvellous promises God makes to them in Sacred Scripture.

Sr. Helena says that God “can” make good on His promises. It is even more important to realize that He does and will make good on them.

Lise Anglin

Toronto