SIR – No one could fail to be moved and inspired by Sister Tarcisia Hunhoff’s work to provide sorely needed healthcare in Papua New Guinea (Leading article, February 10).
Papua New Guinea ranks second in the Western Pacific Region for estimated tuberculosis prevalence, incidence and mortality, while its TB burden has not improved since the early 1990s. Still more shocking, however, is the fact that in the 47 years that Sister Tarcisia has been working in Papua New Guinea, no new drugs to tackle TB have been developed.
The lack of research into and development of new treatments highlights a serious market failure. Consequently, during the last 50 years drug-resistant forms of TB have emerged, and as TB is the only drug- resistant infection to be spread through the air, the disease forms a particular threat to the health of every person on our planet. There is an urgent need for new ways of bringing new treatments to market at an affordable price for national public health services, including in poor countries.
Clearly all over the world Catholics are responding to the call to tend to the sick with great devotion (faith-based organisations play a critical role in Papua New Guinea’s health system, delivering more than half of all services). I believe that we Catholics in the Western world have a crucial part to play in caring for the sick by using our voices to create the political will to unlock the development of new drugs to combat TB. Let’s ask our government to ensure the development of a safe, short and successful treatment course for TB that will help put an end to this deadly epidemic.
Yours faithfully,
Sister Gillian Price FC
St Elizabeth’s Convent, Much Hadham, Hertfordshire
SIR – It is unclear what it is you refer to as “initial drafts” prepared by ICEL (Week in Review, February 3). But before your story hardens into “alternative facts”, I should like to point out that far from “many bishops’ conferences” rejecting it, ICEL’s The Sacramentary 1997/8 (a complete retranslation of the Roman Missal) was actually approved by all of the bishops’ conferences, most of them (including our own) unanimously or nem.con. It was the Congregation for Divine Worship in Rome which rejected the considered judgment of the bishops of the entire English-speaking world.
Yours faithfully,
Canon Christopher Walsh
(Chairman, ICEL Advisory Committee, 1995-2000)
St Peter’s, Ludlow, Shropshire
SIR – Cardinal Vincent’s comments about women deacons have a ring of truth (Report, February 17). As a former Anglican, I recall the push into ordination on that side of the Tiber for many women who had some ministry or pastoral involvement. It prevented a varied women’s ministry developing, and so we do have to be careful, besides the questions about whether women deacons were actually ordained or not.
What we need to remember, though, is that there might be certain parts of the world today where social conventions would make it very useful, in the absence of Religious, to have sanctioned female ministries to visit women who are sick or to assist with things like adult baptisms. In our context, we could do with a licensed form of female lay pastors to give them training and sufficient recognition so they can be active in our parishes as helpers.
Yours faithfully,
Fr Kevin O’Donnell
Rottingdean, East Sussex
SIR – Congratulations to David Baugh (February 10), Terry Guy (January 27) and Fr Bob Eccles op, (February 10) for their excellent letters. For many divorced Catholics, they get to the heart of the matter.
It is also significant to consider the way the Church deals with clergy who eventually realise that a celibate life is not for them. They can be laicised and then marry, have children and remain first-class Catholics. The repudiation of their religious vows is forgiven. What a difference in treatment from the divorced lay person who remarries but must remain celibate according to the Church if they wish to participate in the sacraments.
Life can be messy, brutal, blessed or happy. To aspire to Christ’s wish, “Be ye perfect …”, we need constant help and this is to be found at the centre of our faith, in forgiveness and the Eucharist. As this debate over Communion for the divorced and remarried rages on, we should ask ourselves: “What would Our Lord do?”
Yours faithfully,
Patrick Mitchell
Filey, North Yorkshire
SIR – Of late, the “debate” over admitting to Holy Communion the divorced and remarried has caused quite a scandal, and all because of a footnote.
This subject was already defined by St John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio, paragraph 84, in which he, in union with the synod fathers, clearly stated that “the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried.” He said to do so would lead the faithful “into error and confusion regarding the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage”.
However, contrary to certain claims that those who defend this teaching are somehow “rigid”, “unforgiving” or “unmerciful”, which John Paul would also be guilty of, those who adhere to this teaching, such as myself, do not regard such Catholics in this situation as “second-class” or “excommunicated”.
Rather, we wish to fulfil the Third Spiritual Work of Mercy, which is to “admonish the sinner”, but do so with the “solicitous care” called for by John Paul II. Incidentally, the pope said that the divorced and remarried were not “separated from the Church, for as baptised persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life”. He also stated that some such persons can receive Communion, following prescribed conditions.
As a discerner to the priesthood, I sincerely pray that the Church’s true teaching may prevail over false interpretations, and that the Holy Father puts an end to this “schism” in the Church. Ut unum sint!
Yours faithfully,
Mark Anthony Beale
By email
SIR – I write simply to thank you for Fr Ronald Rolheiser’s weekly column. We, readers of the Catholic Herald, are exceptionally blessed by his spiritual direction. Our world would be much less noxious if only we could all be more forgiving and slower to condemn. But, as Fr Ronald believes (The Last Word, February 10), there will be a happy ending: eventually older brothers will, as it were, sit alongside their prodigal brethren.
Yours faithfully,
Fr Anthony Pellegrini
Harrow, London
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