Letter to the Editor
Below is the text of a letter I emailed yesterday to the editor of the Diocese of Richmond's diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Virginian:
Dear Steve,My Comments:
I was a little surprised to see The Catholic Virginian publish a photograph of two diocesan officials posing with an outspokenly pro-abortion politician, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware. Senator Biden is currently involved in blocking nominees to the federal judiciary who have been deemed by his party and pro-abortion special interest groups as hostile to Roe v. Wade. For instance, one judicial nominee, William Pryor, has been targeted for filibuster specifically because of his "deeply held" Catholic beliefs -- which I assume means that he actually believes what the Church teaches against abortion. I hope that the two diocesan officials who posed with Senator Biden took advantage of the opportunity to do what the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has done and condemned the attempts to use opposition to abortion as a litmus test for blocking qualified nominees to the federal courts.
Thanks,
James T. "Jay" Anderson
Mayor, Town of Columbia
Columbia, Virginia 23038
You should see this picture. Two officials of the Diocese of Richmond (who I will not name) in Rome acting as the Diocese's official delegation to the funeral of John Paul II -- and smiling like Cheshire Cats as they ham it up posing with the pro-abort "Catholic" Joe Biden.
The next edition of The Catholic Virginian comes out the beginning of next week. I'll post something here if my letter makes it into the publication.
UPDATE:
Here is the online version of the story that appeared in The Catholic Virginian with the offending picture.
Also, my letter did not make the May 9 edition of The Catholic Virginian. I'll look to see whether it appears in the May 23 edition.
posted by Pro Ecclesia 11:01 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Perhaps the next letter to the "Catholic Virginian" might be a suggestion to ask the editor to write a story on the nearly three year old GIRM and whether our good bishop has promulgated it yet.
If the 2002 Roman Missal and its GIRM has been promulgated in our diocese that event has seemingly not been reported in our diocesan newspaper.
I wonder why?
And then maybe we could have a story on the "Instruction on the Eucharist" and all those "reprobate" things we see every Sunday.
Signed,
Still waiting in Roanoke
I've also wondered about the issues you raise. My pastor, God bless him, is trying to implement many of these things on his own within the 2 parishes he oversees.
I also, was disappointed when I saw this picture and hope it was just a "star struck" kind of a moment. I say this mainly because the priest in the left hand side of the picture happens to be one of my favorite priests. About 20 years ago he was transferred to my parish and had to clean up a huge mess left by the prior pastor. He told the choir that they couldn't change the words of the Our Father; tossed the ceramic altar vessels aside and bought gold plate vessels; stopped using home-made bread and started using hosts for the Eucharist; told the iconoclastic parish council that the Church was a heirarchy and not a democracy and we would be getting a crucifix for the sactuary whether they liked it or not (which turned out to be a beautiful 15 foot cross of San Domiano, shipped directly form Assisi). Unfortunately, his tenure was only 2 years at my parish before he got bumped up to Richmond. I know right before he left, he was consulting an architect regarding re-configuring the sactuary so that the chairs would all be facing the same direction toward the altar. So again,
I concur, that this was a poor exercise in judgement, and should not have been documented in print.
Jay - Well, the new issue of Catholic Virginia is out - and your letter to the editor is not included. Not sure what their editorial policy is (include all letters or just a select few) but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to the letter not arriving in time for print. Guess we'll see what happens next issue.
I noticed that. Well, maybe it will appear in the next issue.
Call it a delusion of grandeur, but I also wondered whether they may be giving the Diocesan officials involved, or perhaps even Sen. Biden himself, an opportunity to respond. Ehh, probably not.
However, I see that The Catholic Virginian did decide to run a letter from someone crying about how the Bishop is being "mean" to homosexuals.
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