This letter is to comment on “Ferris addresses pro-life issues in diocese” in The Catholic Messenger March 4.
My letter is not to point the finger at Kent Ferris as I believe he is a very caring person who truly wants to do what is right. However, he has been placed into a position that has a history of doing little for life, in my opinion. A number of dioceses have a full-time director of Life Issues.
The major problems that I see, which I think the diocese has almost brushed aside or almost ignored, are:
1. In developing an overall Plan for our Future, our diocese does not specifically include an item for “Life Issues.”
2. An estimated 3,500 abortions are performed every year within the geographic boundaries of the diocese.
3. Our diocese includes several times that number of unborn children who are killed by abortifacient birth control every year.
4. A very large number of children are not allowed to be conceived because of contraception, some of which are also abortifacients.
5. The seriousness of these problems is made even worse because many young girls and women of child-bearing age are unaware that many of these problems are seriously sinful.
6. Some years ago the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops directed that a petition for life should be prayed every Mass. Prayer is so important and so easy to do.
7. Education is necessary, and yet how many homilies have you heard explaining the serious, sinful nature of abortion, abortifacients and birth control? How many articles on this subject have you read in our diocesan Catholic Messenger? How have our diocesan Catholic university and schools done in this area? What about the Newman Catholic Student Center at the University of Iowa?
Please pray for life and for our diocese.
Charlie Burke
DeWitt
