Below are NCR readers’ responses to recent news articles, opinion columns, and theological essays, with letters edited for length and clarity.
Women were deacons
The most important fact missing from Elizabeth Schrader Polczer’s “In considering a female diaconate, look to Mary Magdalene” (ncronline.org, July 20, 2024) is the history of women
sacramentally ordained women deacons, both in the East and the West. It is very dangerous to propose an unordained “female diaconate,” as Pope Francis seems to have proposed in his CBS-TV interview with Norah O’Donnell. Women can no longer officially be second-class citizens in the Catholic Churches. One sign of hope is that the Orthodox Church in Zimbabwe recently resumed the tradition of ordained women deacons.
JAZMIN JIMÉNZ
Manhattan Beach, California
***
Pro-lifers are not single-issue voters
As a lifelong Democrat and Catholic, I have never voted on just one issue. I was quite shocked by Michael’s article on women’s reproductive rights. The issue is much more complicated than abortion.
Over the years I have trained my conscience through prayer, reading, and retreats. I am committed to justice, peace, and freedom of choice. The suggestion that Catholics would leave the Democratic Party because of women’s suffrage is ridiculous and judgmental.
Personally, I don’t believe in abortion for abortion’s sake. But I can’t impose my Catholic belief system on other women’s choices – that’s what the white nationalists are trying to do. I reject that approach. Michael needs to listen to the women speaking at the Democratic National Convention tonight and hear their stories about the choices they were forced to make.
I usually enjoy Michael’s articles, from which I learn a lot of important nuances, but his argument that Democrats are leaving the party because of abortion is presumptuous. We women are more nuanced.
JOYCE DUROSKO
Monroe, Michigan
***
Trump’s immigration is deadly for democracy
J. Kevin Appleby’s column on Trump’s immigration plans focused on important implications for the nation and the church (ncronline.org, August 12, 2024). But it did not show the overall impact of this phase of Trump’s gonzo approach to governance, which is attacking our basic institutions and deeply held values. It did not discuss the real risks Trump’s plan poses to the Latino community as police and border patrol agents round up people who look like Hispanics. Previous mass deportations of the Hispanic community have been human rights and civil liberties disasters. The Welfare Repatriation Deportation of the 1930s deported nearly two million people, half of whom were U.S. citizens. Two decades later (1954-55), the Eisenhower administration implemented Operation Wetback, deporting another million Hispanic residents, including tens of thousands of American citizens. More recently (in the mid-2000s), Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s officers conducted “immigration patrols” and arrested hundreds of Hispanics who were racially profiled in Phoenix, Arizona. When Arpaio refused to comply with a court order to stop this practice, he was convicted of criminal contempt but later pardoned by President Trump. Donald Trump poses a real danger to the Hispanic community.
DR. DAVID L. ALTHEIDE
Solana Beach, California
***
