Letters to the Editor: October 2024

A Bureaucracy Devouring Its Prey

We can only imagine what first-century Rome was like for newly baptized, newly converted early Christians. They didn’t have books on martyrs to read, statues of saints to venerate, or stained-glass windows in glorious churches to contemplate. They were simply living witnesses. I thought of them as I read Bernadette Patel’s guest column “The Eternal Advent of Pro-Life Activism” (Jul.-Aug.), in which she shares her deeply personal and emotional responses to the treatment of her devoted pro-life Catholic friends who were wrongly arrested, convicted in kangaroo courts, and jailed for years.

Patel reflects on the new reality of these new persecutions, which no one expects to abate, no matter who is elected, because the federal bureaucracy is its own animal looking for someone to devour. No matter, she also shows a hope and faith that is needed as each of us, in his own way, tries to deepen his commitment to Christ and His Church in this time of increasing anti-life and anti-Christian values.

In fact, there are even atheists in prison who also believe life begins at conception and should be protected.

Still, I hope Patel and all of us who agree with her don’t get “used to it now” because, as our faith and commitment grow, so should our horror at the evil around us. She quotes the martyr Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J., who said, “There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more than to be genuinely shaken up. Where life is firm we need to sense its firmness; and where it is unstable and uncertain and has no basis, no foundation, we need to know this too and endure it.”

Christopher Bell

President & Cofounder, Good Counsel

Secaucus, New Jersey

Ed. Note: Mr. Bell is married to Joan Andrews Bell, one of the rescuers, who is currently serving 27 months in federal prison for trying to stop late-term abortions. Fr. Delp was executed by the Nazis in 1945 after they falsely accused him of participating in a failed plot to overthrow Hitler.

Bernadette Patel’s guest column was very moving. Adding to it, I would note that by virtue of the pro-life rescuers’ imprisonment and, thus, their willingness to sacrifice the good they would otherwise be entitled to pursue, not one child in utero is killed anywhere without this public testimony to their value before man and God.

Richard Cowden Guido

New York, New York

Faithful prayer warriors on the outside are a great balm to those on the inside. Jonathan Darnel, one of the imprisoned, hopes his example will lead others to action — any kind of activism — such as holding signs over bridges or at sporting events or parades, sidewalk-counseling at high schools, or organizing apologetics training classes.

There is a fellowship and camaraderie among activists. Joan Bell and Lauren Handy enjoy prison ministry and have helped many on the inside to convert. In many ways, it would have been a worse punishment not to put them in jail.

Eight times rescuers were charged with trespassing and then released with suspended fines. One time, the police even arrested the rescuers and then released them without charges. The weaponization of the justice system and the disproportionate punishments of pro-life activists are a travesty of justice. Placing 75-year-old grandmothers in jail protects no one except the abortion business.

Anyone who meets a baby after having gotten his mom to turn around at death’s door knows he cannot stop his advocacy and outreach. We take heart in knowing that we are having an effect and that our activism is working. Each disruption upsets the neighborhood and causes people to examine what is happening under their own roofs.

Judges have acknowledged that if and when personhood is defined as beginning at fertilization, as was done in the Alabama IVF case, all these actions will be fully justified. So far, no judge has been willing to set the precedent. The FACE Act, the supposed violation of which led to the activists’ imprisonment, should fall apart now that there is no longer a “constitutional right” to abortion, thanks to Dobbs v. Jackson. Without a criminal violation, the conspiracy charges evaporate, too. Unfortunately, the appeals process takes so long that most, if not all, of the defendants will be out of jail before a decision is made.

These folks are political prisoners in the United States of America, where half the states have made abortion illegal, and too many other states are inserting the right to abortion in their constitutions. The reality is that we cannot make abortion unthinkable if people are not thinking about abortion.

There are two questions every reader must ask himself: (1) What am I doing to stop abortion? (2) Why haven’t more people done something?

Larry Cirignano

Alexandria, Virginia

Ed. Note: On February 16 the Supreme Court of Alabama issued a first-of-its-kind decision, ruling that embryos created through in vitro fertilization and frozen in storage are due the same legal protection as children under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act of 1872. The court declared these embryos to be “unborn children” for purposes of civil liability, in essence granting them legal personhood in the State of Alabama.

Mr. Darnel, before going to prison for participating in an Oct. 2020 rescue at a Washington, D.C., clinic known for performing late-term abortions, wrote “The Case for Reviving the Rescue Movement” (NOR, Sept. 2023). He is currently serving 34 months in federal prison for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

I was touched by Bernadette Patel’s deep concern for and solidarity with the pro-life rescuers who are serving considerable jail sentences. But I feel there was an important component missing from her guest column that deserves elaboration. What are these “protestors” doing in jail anyway? Wouldn’t they have been better off observing civil law during their pro-life activism, of which there are many forms? Isn’t it enough to regularly attend the annual March for Life; to consider the abortion issue when voting; to support with talent, time, and treasure the various pro-life apostolates? Is there, perhaps, something misguided about their zeal that resulted in their serving these prison sentences?

Abortion is a black-and-white, either-or issue: It is either a matter of no consequence, like cutting one’s hair, or it is the greatest mass-killing in human history (the current U.S. death toll is 63 million, over ten times that of the Jewish Holocaust). There is no middle ground. If we accept that abortion is the greatest mass-killing in history, then we need to consider what a proportional, necessary response would be. At a minimum, such a response is indicated by the Second Great Commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:39).

If I were to be taken to a known place at a known time to be executed by dismemberment, what would I want my neighbors to do? I would want them to arrive early at the place of execution and pray for me. When my executioners arrive, I would want my neighbors to plead for my life. The time they have to do this is very short. After I am taken through the door of the execution chamber, I will be dead within an hour or so. If pleading for my life fails, then I would want my neighbors to nonviolently block access to the execution chamber. Depending on the success of this measure, my life would be saved for perhaps a few hours or the whole day. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask my neighbors to nonviolently block access to the place of execution and possibly risk arrest. As a matter of principle, I feel we should be doing likewise for all our neighbors who face such a death.

If I know that killings are taking place at a certain place and time, how can I be faithful to the Lord’s command to love my neighbor as myself? I am faithful as long as I am attempting to block access to the execution chamber or I am in jail for having done so in the past. If I’m not trying to nonviolently block the process or I am not in jail for having done so in the past, I am failing to live up to the Lord’s command.

Conscientious Christians of the past were not faced with this dilemma because there were no such places like present-day abortion clinics where largescale killing occurred at a known place and time. Maybe if there were more conscientious Christians who attempted a proportional response to abortion, the Church and society would take the pro-life message more seriously.

Fr. Morty O’Shea, S.O.L.T.

Inver, Co. Donegal

Ireland

Ed. Note: On August 27 New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to hold the pro-life group Red Rose Rescue (RRR) in contempt for “willfully defying a court order that prohibits the group and its members from blocking access to reproductive health care clinics.” James’s motion specifically targets Bernadette Patel for “openly and repeatedly” violating a preliminary injunction that prohibits RRR members from coming within 15 feet of abortion clinics in the southern and eastern districts of the state, and it seeks to fine Patel $500 per violation, for a total of $2,000.

Monica Migliorino Miller, director of RRR and a contributing editor of the NOR, called the filing “one of the most bogus lawsuits ever,” arguing that Patel was “well within her First Amendment rights” to counsel women on the sidewalk before they entered Planned Parenthood clinics. As Patel did not go into or obstruct access to those clinics, she did not violate the injunction because, Dr. Miller says, Patel was not acting on behalf of RRR. She “is not even a member of the group,” Miller said, because it “is not a formal group” and, therefore, “has no members.”

James’s request for sanctions is part of a lawsuit she filed against RRR in federal court, alleging violations of the FACE Act. James has called RRR a “hateful group,” saying “it is time they be held accountable for their blatant disregard of our laws, our courts, and our bodily autonomy.”

Transformed by Educational Freedom

James G. Hanink has written an apt and succinct summary of the school-choice movement, not merely because he quotes me but because he captures the battle school choice has faced over the years against state Blaine Amendments and their jealous protectors (“To Whom Do Children Belong?” From the Narthex, Jul.-Aug.). At the core of opposition to school choice is the fundamental misconception about the primary rights of parents to direct the education of their children. In an age of respect for “rights talk,” the opponents of school choice want to hear nothing of such assertions by parents. Instead, their voices redound with the words made famous by the movie Jerry Maguire: “Show me the money!” Their interest is, first and foremost, the protection of funds for their governmentally operated school systems and, thereby, in their view, their power — educational outcomes be damned.

I have advocated for school choice for nearly ten years. But in the past year another factor has become prominent: the real-life stories of children whose lives are transformed by educational freedom — freedom from being forced to attend their local government-operated school. In the debates over school choice, philosophical and theological principles are critical, and public-policy data are crucial. Yet at the core of it all stands the human person, an individual who deserves every opportunity to grow and flourish according to the plan God has in store for him and through an educational setting that best fits these needs. As the personalist philosopher Juan Manuel Burgos recently stated in a lecture at the Hildebrand Project Summer Seminar, “The common good must and does depend mainly on people and what happens to them.” School choice is about people — specifically, children — and what happens to them.

Though arguments against Blaine Amendments help people see the generational bigotry that resides at the core of the anti-school-choice movement, the stories of children whose lives are transformed by school-choice programs open the hearts of opponents in a way that philosophical argument or policy data points never will. And as my state begins implementing school choice, this is no longer a theoretical discussion in the hearing rooms, rotunda, and legislative chamber of the Nebraska State Capitol.

As we continue to rely on the important contributions of scholars and advocates like Dr. Hanink, let’s not forget the names and faces of the human persons who benefit from these educational programs. As the intellects of the general public are more fully formed in the truths that lie at the core of school choice, and their hearts more fully formed by the stories of students, the school-choice movement will undoubtedly continue to make tremendous headway in America.

Every school-choice student’s story echoes the glory of God and is another nail in the coffin of state Blaine Amendments.

Tom Venzor, J.D.

Executive Director, Nebraska Catholic Conference

Lincoln, Nebraska

A Lasting Legacy

I was pleased to read Pieter Vree’s review of Alice von Hildebrand’s book Remnant of Paradise: Selected Essays (June). It brought to mind another devoted follower of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s phenomenological method, William A. Marra, a professor of philosophy at Fordham University for many years.

Dr. Marra studied under Dietrich von Hildebrand as a graduate student at Fordham for three years and wrote both of his dissertations with him as mentor. Marra wrote in his book Happiness and Christian Hope: A Phenomenological Analysis: “Afterward I enjoyed the gift of his friendship until his death in 1977.” Marra had the great gift of “speaking the language” of American students and making von Hildebrand’s philosophy accessible to us. This he did with an enthusiasm and dedication that remain unmatched.

When I was a philosophy student at Fordham, I signed up for Marra’s course simply because it fit into my schedule. During the first class, I became dismayed and wondered how I could last the entire semester. During the second class, I thought it would be good to hear different viewpoints. During the third class, the scales fell from my eyes, and my heart cried a silent “Eureka!” This is what I had wanted from philosophy. It was life changing and led me to write my doctoral dissertation on C.S. Lewis and Dietrich von Hildebrand.

Marra reached hundreds of students and thousands of nonstudents through his many lectures, tapes, and radio programs. He was always humble and grateful to von Hildebrand for showing him the way. Sadly, Marra died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1998 — as did his memory, except among the few of his remaining students who are still alive. If it were not for his dedication to and love for von Hildebrand’s contribution to the philosophical canon, many of us Americans would not have had the opportunity to learn from such a great mentor.

Clara Sarrocco, Secretary

The New York C.S. Lewis Society

Glendale, New York

Whitewashed Hypocrisy

There’s a reason I bypass other articles in the NOR to read Jason M. Morgan’s column first. I put high value on simplicity and brevity. Most Catholic authors think they need a palette with a thousand different hues and tones to paint a meaningful picture of arcane notions. Dr. Morgan, by contrast, has learned the fine art of simplification in plain, everyday language. Well done.

In his column “Merchants of Casual Sin” (Jul.-Aug.), Morgan mentions the “golden age of Hollywood” in the 1950s. I was a teenager then, and as Morgan states, casual sin was cloaked to help us maintain a moral image of ourselves. Films with biblical themes like The Robe and Exodus gave us goosebumps and made us feel chosen. In East Boston, where we Italian-Americans wore religion on our sleeves, we held parties for baptisms, confirmations, first confessions, first communions, weddings, and funerals — all the special sacraments of humanity (immigrant Hispanics in San Diego carry on that custom) — except my parents, who scoffed at the hypocrisy of the religious. I was too young to understand or care about what they found distasteful.

My parents were of high moral character. My father was a Grand Mason who took pride in being above board in all his dealings. “The Catholic Church never reached me,” he told me before he died. Underneath all the whitewashed Catholicism that surrounded us was the stench of seething hypocrisy in priests, nuns, and laymen. I bet he was disappointed to discover the Masons were just as hypocritical as Christians, which he naturally would have never admitted to me.

In 2002 the cover came off the stench pot with the revelations of rampant, hideous sexual corruption among the Catholic clergy in Boston. Nothing new, for moral corruption has been cyclical, if not continuous, in the Church for some two millennia.

No spotlight on Church corruption will change that. The flesh is weak and needs the Church’s guidelines, but it’s our job as writers to make sure our readers save themselves from lust’s fatal undertow, keeping afloat above the sea of casual moral corruption, and swim safely to shore.

Richard M. Dell’Orfano

San Marcos, California

JASON M. MORGAN REPLIES:

I’m honored that Richard M. Dell’Orfano reads my columns, as I have long had the pleasure of reading his offerings in the Narthex, the NOR blog, as well as his other writings. I’ve read some draft chapters of his forthcoming autobiography and know him from those pages to be a true follower of Christ. His faith, as I understand it, was bought with great suffering. The hypocrisy of institutional nonbelievers and half-believers must be especially glaring for someone like Mr. Dell’Orfano, who has walked a hard road with God.

Hypocrisy is a feature of every age and place. Victorians had their own kind of hypocrisy, as did the ancient Romans. What I find remarkable about late-imperial America is that sin itself has become a virtue, at least in the telling of academia, government, and the media-entertainment complex. It isn’t that our self-styled elites are pretending to be doing good while secretly coveting and doing evil. It’s that those in prominent social positions do evil and celebrate it (and themselves) as virtuous. And it’s all so artfully rendered, so carefully choreographed. Oprah was back on stage this August in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention. Outside, Planned Parenthood trucks offered free abortions and vasectomies. Elsewhere in America, children are pumped full of hormones or subjected to genital vivisection in the name of gender ideology. Thousands of miles away, Washington-funded proxy wars rage, and innocent people die. It’s business as usual as the Deep State annihilates babies and foreign populations while preaching freedom, democracy, and now “joy” to Americans.

Corruption comes standard with human institutions. Dell’Orfano points out the horrors of clerical sexual abuse in Boston. There are many, many similar examples worldwide. I pray that a spotlight, a whole array of them, may flood the Church’s dark corners, ending hypocrisy by making sin and the shame of sin apparent to all. I also hope that the Church continues to be a refuge for everyone who seeks Truth in a fallen world. Without the Church, neither I nor Mr. Dell’Orfano nor anyone else would have assurances that hypocrisy will not win out in the end.

Faithful to the Spirit & Letter

Besides being well written, accessible, and inviting, “The Maturity of the Expositions of the Psalms” (Jul.-Aug.) is, above all, faithful to the spirit and letter of St. Augustine’s work. I hope Mary McDonald’s article will help make this neglected work better known. The wealth of quotes she offers from the Expositions, which she introduces with framing exegetical comments, ensures contact with Augustine himself.

Dr. McDonald has a fine feel for what’s going on in the Expositions. I am especially fond of her sentence, “To read Augustine and to read like Augustine are to be drawn into the reality of Christ.” Those who engage the Expositions will recognize how McDonald has elegantly captured what Augustine hoped to accomplish.

Michael Cameron

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

An Icon of “Cool”

There is some wonderful stuff in the July-August issue, but the editor is wrong about Jack Kerouac, and William Basile’s letter on that point is spot-on (“Shut Up, Hippies”). I, too, wanted to like the writer of On the Road. He remains a cultural icon of “cool,” and he was, after all, a Catholic. Then I tried to read the man so I could teach him to my college students. A forgiving lot, but even they realized Kerouac’s writing is a case of “the emperor’s new clothes,” and his life story a disturbing, cautionary tale.

Joe Martin

Montreat, North Carolina

THE EDITOR REPLIES:

I wish I knew in what way Joe Martin thinks I was “wrong” about Jack Kerouac. In my reply to William Basile, I pointed out that James K. Hanna, in his guest column that ultimately caused Basile to cancel his subscription (“Jack Kerouac’s Creedal Moment,” May), did not extol Kerouac’s greatness as a novelist but spent most of it “describing Kerouac’s personal shortcomings — his alcoholism, most prominently.” Hanna calls Kerouac’s personal life “disorderly,” in other words, a disturbing, cautionary tale. I discern no disagreement there.

As for Kerouac’s writing style, I merely repeated what Hanna wrote, that the novelist “weaves order, tenderness, and piety” — and “Catholic symbolism” — into an early, largely forgotten novel. That novel is not On the Road (1957) but The Town and the City (1950). Neither Hanna nor I made any judgment of either book, only describing elements of the latter. Indeed, the one book Hanna recommends people read is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In my reply to Basile, I do point out, after mentioning the above elements of The Town and the City, that Basile called Kerouac “an incompetent clown, as if he were no good at his craft.” Perhaps therein lies Mr. Martin’s point of departure? That raises an obvious question: Was Kerouac an incompetent clown who was no good at his craft, and who has finally been exposed as a fraud by, of all people, college students? I suppose the answer depends largely on taste. And as the old saying goes, De gustibus non est disputandum (“In matters of taste, there can be no disputes”). Besides, I’m not prepared to dispute in favor of Kerouac’s writing.

That said, Kerouac’s impact on literature and popular culture — woeful though it might be — is undeniable. His books and his (largely misconstrued) persona remain popular, especially among college students (though Martin may provide exceptions to this rule).

Largely misconstrued? Yes. Being an “icon of cool” was not Kerouac’s goal. Indeed, he railed against that type of association (if we may conflate cool with hip). As Hanna puts it, Kerouac “should not be remembered as someone and something he never considered himself to be — a champion of some sort of revolutionary counterculture. Nor should he be remembered as merely a social phenomenon. He should be remembered as an artist, specifically a Roman Catholic artist. This is what he asked of us.” And this was the point of Hanna’s column.

The Rights & Limitations of a Christian State

Liberalism, Christianity, and integralism all harmonize, the opinions Preston R. Simpson quotes in his review of Kevin Vallier’s All the Kingdoms of the World (June) notwithstanding. And what a beautiful harmony these three make!

Every integralist needs to distinguish the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20, which are moral law, from Noachide law, which is both criminal law and the proper foundation for the just Christian state. Coveting your neighbor’s property, for example, violates the Tenth Commandment and might put your soul in Purgatory until Judgment Day. The just Christian state, however, cannot criminalize it. God can judge your thoughts; the state cannot. The just Christian state can punish only the theft that results from the coveting. It can punish a man for violating the Seventh Commandment (against stealing) but not the Tenth.

Likewise, our Lord Jesus Christ says, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Mt. 5:28). This violation of the Ninth Commandment might damn your soul to Hell for eternity, but the just Christian state cannot criminalize this, either. It can punish a man — potentially with death — for violating the Sixth Commandment (against adultery) but not the Ninth.

Noachide law permits lethal force to prevent violations of the Fifth (against murder) and Sixth Commandments, and less-than-lethal force to prevent violations of the Seventh. This is the basis of our rights to life, chastity, and property. The general unjustifiability of force otherwise is the basis of our right to liberty.

The just Christian state can lustrate the infidel — that is, it can restrict suffrage and public office to Christians — but it cannot fine, imprison, or execute anyone for unbelief. It can lustrate anyone outside its denomination, as many American colonies did, back when our forebears had the wisdom to retain a Christian king.

The just Christian state can and should teach the faith in public schools. It can and should appoint an ordained clergyman as rector of each public college and university. The just Christian state can and should propagate the faith these ways, but it must respect everyone’s freedom of speech, opinion, religion, and conscience.

Under Noachide law, the wronged husband is the one ultimately responsible for the prosecution of adultery, and the wronged owner ultimately responsible for the prosecution of the theft of his property. In a just Christian state, the prosecutorial authority passes from the wronged individual to the state. These are crimes against man. Idolatry and blasphemy are crimes against God; He is the one ultimately responsible for the prosecution of these offenses. The just Christian state does not have the authority to prosecute on behalf of God.

It should be noted that heresy and schism are not crimes under Noachide law; the just Christian state cannot punish them. It can lustrate the heretic but cannot put him to death (or fine or imprison him). Rather, the state must respect the heretic’s freedom of speech and religion, just as it respects everyone’s divinely ordained rights to life, chastity, liberty, and property.

Schools today teach that liberty derives from democracy and rebellion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Together with respect for our neighbors’ life, chastity, and property, respect for his liberty derives from what many call Protestant morality but what is really Christian morality rooted in Noachide law. Liberalism is the Christian love of neighbor. Except for wisely renouncing democracy in favor of monarchism, the integralist — Catholic or otherwise — who renounces liberalism renounces God.

Thomas More Zavist

Houston, Texas

PRESTON R. SIMPSON REPLIES:

I am puzzled by Thomas More Zavist’s comments. Did he not read the subtitle of the book I reviewed? It is On the Radical Alternatives to Liberalism. If integralism and liberalism were in harmony, they would not be alternative views. Liberalism and the integralism Vallier describes do not harmonize. The entire basis of the Catholic integralist movement is the belief that liberalism has failed to provide the type of society its proponents desire. If Mr. Zavist thinks they are in harmony, then he is speaking of a different integralism or a different liberalism or both. I would recommend he read Vallier’s book to understand the differences and then perhaps pursue some of the writings described therein.

Kooky Christology & Other Theological Obtuseness

Many thanks to Andrew M. Seddon for his article discussing the poor theology in some popular hymns (“The Smoke in the Songs,” June). I would like to add what I believe are a few salient points.

In 2020 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops produced a guide to evaluating the theological content of hymns, though, obviously, in this day and age, many parishes and liturgical communities decide what’s “best” for themselves. For example, the guide, titled “Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church: An Aid for Evaluating Hymn Lyrics,” discourages use of “Lord of the Dance,” not for its kooky Christology, which Dr. Seddon skewers, but because it implies that “the Jews as a people are collectively responsible for the death of Christ.” The offending lyrics are: “The Holy People…they whipped and they stripped and they hung me high / And they left me there on a Cross to die.”

Moreover, the bishops’ guide determines that “God Beyond All Names,” another song Seddon mentions, “fails to respect God’s transcendence.” And it finds songs such as “All Are Welcome” and “Let Us Break Bread Together” offensive to eucharistic doctrine.

Sometimes a community may decide that its liturgy would benefit from certain songs that have been, let’s say, socially proscribed. A few years ago, many parishes “canceled” the works of composer David Haas after he was the subject of some pretty damning accusations of sexual harassment and abuse. Though he’s written some stinkers, some of his work is pretty darn good. After some reflection, we in the Coleman Catholic Community Choir decided that if a Haas hymn’s lyrics were appropriate to the celebration, we would continue to sing them. We are a choir comprised of — and at the service of — incarcerated men. None of them seems to have experienced any scandal from our singing of Haas’s hymns.

That said, in my role as Chooser-in-Chief, I try to be alert to any theological obtuseness in hymns we might potentially use. Occasionally, a song of solid doctrine turns out to be such a musical steamer that the choir refuses to sing it.

If I may be allowed a final, unrelated point: Our priest and chaplain, the Rev. Richard Zuk, died a preventable and tragically early death during the Octave of Easter. Fr. Zuk was warm, loving, funny, and kind, and I ask NOR staff and my fellow readers to pray for the repose of his soul. He suffered far too much tragedy in the last couple years of his life; we pray that his pain be finally at an end.

Antonio DeGaetano

Federal Correctional Complex

Coleman, Florida

Ed. Note: The Rev. Richard Zuk was born on October 12, 1973, ordained on June 4, 2005, and died on April 3, 2024. In his 19 years as a priest, he served as administrator or parochial vicar for multiple parishes in the Diocese of Brooklyn and as chaplain of a number of prisons in Pennsylvania and throughout the State of New York. Fr. Zuk was eventually released from diocesan assignment in Brooklyn to serve as chaplain of the Federal Correctional Complex in Coleman, Florida, where he finished his earthly pastoral duties. Fr. Zuk was a member of the Priests’ Purgatorial Society. Requiescat in pace.

I could not agree more with Andrew M. Seddon about the poor quality of many contemporary liturgical songs. Other irritants include musicians who seem more interested in performing than worshiping, and when the pianist is pounding more than playing, not to mention booming bass guitars or deafening drums at Mass. I’m all for joyful singing, but not for bringing the banal off the street and into the sanctuary. It just doesn’t belong. I long for the inherent reverence of the organ with which I grew up.

Steve Spence

Jackson, Wyoming

ANDREW M. SEDDON REPLIES:

Antonio DeGaetano raises a pertinent point, that some of today’s popular hymns may be deficient, distorted, or erroneous in multiple areas, which makes it all the more important to dispense with their use. He cites the USCCB document “Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church: An Aid for Evaluating Hymn Lyrics.” This strikes me as one of those well-intended documents that for whatever reason don’t seem to filter down to the parish level. Certainly, the staff of those parishes in subjection to Breaking Bread, published by Oregon Catholic Press, for example, which contains a significant number of doctrinally unsuitable hymns, would do well to become acquainted with it. My thanks to Mr. DeGaetano for mentioning it.

“Catholic Hymnody” lists a number of ways in which the lyrics of hymns can be deficient:

in the presentation of eucharistic doctrine
in the presentation of trinitarian doctrine
in the doctrine of God and His relation to men
in viewing the Church as essentially a human construction
in presenting doctrinally incorrect views of the Jewish people
in presenting incorrect Christian anthropology

And this is without considering the poetical or musical merits (or lack thereof) of the songs in question.

To Steve Spence, I can only say, “Amen.”

Some years ago, I attended Mass at a parish in a nearby city. The pianist sat crosswise on the piano bench, stomping out a rhythm with his left foot while hammering the keys as if he were performing in a raucous nightclub. As a pianist myself, I could only cringe and try to endure while silently yearning for an organ.

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