JESUS CHRIST WAS SO CONTROVERSIAL HE GOT CRUCIFIED (Letter to Dom Post, May 28

‘What,‘ asks the Dom Post (May28), ‘is the Pope really up to?’ He’s doing God’s will. And if he has a taste for controversy, he’s following the best example. Jesus Christ was so controversial he got crucified.

THERE AIN'T NO SUCH WORD AS 'CORONIAL' (Letter to Dom Post, May 26)

Your reporter’s expression, ‘coronial inquest’ (Honour the heroes, May 26) has a mighty fine ring to it but he’d be better off saying ‘coroner’s inquest’. There ain’t no such word as ‘coronial’.

TO GET BETTER AT LOOKING AFTER YOUNG PEOPLE WE NEED COMMON SENSE (Letter to Dom Post, May 23)

I haven’t got any expertise to offer, as do the health professionals who want to improve teenage mental wellbeing (We need to get better at looking after young people, A9, May 23), but I’ve got some common sense.

 

What needs discussing in reference to safety from abuse, social exclusion and bullying is girls abused by their boyfriends’ casual attitude to sex in getting them pregnant and then taking off, girls denied a normal, carefree teenage lifestyle by pregnancy and childbirth, and girls who are bullied by parents or boyfriends into abortion.

 

Julia du Fresne

ROSEMARY MCLEOD'S HARPIES AND HARRIDANS (Letter to Dom Post, May 22)

If Rosemary McLeod (She-Devils quash myth that women are naturally kind, May 22) dwelt less on harpies and harridans, and more on women like her own grandmother whom she’s mentioned in past columns as an inspiration, she’d be a happier woman herself. She might even realise that for women of faith like her grandmother, nothing is beyond forgiveness.

VAST CONFERENCE CENTRES 'CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER' (Letter printed in Dom Post, May 23)

The Dom Post printed this with the last sentence deleted. Was the letter too long? Did the editor think no one would get the allusion to Lewis Carroll? Or did the editor not get the allusion to Lewis Carroll?

We’re living in Wonderland. Does it strike anyone as strange that now we have all these means of communicating electronically, we need more conference centres, and ‘vast’ ones at that, so we can communicate physically as well?

And that at the same time we’re urged not to waste fossil fuels on unnecessary travel, especially by air? And that when these thousands of people get together to confer physically, they’ll have their heads down conferring electronically, like our MPs during the reading of the Budget? As Alice remarked, ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’

NO COMPO FOR SURVIVORS OF LATE-TERM ABORTIONS; THEY'RE NOT VICTIMS OF A CRIME (Letter to Dom Post, May 19

Let me try to get this straight. An English teenager named Molly is awarded $500,000 compensation for severe brain damage suffered in the womb (May 19). She’s considered the victim of a crime because her mother drank heavily despite warnings about the risks to her unborn child. But then the authorities declare such unborn babies are not victims of a crime. And now 80 such children in Britain say they too were criminally ‘poisoned’ by their mothers, and being denied compensation isn’t fair.  

It would seem survivors of late-term abortions could demand compensation, too. Why not? Oh, I get it. They were left to die on the floor of the operating theatre, suffering only God knows what injuries,  but they won’t be entitled to compensation because they’re not victims of a crime.

 

WITHOUT PRAYER, THE PASTOR IS EXPOSED TO BEING ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL

A 'BYTE' FROM SUPERPOPE'S ADDRESS TODAY TO THE BISHOPS OF ITALY Without constant prayer, the Pastor is exposed to the danger of being ashamed of the Gospel, and ends up defusing the scandal of the Cross in worldly 'wisdom'”. “The temptations, which aim to obscure the primacy of God and His Christ, are legion in the life of the Pastor: lukewarmness, which leads to mediocrity … dodges renunciation and sacrifice;the temptation to haste in pastoral ministry, sloth that leads to intolerance, almost as if everything were a burden. … A temptation to grow accustomed to sadness, cancelling out every expectation and creativity, leaving us unsatisfied and therefore incapable of entering into the lives of our people and understanding them in the light of Easter morning”. In relation to these temptations, ecclesial experience is the most effective antidote.  It emanates from the sole Eucharist, whose cohesive strength generates fraternity, the ability to accept, forgive and walk together”.