THE GREENS AREN'T THE ONLY ONES (Letter printed in Dom Post, March 28)

Hideous though the subject is, I had to laugh at Kevin Hague’s comment on a euthanasia policy (Euthanasia issue too ‘risky’ for politicians, March 23). The Greens, he says, ‘haven’t worked out how to create a regime that doesn’t have the risk of being abused.’ 

That’s because it can’t be done.

BISHOP DRENNAN AND THE 'HOLLAND OF OCEANIA' - Letter to NZ Catholic, March 23

So Bishop Drennan has gone ‘out to the peripheries’, joining 500 protestors in a city square. So far, so good.  

But our bishops’ first task is to preach the Gospel, to ‘bring out the great value ... of a human being, his physical life’ (Vatican II). The protest God awaits is surely not one against a perceived ‘assault on our rights as citizens’ but the actual, prolonged assault on the right to life itself, its dreadful toll of nearly 500,000 unborn citizens killed by abortion, on the rights of their mothers to proper informed consent, of parents to be informed of teenage daughters’ pregnancies.

 

It seems unlikely that Bishop Drennan could muster 500 of his flock in the cathedral to pray for the rights of the unborn. This dismal reality reflects the priority accorded doctrine, prayer and sin in our dioceses, a desacralization which has earned a new title for New Zealand - the ‘Holland of Oceania’. 

It’s not soap boxes and speeches the unborn cry out for, it’s prayer and fasting; it’s not the TPPA we should protest about. There can be no justice as long as we tolerate, and by our silence condone, this latter-day slaughter of the innocents.

DON'T LOOK NOW TOM BUT YOUR CONSCIENCE IS SHOWING (Letter to the Dom Post, March 12)

Tom Scott has a way of hitting the bull’s eye without even trying.  

In The world according to 1080 Nazis (March 12) he depicts as ‘fair game’ something which looks remarkably like a baby in the womb. Scott may not know that since 1974 nearly 500,000 babies have been aborted in New Zealand, but he certainly knows that unborn babies are legally ‘fair game’. 

Don’t look now Tom, but your conscience is showing.

MUSLIMS TAKE GOD SERIOUSLY (Letter to the Dom Post, March 10)

Garry Wills rightly inveighs against ‘a holy war’ against Muslims (Peace, the Pope’s biggest mission, March 10). Any and all war is unholy: New Zealand’s response to Iraq’s appeal for help against ISIS must be by way of humanitarian aid. Training troops is simply making war at one remove.  

As Wills suggests, Pope Francis may well ‘unite believers in the One God’. Francis will certainly be aware that the root cause for the rise of Islam in the West and especially its appeal to the young is that Muslims take God seriously. Nominally Christian Baby Boomers have in practice forgotten God and consequently Gen Z and its offspring are looking elsewhere for the Supreme Being they instinctively know exists.  

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so does the human spirit.

WHY WOULD CHANDOR RATHOD WANT TO BE BACK IN WAIPUKURAU? (Letter printed in Central Hawke's Bay Mail, March 10)

This letter to CHB Mail was prompted by Mayor Peter Butler's comment on Chandor Rathod, who in 2004 was found not guilty on reasons of insanity of murdering his wife.

In an interview with CHB Mail former CHB district councillor Hilary Pedersen, who had befriended Rathod, described him as 'a gentle man' whose violence towards his wife was 'completely out of character'.

Rathod has left New Zealand  to return to India for a funeral, prompting Mayor Butler to remark that 'we don't need types like him living in Central Hawke's Bay. We don't want him back in Waipukurau.'

 

Is it likely Rathod would want to be back in Waipukurau?

 

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR, CHB MAIL, MARCH 10:

I’ve never in my life had such generous, charming service from a retailer than from Chandor Rathod in the Racecourse Rd Dairy, Waipukurau.

Wanting spices for a curry, I remembered someone saying they’d smelt wonderful aromas coming from the Sunset Dairy’s kitchen. I asked Chandor, at the counter, where I could buy what I needed.

He disappeared and returned with his smiling wife, smiling grandmother and children and all the spices I wanted, individually wrapped and named, and refused any payment.

If our community had accorded him more of the respect he’d enjoyed as a banker in his home country, had considered how he must have felt, serving icecreams while his wife earned a decent income as a veterinarian, and had extended to the family the compassion and friendship shown them by Hilary Pedersen, that heartbreaking tragedy and sad blot on our Central Hawke’s Bay escutcheon might have been avoided.

 

IT'S PETER SINGER WHO'S IN THE GRIP OF AN IDEOLOGY (Letter to the Dom Post, February 24)

I suppose Peter Singer (Why family planning is a win-win, Feb 24) realises that he himself is ‘in the grip of an ideology’, expounding as he does a shallow philosophy of self-gratification and love of oneself, as opposed to the profound Christian ideal of love of others.  

So it’s ironic that he should accuse Pope Francis and the Catholic Church of proselytising. The Philippines were not ‘ideologically colonised’. The Filipinos simply accepted the Gospel for what it is - Good News – and as good people do, they live it with enthusiasm.

TEN TIPS FOR LENT (To be published soon in 'NZ Catholic')

        I don't usually post my 'NZ Catholic' column until after publication but because my deadline was yesterday, Shrove Tuesday, and today is Ash Wednesday and my theme is Lent, l'm putting it out there now. A dear friend, an eremitical religious who advises me on such matters, said my 'Ten Tips' sounded like instructions instead of invitations.

        I think of them as suggestions! Please think of them as you see fit.

         ‘Pressed 4 Time’, as our local drycleaners say, I wanted to give you something short, snappy and Lenten. Ten tips, I thought, might do it. Wanting authoritative back-up I googled ‘Francis on Lent’ and there it was: ‘Lent: Pope Francis’ 10 tips’.

            Hmmm. I was happy to be on the papal wavelength but the devil, as we say, is in the detail. How would the Pope’s tips compare with mine, scribbled in the middle of the night, in the dark (not wanting to wake ‘im indoors)?

The papal exhortations for Lent, posted on an American university blog, were selected from Lenten messages, homilies and audiences, and obviously not limited by NZ Catholic’s exigencies of space. But my tips, with quotes from Francis throughout, are means to the same end and made in the same hope as his, that our parishes may become ‘islands of mercy in a sea of indifference’.

1.      Go to Confession. The Eucharist remits only venial sin; the Sacrament of Penance forms our conscience, heals and strengthens us in ‘leaving behind old habits and the lazy addiction to evil’.

2.      Go to Mass.  ‘Become what we receive – the Body of Christ’. Go weekdays as well as Sundays. If you attend weekdays already, go daily. When we make the most of our priests, God will send more.

3.      Fast. ‘Not a formal fast … which makes us feel good about ourselves’, not for the physical and mental benefits, but ‘to cultivate the style of the good Samaritan’. If you’ve never fasted, try simply waiting till lunch or dinner time before eating. If you’re already fasting one day, fast two.

4.      Fasting saves money. Give it to the Lent appeal. ‘Almsgiving leads to freedom from the obsession of possessing’. 

5.      Fasting saves time. Give it to God. Get out of bed 10 minutes earlier and simply listen to the Lord. ’Dive into the sea of God’s boundless love.’ If you pray this way already, give it twice the time.

6.      Do something for someone. Every day. ‘By loving and serving the poor’ (poor in terms of love as well as money) ‘we love and serve Christ’.

7.      Read or listen to the Gospel. Every day. To ‘experience the joy of spreading this good news’, first we need to hear the good news and make it our own.

8.      Pray the Rosary. ‘It’s spiritual medicine. Don’t forget to take it. It’s good for your heart, for your soul, for your whole life.’

9.      Kneel for the Consecration, as the Pope requires at his Masses. ‘We Christians kneel before the Blessed Sacrament because therein we know and believe to be the Presence of the One True God.’

10.  Kneel to receive Communion on the tongue, also required at Papal Masses. You’ll be criticised, but that helps conform you to Christ, whose family thought he was mad. So push the boat out!

‘Kneeling in adoration before the Eucharist is the most valid and radical remedy against the idolatries of yesterday and today.’