Dear TIA,

I came to your website and as usual found many of the recent articles illuminating and am comforted that there are good Catholics helping to preserve the great treasury of tradition that many wolves are attempting to destroy.

I am disgusted at the horrendous acts that I saw in relation to Our Lord being profaned by the parody of His Passion. I can only pray that these people will come to the truth and that they will understand the price for rejecting God's mercy is indeed God's justice. It is something that they should be very aware of, especially as they feel so easy to mock Our Lord and Savior.

I just wanted to say that as I read your recent articles I came across the article of "Proper Behavior for Visits" and as I came to the piece about St. Anthony meeting St. Paul the hermit I came close to tears. Such a story of warmth and compassion and the greatness of God for keeping us humble. I thank you for producing that story on your website and I wanted you to know that I will keep that image close to me whenever I need to be humbled before God and when I feel that I am a lone Catholic voice in a sea of Novus Ordo clapping.

Many thanks for all your great work.

     Yours faithfully,

     L.S.

Dear Sirs,

If a Catholic like myself votes for a candidate who supports abortion rights, do you consider it a sin? Therefore, is it also sinful to vote for candidates who call themselves pro-life, but they oppose legislation that would encourage woman to have the baby instead of abort the baby? For example, I am talking about a candidate who opposes the 1993 Family Leave Act, opposes any tax increases, even if those monies go towards helping families with spinal bifida babies and other disabilities, and opposes any other programs that involve taxpayer money towards prenatal care. In fact, would it be fair to label such a candidate as pro-birth not pro-life, but also a phony?

Let me make this clear to you and organizations such as yours, I am a devout Catholic. My wife and I are raising five children, all of which attend Catholic schools, and I am in my second commission as an Extraordinary Minister at our parish. I am Pro Life from conception to death NOT Pro Life from conception to birth only, which appears to be what your group endorses. I oppose the death penalty and this horrific war in Iraq.

In fact, I have approached so-called Pro Life candidates in Maryland and have told them that I would vote for them if they promised to support legislation that encourages women to have the baby, even if it results in an increase in taxes. A few of them have said they would and I voted for them. The ones who said they would not, I told them that I considered them to be anything but Pro Life and I proudly voted for the other candidate who was pro abortion rights.

Let me leave you with one more question: If you lived in Louisiana in 1991, your choices for Governor were Edwin Edwards, the Democratic candidate who opposed partial birth abortion, but supported abortion rights in the first trimester and the Republican candidate was David Duke, who was against abortion in all cases. Mr. Duke of course was a member of the KKK and Nazi American Party. For whom would you tell Catholics to vote for?

By the way, I am planning on voting for Mr. Obama for President. I see and hear the Holy Spirit, and the love of Jesus Christ in him, more than I do any other candidates in the race.

     Thank you for your consideration.

     D.A.



TIA responds:

Dear Mr. D.A.,

We defend Catholic principles regarding Faith and Morals as well as their socio-political consequences in order to establish a new Christendom, as is evident in most of the articles posted on this website. We also do not fear to criticize on the doctrinal level those who are pro-abortion, pro-divorce, pro-homosexuality, etc.

However, when these principles are to be applied in actual political electoral races, we leave it to the discernment of each one of our readers. The choice of a candidate is a personal responsibility one takes before God and society.

The legal status of our organization - a non-profit corporation - does not allow us to enter the political arena to intervene either in favor or against this or that candidate.

     Cordially,

     TIA correspondence desk

TIA,

I am a reader from Brazil. I would like to share with you a concern for a danger that is becoming each day more frequent in our country, and I suppose that could also happen in yours.

The habit of drinking soft drinks or beer from cans, which has invaded almost every social class in our country, has become a means of spreading an illness that can be fatal in a short time - just some days. Let me give you an example that happened some weeks ago.

In Angra, one of the most "in" beaches for the wealthy people of Rio, a known lawyer, father of a beautiful young model, went on a Sunday fishing trip, his boat's refrigerator filled with cans. He drank quite a few straight from the cans that hot day. Monday, he was hospitalized in an Intensive Care Unit; Wednesday he died. He had been contaminated by a fulminating leptospirosis that came from the dirty cans. The cans normally are stored in warehouses where it is common to have rats. The rat urine contains leptospires, which produces the illness.

I stress that this is just one of countless examples. There is an outbreak here that is serious. Everyone knows of some case or another.

Research carried out by the Department of Vegetal Cytology at the University of Northern Rio, under the direction of Dr. Fabio Lopes Olivares, concluded that normally the tops of the cans are severely contaminated. No one should drink directly from cans before carefully washing them with water and a strong detergent.

Please, spread this among those whom you care about.

     M.C., Brazil

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