Mother Teresa’s Struggle

Dear Editor: The last few weeks have been very difficult for many Catholics as we have read about the dark decades of struggle to find God of our beloved Mother Teresa. To many of us Mother Teresa has been the “living saint” we have experienced in our lifetime and the definitive role model of what it means to be a Christian. To learn of her struggles to find and experience God is extremely troubling on initial contemplation. We all thought she must have experienced God daily in her prayer.

The liberal media has had a field day with this issue claiming that our beloved saint was an agnostic. But, was she an agnostic?  Did she waiver, even for a second, in her dedication to her work for the poor? Did she ever stop seeking God? Of course not! Being human, the daily sight of human suffering and death challenged her faith, but it never destroyed it as she persevered. She, as always, provided us a sterling example of what is required to be a Christian. Jesus has told us repeatedly in the Gospels that it will be difficult to follow him. Our faith will be challenged by the material world on a daily basis, but being faithful requires us to keep our eyes on the “Light.” Mother Teresa’s struggles simply demonstrate to all of us how we must be committed to our faith no matter what challenges the material world thrusts upon us.

Mother Teresa persevered in her faith despite a long period of darkness. How much easier it is for us to remain faithful given the miniscule challenges we experience relative to Mother Teresa.

Tony Chiarenza
Bayside 

Request to Recognize War Hero

Dear Editor: With respect to our petition to Brooklyn Community Board #3 that

Kent Ave. from Flushing to DeKalb Aves. be co-named USMC Anthony V. Manago Ave. in memory and honor of Anthony V. Manago, U. S. M.C. (1921-1945), the World War II veteran who was killed in action in the Pacific Battle of Iwo Jima in the performance of his duty and service of his country, we ask all Roman Catholics to pray for the intercession of St. Lucy through Christ our Lord. 

Anthony, the son of Italian immigrants from Calabria,  Italy, was born in Brooklyn, on Oct. 23, 1921, and was baptized at St. Lucy’s Catholic Church on Kent Ave.  He studied in New York City public schools - P.S. 157 (across the street from his home on Kent Ave.) and Boys High (Marcy Ave.), and in the Pallottine Sisters’ St. Thomas the Apostle religious education program. 

Anthony’s earliest public service to the community of  New York City was exemplified in his work as an emergency snow laborer for the Department of Sanitation of the City of New York from 1938 onward. 

Soon after the devastating surprise air attack of Imperial Japan on Dec. 7, 1941, upon Pearl Harbor, an American naval base on Oahu Island in Hawaii,  Anthony enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve,  Private First Class. He attended military boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, in 1943,  and did one year of advanced infantry training in San Francisco and the Hawaiian Islands during 1943 -1944.  He participated in action against the Japanese enemy at Guam,  Marianas Islands on Aug. 15,  1944, and in patrols against enemy stragglers on Guam,  Marianas Islands during the period of Aug. 19, 1944 to Nov.

3, 1944. From Feb. 19 to 28, 1945, Anthony, of the assault troops of the 5th Amphibious Corps, 3rd Division,  21st Marines, exhibited extraordinary heroism in action during the conquest of Iwo Jima, a vital inner defense of the totalitarian Japanese Empire. 

On March 8, 1945, subsequent to the attack of the 3rd Division on the strongest point of Japanese defenses on central Iwo Jima, he was killed in action and died of multiple fragmentation wounds to his back. He was awarded the Purple Heart, the “Presidential Unit Citation with ribbon bar and star” to the assault troops of the 5th Amphibious Corps, the “Victory Medal World War II” and the “Asiatic – Pacific Campaign Medal.” 

On April 20, 1948, Mayor William O’Dwyer, remembered Anthony as a veteran “who so honorably gave his life that others might enjoy peace and freedom.” On Sept. 28, 1956, the Anthony V. Manago Memorial Post No. 1816 was issued a permanent charter by the American Legion, and has been a focal point for social consciousness and individual enhancement of veterans and their families in Bedford-Stuyvesant through multiple American Legion programs for decades. 

On June 5, 2006, Brooklyn Community Board No. 3 (Bedford-Stuyvesant) recognized Anthony’s extraordinary valor and sacrifice during World War II in supporting with a vote of 40-to-1 the request to rename Taaffe Playground, in the neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, USMC Anthony V. Manago Park. However, Council Speaker Quinn has stated in her letter of June 27, 2007 that “the Council does not currently consider Community Board requests for the naming of City parks or playgrounds. Under the New York City Charter, it is not within the authority of a Community Board to mandate Council action on the naming of a park or playground, nor is it among the Council’s responsibilities to act on a Community Board’s proposed name change for a park or playground.”

Since it is presently among the City Council’s responsibilities to act on a Community Board’s proposed name change for a city street, we humbly request that Kent Ave. from Flushing to DeKalb Aves. be conamed USMC Anthony V. Manago Ave. 

In his letter of Oct. 25, 1944, Anthony V. Manago expressed his faith in the Catholic communion of saints: “Yesterday, I received a nice medal. It’s a saint I got from a girl in Brooklyn. The saint Mama gave me I lost quite some time ago, so I put this one on. You should see how nice it is!”  

Let us pray to St. Lucy through Christ our Lord that Anthony V. Manago is publicly honored as an American Catholic soldier who sacrificed his life so that we may have peace and freedom.

Joseph N. Manago
Brooklyn

Editor’s Note: Joseph N. Manago is the nephew of the late Anthony V. Manago.

Thanks to Bensonhurst Pastor

Dear Editor: I am a parishioner at St. Dominic’s Church, Bensonhurst. We would like to thank our pastor, Father Guy Sbordone, Father Ellis and the staff. We are so very grateful that every Friday after the last Mass that our Blessed Sacrament is exposed for us. This does not happen in many of the churches today except for the First Fridays and special occasions. People are coming from all over the neighborhood. We also observed more and more people are in attendance on Friday mornings.

Once again a very special “Thank you” from all of us.

Fannie Catanzaro
Brooklyn

Unborn’s Health at Risk

Dear Editor: One of the recent “News Briefs” in The Tablet (Aug. 11, “Catholic Leaders Praise Children’s Health Care Vote”) reports on the satisfaction of the “heads of the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Charities” with the actions of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate for approving legislation that would expand funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). This program covers uninsured children. The article mentioned that this new SCHIP program would cover three million more children than the existing one, which expires on Sept. 30, 2007.

However, LifeNews.com, in its Aug. 3, 2007 Pro-Life News Report, has three articles on this subject, and all of them point out that although the revised SCHIP program does extend coverage, the legislation also does away with an important provision of the current program – the Unborn Child Rule, which allows coverage to mothers and their unborn children. One of these three articles (“House Backs CHAMP Act Pro-Life Groups Opposed On Abortion, Euthanasia”) notes that the “Bush administration put (this Rule) in place to give states the option of providing medical coverage to pregnant mothers and their unborn children by including them along with children after birth.”

It says that 11 states have such coverage for these unborn children, and that the elimination of this coverage poses the risk that pregnant mothers will consider abortion alternatives. Some pro-life groups, according to the article, believe that this will lead to more abortions funded by the taxpayers.

Frank Drollinger
Woodhaven

Climate Change and Animals 

Dear Editor: Nowhere do I read of the effect global warming is having on God’s creatures, namely, the marine mammals. Every day I’m reading in Newsday and other various newspapers of the detrimental effect it is having on the polar bears, so much so that the Bush administration has enlisted the polar bear as threatened on the endangered species list.

Climate change effects every living being from a seedling to a butterfly whether pollination is happening sooner or later. Animals are in sync with the land and its environment. Everything is timing. If the seasons change drastically, it could have a dramatic effect.

It is God’s life-changing force that we must confront ourselves with. Are you going to help Him to help others that are less unfortunate, whether they be man or animal?

What would St. Francis think?

Joan Silaco
Queens Village