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L e t t e r s
It’s the Body of Christ
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This Rock
Volume 16, Number 4
 April 2005 
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Congratulations on the superb February issue of This Rock. Every article was exceptional, especially "Making Converts of Cradle Catholics" by Mary Beth Kremski. She provides the type of information we must get out to Catholics everywhere. Her descriptions of "vertical blindness" and "practical Protestantism" mirror what I often experience in Catholic friends and relatives. So many Christians fall into the category of "practical atheist."
She mentioned she was once an anti-Catholic Pentecostal. I exchanged letters with a local Baptist pastor after he said on the radio that the Catholic Mass was nonsense. He told me that 50 percent of his congregation is made up of former Catholics. The local paper ran a front-page article on a woman who joined a newly built Christ Church. She said that after years of Catholicism she finally found the real church.
The average Catholic doesn’t have a clue that the Church is the body of Christ, as Kremski explained. In more than twenty years in my local parish, I have never heard it mentioned. Kremski said that to betray the Church by dissent is to betray the body of Christ. Why aren’t our bishops and priests telling us that?
—Bill Brady
North Kingstown, Rhode Island
Mass-Behavin’
I agree wholeheartedly with Karl Keating’s Frontispiece regarding behavior at Mass ("Left Alone," January 2005). I believe that if there is to be a revival of priestly vocations, there is no better place to begin than with changing attitudes and behavior in church and especially during Mass. We could start showing more respect by having more silence, eliminating unnecessary talk, and continuing to kneel until the tabernacle doors are closed after Communion. The clothing worn by many who serve at the altar I will not go into detail about, for it certainly would not be allowed in the "old days." Finally, we could return to Gregorian chant. Too bad so many of our younger generation are ignorant of what beautiful music is in the right place and time.
—Thomas Cullinare
Bayside, New York
Veiled Respect
Regarding the question about women wearing head veils to church ("Quick Questions," January 2005), what struck me was the very last line: "As a sign of respect, women still are required to wear a veil when meeting the pope."
If we take a moment and think about what that is saying, we will realize the obvious.
If our pope—the most visible and foremost representative of the living Christ—should be approached with a covered head out of respect, then how much more respectfully we should approach the Real Presence of Christ in the tabernacle and on the altars of the Catholic Church.
I think dear Pope John Paul II would agree with me that we should show God the same respect that we show him.
—Joanne Guilette
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
Say What You Mean
Steve Ray asks, "What Does Catholic Mean?" (January 2005), but that isn’t really the issue. The real issue is the current indiscriminate use of the words Christian and Christianity.
The typical dictionary definition of a Christian is "a person who believes in Jesus Christ, an adherent of Christianity," and Christianity refers to "the Christian religion, including the Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox churches."
Ray says, "If you were a Christian in the first millennium, you were a Catholic." From a historical perspective, it would appear that the terms Catholic and Christian are synonymous, as would be their derivatives Catholicism and Christianity.
Accordingly, are today’s Protestants really followers of Christ, or are they more correctly followers of Luther and Calvin et al.? Is it right to refer to people other than Catholics as Christians?
Hilaire Belloc in The Great Heresies suggested that Christianity as conceived did not really exist, because it was conceived as a belief system in which all of the adherents not only agree to agree on some basic beliefs but also agree to disagree on others.
H. W. Crocker III writes in Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, "If one accepted Protestants on their own terms—not as heretics, but as Christians—one could no longer speak of ‘Christianity’ (singular), but only of ‘Christianities’ (plural)."
The haphazard use of Christian has made the word somewhat meaningless. Accordingly, if we mean "Catholic," we should say "Catholic," and if we mean "Protestant" we should say "Protestant." We should clearly distinguish between the two and not just rely on an admixture called Christianity.
—David J. Regan
Old Lyme, Connecticut
Editor’s reply:
The Church considers anyone who professes a faith in Jesus Christ and has been validly baptized to be a Christian. Even immediately following the Reformation, Protestant Reformers were considered Christians, though heretics. That they were Christian was never disputed. You raise a valid concern, but that concern needs to be addressed in ways other than to redefine Christianity when the Church has not seen fit to do so.
Strapped for Art
I have been a constant reader of This Rock for a couple of years now. I am grateful for your ministry beyond description! The content has been pure, true, and demonstrating tremendous love for the Church and its teachings.
But I was disappointed with the photographs selected to accompany "Is Natural Family Planning a Heresy?" by Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S. (February 2005). You probably wanted to show pictures of vogue, affectionate married couples, but what I saw was more like a glorification of modern immodesty, not in what the people were doing but in how the women were dressed. In my opinion, women in tank tops are attacks against virtuous Catholic sentiment. I don’t like seeing women in pants either when it can be avoided.
By current standards, my opinion may be considered on the prudish side, but isn’t your intention to influence society with the knowledge and love of God, instead of the other way around?
—Valleri Gordon
Wheeling, West Virginia
Teaching Tool
Kudos to Fr. Brian Harrison for writing an authentically well-researched and interesting piece about a topic on which there is much ignorance ("Is Natural Family Planning a Heresy?" February 2005). NFP in no way can be considered heretical. While the medical profession treats human fertility as if it were a disease, those using NFP choose to show profound respect for the power of their fertility: That is the unequivocal difference between contraception and NFP.
NFP is just a tool, but what it teaches experientially is what defines its value: patience, generosity, self control, and sexual maturity. It requires the same kind of commitment that a good marriage requires.
—Charles W. Norris, M.D.
Camas, Washington
Cradle to Grave
Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S., in his recent article on natural family planning ("Is Natural Family Planning a Heresy?" February 2005), suggests that we need "less vague and more specific guidelines as to what actually constitutes a ‘just reason’ [for using NFP]."
In response, I submit that there is a term in the tenth section of Humanae Vitae that meets this need, and it is the word grave.
—Frederick W. Marks
Forest Hills, New York
A More Perfect Love
Thanks for another great issue in February. There were so many good articles. I loved them all.
Regarding the article on NFP by Fr. Brian Harrison ("Is Natural Family Planning a Heresy?" February 2005), I have never come across people who feel that NFP is too liberal. Unfortunately, it seems to me that with easy access to contraception and sterilization, most people feel NFP is too rigid.
When I was a young mother of five children, my husband and I had a meager income and no insurance. I came from a family of fifteen and my husband from a family of eleven, so things were beginning to look pretty scary.
Through our prayer and trust, the Lord revealed NFP to us. Now we look back with awe. Not only did God show us how to keep financial stability to provide for our children, but he taught us the beauty of self-control, a more perfect love for each other, a greater respect for the human body, and a more intimate unity with God in our marriage.
I’d really like someone to show me a couple who abuses NFP. It’s just not very feasible, because as long as one does nothing to prevent conception or implantation, God can make life happen. Moreover, the only people who use this gift are couples who for the love of God renounce themselves, wait, and pray. Couples who do not have the love of God in their marriage fall prey to other means. It is faith and the grace of sacramental marriage that inspires husbands and wives to use NFP.
—Joanne Guilette
Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin
Everyday Sorrows
Our pastor is charged with seven parishes. He has one active young priest and one priest so old that a driver is required for him to get around. Our small chapel of sixty families gets two Masses per week. A large parish in the next county gets only one Mass every two weeks. The life of the Church in this area is maintained by lay people.
I subscribed to This Rock hoping to find help in meeting the problems of the people who come to talk about them. But the people here are poor fishermen, Mexican immigrants, Vietnamese refugees, and impoverished elderly trying to live in dignity on nothing more than Social Security.
What are we to do with all those big words and theological concepts in the face of their everyday sorrows?
—Carol Bergener
Westport, Washington
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