Letters: Catholicism and the Royal Family

Sydney
14 July 2002

School defies terrorism

Pope ‘force for freedom and good’

Vinnies reaches out: a new generation

Abuse allegations ‘devastating’

Caritas renews call for help as southern Africa faces food crisis

Jason scores with ‘no sex before marriage’

‘Return to the scapular’ call for feast day

Medjugorje visionary calls off visit

‘Boundless plains’ to share with refugees? - Spirituality in Pub

Health care ‘not a commodity’

Fr Pat goes back to St Pat’s for jubilee Mass

Queensland search for men to teach

St Vincent’s clocks up 1000

IVF baby farming banned - Govt ‘no’ to sale of eggs

Witchcraft move under fire

Editorial: Tangled web

Letters: Catholicism and the Royal Family

Conversation: Never say never - always hope - Larri Hayhurst, nurse educator

Reflections: Justice: what it means to me

Earthcare - a call to ‘expand our vision’

Opinion: Where young and old share the joy!

Comfort zone

Embryos used to find ‘morning after’ pill

Stem-cell research: Warning of embryo use in human tests

Stem-cell research: Legislation provides for ‘destruction of embryos’

Stem-cell research: ‘Key principle’ at stake

Stem-cell research: Risks to egg and sperm

Resurrection and ‘last things’ in Catechism series

Sing? Yes! Sing-along syndrome? No!

Inspirations: Joseph, 8, gives up toys for Cebu kids

Letters: Catholicism and the Royal Family

I was intrigued by two articles in The Catholic Weekly recently.

One (Princess Margaret, a Catholic? CW 10/3) dealt with Princess Margaret’s flirtation with Catholicism and the other (Lift ban on Catholic royals: Cardinal, CW 16/6) dealt with the British and Australian Sovereign not being allowed to marry a Catholic and indeed those members of the Royal Family being barred from the succession when they marry Catholics - e.g. the Duke of Kent, Prince Michael of Kent and the Duke’s two sons.

I was surprised that the article on Princess Margaret did not also report the author’s even more revealing assertion that the late Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth II’s paternal grandmother, converted to Catholicism well before 1936.

The book goes on to claim that her husband, King George V, requested that he be given the Last Rites by the Jesuits of Farm St Parish, London, when he was on his death bed in 1936.

On my last visit to London, I went to Farm St to investigate this as I had long believed that Queen Mary did die a Catholic.

I had read something about this in an ancient Catholic Weekly, circa 1950s, about a lady with white roses often popping into a church in London. The Catholic Weekly article seemed to imply that the lady was none other than Queen Mary.

When I subsequently wrote to Clarence House on this, I was gently admonished not to believe everything one read in the papers.

Sev Milazzo
Maroubra, NSW

PRAYERS AT TORONTO

By the grace of God, I will be joining hundreds of thousands of other young people people at the World Youth Day celebrations in Toronto, Canada, with His Holiness, Pope John Paul II.

I would like to say a big thank you to the members of my parish, St Christopher’s, Panania, who gathered on Saturday, June 29, to bid me bon voyage.

The number of people who turned up was amazing.

I had been told it was a cup of tea and a bikkie with a few friends. Instead, a lot of friends - past and present parishioners - turned up, raising money for me to go to World Youth Day.

It was such a big surprise and with their support I will now have no problem making my way there.

How can I ever thank them enough for their kindness and generosity?

I would like to say that I will have them in my prayers every day - at Guadalupe and at World Youth Day.

May God reward them for their kindness and generosity.

James Foster
St Christopher’s Parish
Panania, NSW

SUPERIORITY?

Do Christians regard the claims to truth of religious Jews as equal to their own?

Fr John Dietzen is quoted as saying that the new relationship with the Father which Jesus offered to his followers constitutes a new covenant between the human family and God (Covenant with God, Insights, CW 9/6).

Sr Marianne Dacy NDS has criticised this statement as “asserting [Fr Dietzen’s] belief in the superiority of Christianity over Judaism” (Back to the ‘bad old days’, Letters, CW 23/6).

Fr Dietzen, or any other Christian, would be irrational if he believed otherwise.

Equally irrational would be the belief of a religious Jew that Christianity is superior to Judaism. One is a Jew or a Christian because one believes the claims to truth are stronger in the case of one religion as compared with those of the other.

God sent his Son, one who shared in the nature of God, among humans to reveal both aspects of God and also his requirements of humans.

Religious Jews do not believe this.

To that extent they hold a false belief about a supremely important matter.

Christians are not odd in holding that true beliefs are superior to false ones.

Jesus’ first hearers were Jews. He invited them to believe him as God’s accredited messenger.

A number did believe him and became his disciples, thus constituting the Church which Vatican II calls “the new people of God”, “the people of the New Covenant” (Nostra Aetate, 4).

The invitation of Jesus to believe in him is offered today by the Church to Jews, just as it is offered to everyone else, for the Church “is duty bound to proclaim without fail Christ who is the way, the truth and the life” (ibid).

Dr Frank Mobbs
Gosford, NSW

SANCTUARY OF FAITH

Fr O’Donnell’s Reflections (Good old days are starting now, CW 30/6) needs to be queried.

Those of us who are in our mid-seventies know that good sodalities, full churches, bursting seminaries, etc, were the result of deep devotion and love of God. The first half of the 20th century was a gifted time of initiation and expansion of charitable works.

The Catholic home - assisted by the then Catholic schools and priestly visitations - was the sanctuary of our Faith with magnificent ‘silent’ mothers nurturing their good numbers of children into prayerful habits, sound principles and vocations.

Child sexual abuse was not a culture in our community and certainly not among our clergy in the ‘good old days’.

Problems in many areas coincided with the sexual revolution of the 60s.

Does the good priest consider the present abortion rate, divorce, the plight of homeless children, increased crime rates, almost a generation lost to illicit drugs, the suicide rate, etc, of today preferable to the first half of last century? Even a 10-year-old would know that good laws make for good order and no laws for chaos.

Around 1950 we were told that it is the Mass that matters. This would be a good starting point now.

J Chambers
Launceston, Tas

POSITIVE/NEGATIVE

Thanks for Lucy O’Connell’s excellent article (Natural family planning vs sexism, CW 26/5), but not for the placement of the Insights column alongside it that touched on a moral problem about a medical condition.

It seemed unnecessary for Fr John Dietzen to explain the development and effectiveness of the Pill as part of the answer. This and the position of the article were contrary to Lucy’s positive article.

In response to his critics, (CW 30/6) Fr John again claims to be answering a moral rather than medical question. Again, he does not really address the issues raised and those who asked must feel frustrated.

Catholics look to their Catholic press for correct information to inform them about issues such as these.

Anne McGowan
Natural Family Planning
Sydney, NSW