Faith and works?

We are nearing a half-century of legalized unborn human abortion in this Christian majority country. Catholics are the people of faith and works. St. James wrote, “Faith without works is dead.” We show our faith with prayer in January for the unborn each year and then show our works, voting for pro-abortion political candidates in November. Catholics are the largest voting group that vote party loyalty, assuring permanence of legalized unborn dissection.

Everett C. Dehmer
Cathedral of St. Paul, St. Paul

Keep ideology out of it

How ideology infiltrates religious teaching — four examples in one edition (Feb. 13): Your interview of the Benedictine University professor scheduled to speak at St. Thomas offers an opinion of integrating Muslims into American (Christian and secular) culture that while loving, ignores the realities of Muslim “honor killings” of females and recurring incidents of terror. The proposed Israeli peace plan is little more than a screed denouncing the plan and the president. There is no mention of the actual environment of “Palestinian” (i.e. West Bank/Gaza/PLO/Hezbollah/Brigades/Iran/etc.) players shooting rockets into Israel and vowing to erase Israel off the map. A nun present at the State of the Union address as a guest of a Democrat congressman expresses her negative opinions about the president while the president’s remarks at the Prayer Breakfast are panned for treating his opponents like the sister treated him. Catholic media cannot serve Catholicism and political ideologies any more than the “two masters” (God and mammon) mentioned in Matthew 6:24.

Jim Beers
St. Joseph, Rosemount

Survey only part of the picture

I found the questions in the Disciple Maker Index survey both interesting and disappointing, both because of what was and what was not asked. I realize that too long would have been counterproductive, but nothing was asked about volunteering and in what capacity. Nothing was asked about our adult children and their faith life. Nothing was asked about why we do or do not support our parish financially. I would love to have seen a question about “are you attending a parish which is not assigned to your geographic area and if so why?” Nothing was asked about underserved groups within the parish such as people who have disabilities, two questions about our youth other than Catholic school questions. As a rubber band Catholic (cradle, left as a young adult, came back, left for other reasons, came back, staying because well, it’s complicated), I have plenty of opinions. One being that what we ask about in surveys is what we care about. To me, this says people “downtown” don’t really know what is going on, especially in the rural parishes. I love our archbishop, but he is one man and can only act on the information he is given. I would like to suggest that the survey will only give him part of the picture. And if the listening sessions are structured in the same way, he is still going to get only part of the picture.

Rebecca Susag
St. Joseph, Miesville

Editor’s note: The Catholic Spirit gave Father Joseph Bambenek, Archdiocesan Synod assistant director, an opportunity to respond. He shared the following: The primary feedback received during Year One of the Synod process is the written feedback given at the Prayer and Listening Events, in which over 6,000 people have already participated, sharing, among other things, their prayer-discerned thoughts on what is going well and what are the challenges and opportunities in the archdiocese in an open-ended format. The DMI is a national survey in which the archdiocese is participating that will provide valuable supplemental feedback to the archbishop and the Synod process. Such instruments do not lend themselves to the qualitative feedback that Ms. Susag desires to give. I would encourage her to attend the Prayer and Listening Event being held on Leap Morning, Feb. 29, at St. Pius V in Cannon Falls, a parish clustered with her home parish.

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