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I have followed AP articles over the years and I have written several "Letters to the Editor" Fortunately they have been published. We all know that Christianity and especially the Catholic Church is in the cross hairs of the media. It is up to the laity to follow what is written. I am sorry to say that the laity is larthargic especially in the Catholic Church. Following is one example:

April 26, 2004

Dear Editor:

I have a few comments about your recent articles and the religiosity of those of Mifflin and Juniata Counties.

It is amazing how a newspaper as yours can give a front-page headline above your masthead to a march in Washington, “Abortion Rights Activists…” April 26, 2004 and a five column spread to the story that you picked up from AP that is so full of miss-leads it makes your newspaper
appear to be in agreement with these people. Your using AP’s estimated crowd size “to between 500,000 and 800,000 strong” contradicts other published reports such as the leftist’s “Democratic Free Speech’s” estimate of 1 million strong or one Web site’s 250,000 strong. Which estimate was correct? Which crowd size should be published? Maybe leaving out unsupported crowd size would have been more objective on your part?

By comparison it is also amazing that the coverage you gave the Pro-Life March in January of this year consisted of a two-column article that consisted of as much verbiage from the Culture of Death people as the Pro-Life people. Not only was your coverage pale by comparison, you also disjointed the article by showing one picture and that was of the Culture of Death protesters. I noticed that your April 26, 2004 Culture of Death article was very consistent in that you gave prominent space to the usual “gang” of
Hollywood starlets who I would suspect would get such fanfare from the tabloids, not from a family newspaper.

In addition using a quote from Frances Kissling from the April 26 article that you failed to research is appalling. For me to quote her would be too inane but I give another of her famous quotes from another time: “I spent twenty
years looking for a government that I could overthrow without being thrown in jail. I finally found one in the Catholic Church.” That is how Frances Kissling, the president of Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), explained her mission to a reporter from the magazine, Mother Jones.” To print a quote from an apostate Catholic who has been rejected by the Church and who has rejected the Church is very questionable on your part.

For your information, on November 4, 1993, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) released a statement about Kissling’s group stating, “Many people, including Catholics, may be led to believe that it [CFFC] is an authentic Catholic organization. It is not. It has no affiliation, formal or otherwise, with the Catholic Church.” The bishops added that CFFC “is associated with the pro-abortion lobby in Washington, D.C.” and
“attracts public attention by its denunciations of basic principles of Catholic morality and teaching….” And in May 2000, the president of the NCCB, Bishop Joseph Fiorenza, denounced the group for its rejection and distortion of the Church’s teachings on life issues. As the foregoing quote
indicates, Ms Kissling is not quite accepted by the Church and if you did your research you would see such information on her.

Another example of your lack of research was the “Putting Kerry on the 'wafer watch” article by Ellen Goodman, April 15, 2005. You also printed a quote from Ms Kissling: “The whole thing, fumed Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice, turned us into a nation of "eucharistic Peeping
Toms": "I hope the bishops are satisfied that the sacraments of the church are now the subject of a media frenzy." The only “media frenzy” created is by Ms Kissling.

Your positioning and carrying of the abortion article with its lack of credibility and Goodman’s article comparing Holy Eucharist to a “wafer” is an affront to not only Catholics but also Christians as a whole. It is your responsibility to make sure the articles you carry are either correct or have truth in them. Neither of these articles has either. Do you not check your story content or is your reporting such that “we go with whatever is given us”. We surely do not want to be accused of yellow journalism, do we?

And while I am berating your newspaper let me turn your readers attention to the following: "So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:16)

The reason for the forgoing quote is that you recently had an editorial that made excellent points on abortion. At the same time as your editorial I was in the midst of sending 164 letters to churches in Mifflin and Juniata

Counties seeking their aid in starting a Pro-Life Chapter. To date I have heard from 1 person who said her pastor gave her the letter to check. I followed the letter campaign with two advertisements in your newspaper’s

“Religion” section asking for the same aid as in the letters. The advertisements received no response. The forgoing quote from St. John is what our Lord said to him about the church at Laodicea. It was a city of great wealth, so the Laodiceans didn’t have to rely on anyone. They had obtained their wealth from textiles, largely
the production of black wool, and from banking.
Our Lord did not “spit” the church of Laodicea out because of its wealth.

He “spit” it out because it did not have time for the spiritual things and for the luke warmness of its clergy and congregation towards faith and morals.

For all I know He may have “spit” out the church because it did not respond to a letter asking for some aid in a very spiritual, moral matter.

Let not our churches fit John’s description. 43 million abortions since 1973 means 43 million women’s lives have been affected. I would hate to be the person who will have to face these babies on Judgment Day when they ask,

“Why did you do this to us?” Let us make an effort in aiding those unfortunate women and babies now! Let us not be lukewarm but have fire in our spirit.