Category: Letters to the editor

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Tom and Theresa Sobieski

Thanks for publishing conference testimony on mascot legislation

To the editor:

We want to thank you and the staff at the Catholic Herald for devoting considerable space in the paper to print the Wisconsin Catholic Conference testimony concerning the pending legislation on the mascot law.

At present the bill has passed both the Assembly and Senate, but it still needs the governor’s signature to make it law.

The new law would definitely reduce the opportunity for dialogue in those communities with race-based mascots, so it could damage the progress in Wisconsin for their removal.

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Tom and Theresa Sobieski

Thanks for publishing conference testimony on mascot legislation

To the editor:

We want to thank you and the staff at the Catholic Herald for devoting considerable space in the paper to print the Wisconsin Catholic Conference testimony concerning the pending legislation on the mascot law.

At present the bill has passed both the Assembly and Senate, but it still needs the governor’s signature to make it law.

The new law would definitely reduce the opportunity for dialogue in those communities with race-based mascots, so it could damage the progress in Wisconsin for their removal.

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Ann M. Schirmer

Thanks to all those who have helped at Camp Gray

To the editor:

Reading the articles on Camp Gray’s history brought memories of the time when Msgr. Francis Gray, the founder of the camp, met out at the Baraboo fairgrounds with the men as they dismantled the crates used to build cabins. (The first cabins for Camp Gray were built using surplus ammunition crates from the Badger Ordnance Works. The cabins were constructed near the county fairgrounds, then moved to the camp.)

One of those men was Stewart Schirmer, my husband. Monsignor Gray supported the men with his presence, plus prayers, blessings, and a few “cool ones” on occasion.

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Peggy Hamill

Personhood campaign seeks to extend protection to preborn children

To the editor:

Personhood is the fundamental civil rights issue of our time. The pro-life movement is founded on the bedrock principle that all human beings, at all stages of development, deserve full protection under the law.

Our nation’s history of civil rights progress has been fueled by this principle. But one injustice remains: the legal discrimination against pre-born babies, who can be freely mutilated and killed throughout all nine months of pregnancy.

The Wisconsin Personhood campaign seeks to pass an amendment to the state constitution legally recognizing that all preborn human beings are “persons” whose unalienable right to life is protected by the state.

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Tracey Pederson

Thanks Monroe community for supporting program on dangers of drinking, driving

To the editor,

On September 25, Monroe Clinic and Hospital Foundation presented the “Prevent Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth” (P.A.R.T.Y.) Program to 11 different high schools in the area. The 75-minute presentation at the Monroe High School Performing Arts Center (PAC) featured a dramatization depicting the tragic results that can occur from drinking and driving.

This year, more than 600 students from Illinois and Wisconsin high schools were in attendance from Albany, Argyle, Belleville, Blackhawk, Juda, Le-Win, Monroe, Monticello, New Glarus, Orangeville, Pecatonica, and Pearl City.

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Stephen Wright

Interview with Pope Francis offers much for reflection

To the editor:

To learn about Pope Francis’ extraordinary interview with the Jesuit magazine America, nobody needs to rely on reports from media outlets, secular or Catholic. The full interview can be found easily at America’s web site, and it rewards close reading by anyone interested in the pope’s view of the Church, and where he might lead it.

There is much to reflect on in the interview. Particularly striking are the pope’s harsh words for those who bring a spirit of pride and certainty to their faith and to their dealings with fellow Catholics:

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Sr. Rosalia Bauer

Be voice of the voiceless; participate in 40 Days for Life

To the editor:

Do I/we hear the cry of the poor?  Who are the voiceless, the hopeless, the helpless people in our society?

As a family nurse practitioner, I have provided health care in a variety of ways, to the person dying with a terminally ill disease; to Krystal and Adam unable to feed themselves, or walk or talk; to a mom who died in bed with the doctor making an incision to lift her baby son from her womb into my arms. Your life stories could be added.

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Jane Tarrell

Abortion is THE issue; over 50 million lives lost

To the editor:

FINALLY, there is a writer in the Catholic Herald who is angry about legal abortion. After 40 years of hearing so little from priests on the subject, and reading mostly about the acceptance of what we cannot change, one writer in the last issue — George Weigel — seems to be upset.

I didn’t really understand the title “On really not getting it” but it must have made me curious. We’re at the point of taking lives in abortion clinics in filthy conditions, and even killing the children after they have been born and in circumstances where the sex of the baby is not what the parents want and without any affiliation with a doctor or a hospital and on the tax payers’ dime.

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