Spitzer Throws Us a Bone

Dear Editor: Before we start praising the Spitzer proposal for assistance to parents of private school children, let’s do the math.  To call this a $1,000 tax credit is misleading. The $1,000 is not a credit or reduction of N.Y. income tax. It is a credit against taxable income. 

So if the tax rate is 5%, it produces a $50 savings for parents. Consequently, this is meaningless to a family paying a $2,000 tuition bill.  Further, it is a family credit, so if you are paying tuition for more than one student, its meaning is further diminished.

Even if the credit against income was raised to $5,000, the savings could be only a $250 reduction in taxes which would not mean too much against tuition bills going into the thousands.

Clearly this approach of a credit against income produces only a pittance. It is nothing we Catholics should dance in the streets about. If it was a credit against our income tax, it would have more meaning. What is really needed is a $1,000 per student grant to be used in any way helpful.

 Joseph T. Gunn
Queens Village

Can't Afford the Tuitions

Dear Editor: I am always saddened to read about parish school closings. However, I am not surprised. 

As a father of four and someone who went to Catholic school for 12 years, I always figured I would be sending my children to Catholic school as well. 

The tuition rates have made it impossible. In my parish it costs over $3,500 for one child, over $5,200 for two children and more than $6,700 for three. 

On top of that, I have to dedicate 12 hours of service time toward fundraising or be billed another $300. This in addition to the money I put in an envelope every Sunday. 

I’m sorry but even with the jobs my wife and I are juggling, these amounts are way out of our league. No wonder enrollment is down all over the country.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to deal with the negatives that come with a NYC public education for a Catholic family.

 NAME WITHHELD
Queens

Thanks to Father Vitus

Dear Editor: I wanted to say at the Church of St Rosalia/Regina Pacis, the priest, Father Vitus, is doing a great job.

There is a Chinese Mass every Sunday at 1:30 p.m. and the Chinese come together in wonderful prayer. Father Vitus also helps out with daily English Masses and on weekends he is a full-time priest working greatly with the Chinese community.

Stephen Lucci 
Bensonhurst

Two Views on 'The View'

Dear Editor: The virulently pre-meditated and blatantly anti-Catholic attack on celibacy and the priesthood in a recent broadcast of “The View” by show panelists, Joy Behar and Rosie O’Donnell, is but one more bigoted and narrow-minded escalation in the ongoing war being waged by the secular humanist disciples of the anti-Christ brigade in the electronic, broadcast and written media of our country and world.

Barbara Walters is the silent cheer leader and den mother of these malicious, Culture of Death cry-babies, who use every opportunity to vent their spleen and express their hatred of the Church and faith in which they were raised, where God’s rules supersede man’s rules. They cannot live by God’s rules, so they kneel before the materialist altar of man’s rules and wage an obscene war on the Catholic Church and its teachings.

In their twisted philosophies, they probably believe, that they are somehow, a force for good in a world ruled, far too often, by evil. Satan is a sly, cunning, and crafty fox, as we have all been warned, who will twist our very souls, if we allow him.

Satan is alive and well and he lives in the minds and hearts of those who hate and attack God’s rules as stated in the Commandments and handed down by the apostles and their successors.

Their attacks on celibacy and the priesthood are simply cheap shots at the Catholic Church and its faith-based teachings. They do not believe that celibacy serves any useful purpose, because they do not and will not understand the underlying grace and blessings that are attached to the very act of the celibate state of life. It requires great strength, courage and sacrifice to live a celibate life. The minions of secular humanist culture cannot and/or will not make this sort of sacrifice, because they do not possess the moral strength of character to live or understand such a blessed life, so they mock it and denigrate it, like spoiled, sophomoric children in a temper tantrum.

Maybe it’s time for us to have a temper tantrum of sorts and speak-up. We can write letters and e-mails to the sponsors and the networks, we can boycott products and we should. But in the end, the most effective weapon we have is prayer. So let’s be about asking God to enlighten these poor twisted individuals, who so hate His Church and pray that they will change before they have to stand before God’s throne in final judgment and explain to Him, just how and why, man’s rules are more important than His rules.

Robert J. Fallon, PSD
NYS Knights of Columbus
Dyker Heights

Dear Editor: There are many men and women who go through life without sex, not only nuns and priests who perhaps realize they can do more of God’s work without all the responsibilities of a family and not put a family at risk from the evil one, but, widows and widowers who believe they will be with their mates for eternity. Many women and men, who never marry or have divorced, do not make sex the most important issue in their lives and live very creative and giving lives. 

Unfortunately, it is only that some of society gives so much attention to sex that people are made to believe that no one can live without sex or they are made to feel embarrassed to say they live a life without sex. Even some of the medical profession will do a double take if after a certain age you say you are not sexually active and have not been for many years. Remember not to judge all of society by Hollywood or the media, because many people do not live the kind of lives that they glorify.

Beside praying for them, we Catholics should unite and start suing the media for always attacking us.  It is definitely prejudice and the sad part is that most of them know and should reread “The Parable of the Rich Man” and Lazarus, Luke 16, 19 to 31, where the rich man wanted Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers so they would not suffer the same torments of that horrible place.

Abraham said, “If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.” 

Well God relented and has made many people have after death experiences and come back to tell us about seeing hell and purgatory there. Guess what, people still do not listen. 

Frances Ruocco
Brooklyn

Edwards Wants to Be What

Dear Editor: John Edwards wants to be president of the United States. Yet he connects to Internet groups (what kind? we ask) by hiring bloggers who make anti-Catholic attacks and mock our Lord. Then they say its just satire! It is not satire to make obscene comments about our Blessed Mother conceiving Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Was it the Catholic Church or just the Pope who was called a Nazi Facist? I missed the satire there too.

Marcotte and McEwan are bloggers. Their blogs are their credentials for being hired by Edwards. This is offensive and shows lack of judgment. The “unfortunate incident” is Edwards choosing to associate his campaign with attacks on the Church and our Lord.

If the only politically correct bigotry is against the Catholic Church and God then Catholics and The Tablet need to clearly expose such bigotry and stand up for Jesus. And we need to demand better from political candidates.

 Jane Donlon
Middle Village

Proud of Whitestone Principal

Dear Editor: Kudos are in order for Mrs. Eleanor Menna, principal of Holy Trinity School, Whitestone. Under her guidance, four of the 24 eighth graders gained acceptance into specialized high schools. All students have been accepted to Catholic high schools and, one boy came in first place as the Queens entry in the Black History Month Essay Contest.

We are proud of our eighth graders but, even more so of Mrs. Menna, who has worked so diligently to assure the success of these aspiring minds.
Mrs. Menna is truly shaping the future, one student at a time.

Stella L. Wilson
College Point

Student Loved Sister Jane

Dear Editor: I was saddened to read of the passing of Sister Jane Driscoll I.H.M. Sister not only taught locally at St. Ephrem, Dyker Heights, 1939-43, as you stated. She was my homeroom teacher at Immaculata High School, 317 East 33rd St.,Manhattan, in the late ’60s. 

Sister Jane was a lovely person, kind and caring. In this day and age of picking and pecking on a computer keyboard, it was Sister Jane who taught us to type the “old fashioned way.” We had to memorize the keyboard by looking up at a chart of the keyboard, with fingers on keys and eyes on chart we would practice. 

Sister Jane was very instrumental in making my high school experience one of many happy memories.

She was a good, faithful servant. May she rest in peace.

Patricia M. Wise
Maspeth