June 22, 2018

Letters to the Editor

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Ending abortion must top life issues, reader says

In his column, “Pope’s exhortation calls us to defend all human life,” in the June 1 issue of The Criterion, columnist Tony Magliano suggests that Pope Francis “is crystal clear that we are not to subjectively rank the life issues, but rather to objectively link them together.” The issues he uses to support his conclusion are abortion and war.

With respect to his argument about war, I know of no one who would “have no hesitancy about going to war.”

Furthermore, our Church provides us with the “just war doctrine” to guide our hesitancy and decision-making. However, when Magliano compares (i.e., makes comparable) abortion to other life issues, it is a false comparison.

It assumes the impoverished, the immigrant, the imprisoned and others are actively and purposefully killed legally just as unborn children are killed in their mother’s womb with legal sanction.

It is not that the lives of others already born are not just as precious and as worthy of our protection. It is that we must first stop the killing before addressing the quality of life of those already born. It is that our first concern should be to end the killing, before arguing the proper structure of the welfare system. It is that we should make the killing of precious human life unthinkable before we discuss the merits of our border laws.

If the argument were a life for a life, if it were an authentic comparison, then we would be having a different discussion.

Yes, we need to serve. In fact, it is our duty to serve those already born, but not in exchange for the concern for lives of those not yet born.

- Mary Elizabeth Young | Indianapolis
 

Priest’s column on understanding of sex very much appreciated

I subscribe to The Criterion, and I want to thank Father Tad Pacholczyk for his recent column in the May 25 issue, “Consenting to Sex.”

Somehow, a true understanding of sex and the sex act got lost in our changing society. Thank you, Father Tad, for clarifying so succinctly what those things really mean.

Your writing, research and preaching are amazing. Please stay the course.

- Bob Bestvina | Indianapolis

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