LETTERS

National Catholic Reporter, March 5, 1999

Of food and farmers

* I was disappointed that your Feb. 12 cover story, "Food for thought," did not call your readers to be more responsible for their health.

This year during the stewardship campaign for the Louisville, Ky., archdiocese, I was pleased to see that their brochure named our bodies as an area of stewardship responsibility.

If the American public understood the relationship between the food they eat and their health, they would not demand more meat. There would be no need for so-called mega-farms.

Because Americans are unable to separate advertising from medical information, they are fixated about getting enough protein. The truth is that the average. American diet contains too much protein. According to the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Diabetes Association, it is the food we eat that causes over 50 percent of our deaths.

For example, women are told to increase their calcium intake to prevent osteoporosis, but no one mentions the scientific fact that the more protein eaten the less calcium is absorbed.

For me, taking care of this wonderful God-given body is not about being one of the "beautiful people." It is about keeping myself as healthy as possible for as long as possible in order to serve God and the people God sends into my life as well as not being a burden to my community, family and society.

(Sr.) BEA KELLER, SCN Louisville, Ky.

* Daniel Finn, professor of economics and theology at St. John's University, has written Just Trading, an examination of international trade and its implications for the Christian faith.

Finn points out that most federal aid to farmers, including price supports, helps the large factory farms, not the small farmer. Price support programs are highly inefficient, costing as much as $12 for each $1 that goes to the small farmer. Agricultural support programs raise the cost of food for the poor in this country. These programs lower the demand for food grown in developing nations, lowering incomes and raising unemployment among their rural poor.

Daniel Finn places our agricultural policy in the context of worldwide economics. How can we best care about the poor, including the poor farmer, of the Two-thirds World? Do our well-intended farm support policies actually reward the factory farm here and hurt the poor farmer abroad?

(The Rev.) WILLIAM E. OLEWILER Tazewell, Va.

Pope in St Louis

* Was I the only one who heard the pope ask his American people to stay in the church? This deserved a headline. The Vatican message I read always said to get out.

The pope knows that he is the church. The people of God know that they are the church. We dissenters are not dissenting from the church we love, we simply ask that church officials include us in their deliberations.

The pope's visit left all of us who watched and listened almost in tears as this holy old man struggled to outline his love for us all and our need to repair our lives and our society. His recognition that our bishops have yet to address significantly the racism built into Catholicism here was timely.

What is strange is his apparently not being aware that justice delayed is injustice in the matter of women's possible role in church governance. Were he to order his bishops to have their councils peopled with women, too, and were he to outline where women might add their special and differing gifts in Rome itself, we might have a sense that justice was not being delayed.

R.C WILSON Stow, Ohio

* I write to express my sadness and disappointment with the coverage (or lack of it) of the prayer vigil on the eye of the pope's visit to St. Louis (NCR, Feb. 5).

As a member of a reform organization in St. Louis, I eagerly anticipated interviews with the six courageous women who saw a need for a response to the papal visit that was both prayerful and public. I hoped to see stories if those who had risked their jobs or their volunteer ministries to stand in solidarity for women in the church that cold night. The local and national media covered the visit from every conceivable angle.

As the voice of reform in the church, NCR could have shown more interest, support and respect for those who do the work and take the risks for justice in the church. St. Louis is a conservative diocese with a hierarchy that has become increasingly hostile to those supporting reform. Those who planned the vigil went to great lengths to avoid the terms dissident and protest, both of which were used in Pamela Schaeffer's article in your Feb. 5 issue. Catholic Women for Justice would have been happy to explain why.

BARBARA GUILDS Florissant, Mo.

Catholic musicians

* As the associate director for the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry and manager of the National Catholic Youth Conference, the largest regular gathering of Catholic young people in the United States, I would like to personally invite Robin Taylor meet some of our Catholic musical friends.

The National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry has a long-standing commitment to raising up the gifts of Catholic performers by providing them with the opportunity to share their ministry with national crowds of young people -- a crowd that we expect will exceed 20,000 this year. Catholic musicians like Steve Angrisano and Tom Tomaszek, David Kauffman (whose first CD from Damascus Road Records hits the stores this month), Bruce Deaton and Jesse Manibusan are a few of the "rocks" in Catholic popular music. They have mentored newer Catholic artists, often helping them get time on our conference stages. They are "best of the best" in Catholic music and well-known among Catholic young people.