Human sexuality: not a reliable topic for the church
The Most Rev. Alex J. Brunett uses the sugarcoated — but devious and deceptive — language of the church in an attempt to show the church’s centuries-old tradition of caring for the poor [“Catholic principles for health-care reform,” Opinion, guest commentary, Dec. 17].
But he ignores the church’s centuries-old tradition of torturing and killing during the Crusades, the Inquisition, the decimation of the indigenous people of South, Central and North America, and the church’s discriminatory practices against women and gays.
He credits Catholic hospitals with accepting the uninsured into their emergency rooms without mentioning the fact that since the passage of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 every emergency room in every hospital in the U.S. has been required by law to offer such care.
He speaks of the church’s position on abortion as if it were neutral when almost everyone knows the church has consistently tried to weaken, eliminate and even criminalize a woman’s right to choose. Why is it that the church seldom talks about contraception, which it also considers a sin?
The church lacks creditability and sincerity on any issue having to do with human sexuality.
— Jim Grenfell, Sedro-Woolley
DOA in Congress
I give Catholic archbishop Alex Brunett credit for candidly admitting that the church is not trying to change U.S. laws that give women a legal right to abortion because such an attempt would be dead on arrival in Congress.
But if the church didn’t believe that efforts to make abortion laws stricter would be dead on arrival in Congress, would it be holding back on such efforts? I doubt it.
I hope to see a future Seattle Times article in which the archbishop explains why the Catholic Church has repeatedly tried to torpedo international conferences on population control, forbade married couples from using so-called artificial birth control, forbade homosexuals from using condoms to decrease their exposure to the AIDS virus, and apparently been practically oblivious to unsustainable population growth as a critical factor in problems such as hunger, disease and global warming.
Perhaps such an explanation would improve my understanding of the reasoning of the church on those issues too.
— Ted Yellman, Bellevue
What about the 9 million living children?
It boggles the mind that senators and other political leaders are fighting over the abortion issue while the 9 million uninsured children already living among us are denied health care.
— Frances Campbell, Seattle