Saratoga News
Letters & Opinions
Speak Out
Ceremony was
historic and
beautiful
I am writing in response to the two negative letters concerning Juanita Cordero's ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood ("Altaring Experience," Sept. 25). I was privileged to be present at and participated in this beautiful public and historical ceremony. When Don Cordero (Juanita's husband) and their five children presented Juanita to the Bishop to be ordained, I found it to be a most moving experience.
When institutions stagnate, they die. The number of vocations to the priesthood has declined. An institution is not meant to be exactly as it was when it was founded. We are an evolving humanity. Hopefully, churches embrace both the human and the divine.
In a church that has been patriarchal since its founding, there needs to be a balance of the feminine. Women speak with a different voice; we need both voices. Churches as a microcosm of the larger world should be leading the way.
I salute these women and the male bishops who were willing to support them in their mature reflection and conscious decision to take a timely next step in this evolutionary process. I hope that others will embrace this act as a positive one. It has always been my understanding that the people are the church, not the hierarchy. I hope that the spirit speaks through us all.
Jo-Ann Seiquist
Los Gatos
Cohen's Vietnam
column had one
reader laughing
David Cohen's article ("Hanoi memories conflict with today's reality," Nov. 20) had me laughing when he stated a post-Christian Jane Fonda "repented for such deviltry" when she visited Hanoi during the Vietnam War.
I'm not sure where Mr. Cohen is getting his information, but in 1998 Jane Fonda admitted regret about visiting Hanoi during the Vietnam War. This is well before she became a Christian in 2001. As far as deviltry is concerned, the people who should have "repented" are the American politicians who escalated the war, which resulted in a total death count of 5.1 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans.
I know the reality of the Vietnam War doesn't make for good reading when Mr. Cohen expresses how great the shopping and golfing is today in Vietnam, but he should never forget the lives that were unnecessarily wasted even if he is enjoying the lush scenery on the back nine.
Mr. Cohen asks the question, "What will Baghdad and Kabul remind our now young people of in 40 years?" If the ultimate goal in Afghanistan and Iraq is to make them tourist destinations, then this country has truly lost its moral compass.
James Diaz
San Jose
Religious opinion
not just writer's
imagination
In a Nov. 28 Saratoga News letter ("Letter an example of 'the pot calling the kettle black," by William Lorton), a reader suggested I imagined my opinion that priests be married men. Most Catholics believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, and yet they refuse to read it. I am not among them.
A married male priesthood has sound basis in the Old Testament. John the Baptist's father was a priest. The New Testament is drenched with sources, such as 1 Timothy 3:1-5, Titus Chapter 1, 1 Corinthians 9:5, all calling for married men with families to serve clerical church positions, such as bishops, deacons and preachers.
Until 1139, when celibacy was made mandatory, the majority of priests, bishops and even popes in universal Church Tradition, were married. St. Patrick, noted for having converted most of Ireland to Christianity in 432, was a deacon's son and the grandson of a priest.
I repeat: Diocesan clergymen should be able to marry at any time. It is time for Catholics to become educated, and stop the spiritually weak from leading the spiritually weak, illustrating the biblical verse, "My people perish for lack of knowledge." God's truth is at the foundation of our living church, and its growth is by his design.
Ronna Devincenzi
