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Voices Online Edition
Pentecost 2002
Volume XVII, No. 2Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor are not published online. Below is a sample of the letters and questions we receive along with our response. See the Join Page for information on receiving Voices.
About Letters ... We are very glad to get your letters, and we read each one. We print as many as we can, and give preference to those of widest interest. All published letters may be edited. Please include your name and address (which may be withheld on request). If your letter is not intended for publication, please tell us. Letters may also be e-mailed: EDITOR
Sample Letter to the Editor - MOMS?
Hello, I'm a wife and mother and have been a Catholic all my life. It has only been the past five years that my faith has deepened and grown, and I want to be faithful to the Church that Jesus has started. I also want a greater fellowship with other Catholic mothers.
Because of this, MOMS (Ministry of Mothers Sharing) seemed attractive to me and I joined a session. I was shocked at its non-Catholicism. It was supposed to help us spiritually, but we said not a single Our Father or Hail Mary. In fact there was no mention of the Blessed Mother at all. I would think that she would be the epitome of a Godly, spiritual mother!
What is your view of MOMS? Is my experience with it unique? The book I got for participating (MOMS -- A Personal Journal) was very "inner self" focused.
Thank you, and may God bless your work abundantly,
Carol Contreras
via e-mail
Response
MOMS is the creation of Benedictine Sister Paula Hagan, of St. Paul's Monastery, St. Paul, Minnesota. It is a plan for small-groups focused on spirituality and "self-awareness". The materials are published by Resource Publications of San Jose, California.
The Resources for On-Going MOMS Groups lists works by radical feminist writers such as Sister Joan Chittister, OSB (Wisdom Distilled from the Daily), Sister Miriam Therese Winter (The Gospel According to Mary, A New Testament for Women), and Wendy Wright (Sacred Dwelling, Forest of Peace).Your negative impression of the "Personal Journal" spirituality workbook was very well-founded -- as a glance inside its appealing "cross-stitch" cover confirms.
It opens with a "psalm" by Edwina Gateley, of Call-to-Action fame, from her book, Psalms of a Laywoman.
Quotes from Sister Kathleen Hughes, RSCJ, (Lay Presiding: The Art of Leading Prayer), and Sister Anne E. Carr, BVM (Transforming Grace) are included, among others.
Sister Hughes, a feminist liturgist, was for many years a member of the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), a group that provided problematic English liturgical translations.
Sister Anne Carr is a member of the radical Catholic Women's Network, and was a signer of the infamous 1984 "pro-choice" ad in the New York Times sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice.
The list could go on.
MOMS resources do not contain even one single reference to any work of Pope John Paul II, utterly ignoring his profound insights into the meaning of family (Familiaris Consortio), human life (Evangelium Vitae) and womanhood (Mulieris Dignitatem). Considering the purpose of MOMS, this is astonishing.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is not cited even once, unsurprisingly.The idea of Catholic women getting together for fellowship, prayer and study is great. This is one of WFF's goals, in fact. But MOMS is not the answer.
We'd be glad to give you suggestions for a prayer-and-study group that would be completely faithful to Catholic teachings, and truly helpful to the members of the group.
"Suggestions for parish/local meetings"
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