Letters to the Editor
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Batesville Crisis Pregnancy Hotline celebrates 25 years
Twenty-five years ago, three local women saw a need in the Batesville area to help women who were experiencing a crisis pregnancy. Over the years, the hotline has been a friend to expectant mothers as the volunteers supported women in need.
The hotline has provided counseling and information, baby beds, baby clothes and maternity clothes to women as the need arises. Hotline members have been giving talks to groups and students in the local schools concerning premarital sex and its consequences.
In the last five years, this Batesville organization has trained several volunteers to minister to women who have previously had an abortion. A one-on-one, 10-step program is used to give women hope for a new beginning in life.
This 10-week reconciliation process gently takes a woman back to the time in her life leading up to the abortion, through the details of the abortion and into forgiveness of self and others. Symptoms of trauma after abortion include anxiety, regret, guilt, sadness, feelings of loss, drug and alcohol abuse, repeat abortions, nightmares, sexual dysfunction, self-destructive behavior, suicidal impulses, anger, rage and severe emotional pain.
Crisis Pregnancy Hotline continues to serve Batesville and its surrounding communities. This non-profit organization has been funded solely by donations over the years from local groups and individuals. Thanks to each and every person who has supported the hotline so that women in a crisis pregnancy can receive the help they need.
For more information about the hotline, call 812-934-5116. For information on the healing after an abortion, call toll-free at 1-877-886-4673 or e-mail hopeandhealing123@yahoo.com. All help is confidential.
-Barb Schneider, president
Crisis Pregnancy Hotline
Sunman
Praying in Latin highlighted universality of the Church
In response to the request of Pope Benedict XVI that we use Latin when saying some of our traditional prayers, I relate the following:
On a recent trip, my husband and I attended Mass in Lund, Sweden, at St. Thomas Church, which was built in 1985 and is the first Catholic church in that city since the Reformation. (Lutheranism is the state religion, supported by the taxes paid by all citizens.)
Of course, all singing and prayers were in Swedish, except for a second reading of the Gospel in English. But I can’t express the joy I felt when the priest intoned, “Credo in unum Deum.” In turns, the priest and congregation sang the Creed in the Fifth Mode, Mass of the Angels Gregorian Chant. I learned it in the fifth-grade years ago. To my great happiness, I sang it with them. What a wonderful feeling in knowing the universality of the Church!
As the priest announced the last hymn, the people turned to the side and faced the statue of Mary holding the baby Jesus in her arms. How I regretted not having taken a songbook at the door, when they sang a Latin hymn to Mary in a melody I knew.
It was a Mass which I will treasure in memory.
-Rita M. Bremigan, Bloomington
Article on pope was offensive
I have never written a letter to an editor, however I felt compelled to send you a note regarding the Aug. 26 front-page Catholic News Service article about Pope Benedict’s appearance at World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.
The article was titled “Pope urges more than a million youth to discover the power of faith.” I’m referring to the fifth paragraph, which read: “Unlike similar megameetings with Pope John Paul II, there was no papal bantering with the crowd or light-hearted silliness.”
Being one of millions who greatly admired Pope John Paul II and his ability to reach out to his flock as no other pope in history has done, I find this comment offensive. I feel this remark was petty and demeaning to the late pope’s legacy.
Pope John Paul’s ability to draw the faithful to him was unlike any pontiff in the history of the Church, and this ability should not be referred to as “banter” or “silliness.”
-Mia Ibanez, Moores Hill