Recent Letters

Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been giving messages to six people since 1981 in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina. A message for the world is given on the 25th of the month. The message is peace, rosary, Mass, confession, fasting on Fridays.

Faithful disposing Many Catholics have religious articles, rosaries and missals among them, that are in bad shape or no longer wanted. It seems sacrilegious to toss them into the trash or recycle bin.

I have to agree with Laurie Joyce on her stance concerning women priests (Letters, June 21). When the church calls for a special devotion for priesthood vocations, I have to shake my head in disbelief. When the church needs priests, how can it refuse to recognize the one group of Catholics that would make good priests. I have heard all the excuses the church uses to defend the all-male priesthood.

Congratulations to Father Rolheiser for a very insightful article, “Stirring the Smoldering Ashes of Our Faith” (June 21).

The “reasoning” set forth by Cardinal-designate Luis Ladaria (“Teaching on all-male priesthood is definitive cardinal-designate says,” June 7) that because Jesus only conferred the sacrament of priestly ordination on 12 male apostles, the church lacks authority to confer the sacrament on women, makes little sense. By this theory, the priesthood should be denied to all non-Jews (which would likely result in the exclusion of Cardinal Ladaria to the priesthood) since Jesus “conferred the sacrament” only on Jewish males. If the later church felt free to dispense with the Jewish requirement for the priesthood, then the male requirement must be equally dispensable.