I was deliberating who I should mail the postage-paid postcard Canada Post has sent to every household, when I thought of sending it to Dr. Bonnie Henry with a message of gratitude and a plea to allow places of worship to reopen in time for Easter.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Dr. Henry’s mailbox was filled with heartfelt messages of encouragement along with our request?

May this extra-long Lenten sacrifice lead to an extra-jubilant Easter!

Pat Rivard
Surrey


So three churches have been given an exemption to hold worship services outdoors. Why not all the other churches? Does every single church have to take the government and health authorities to court just to get their constitutional rights awarded?

A virus with a 99 per cent recovery rate doesn’t justify suspending the Constitution. Either shut down restaurants and stores or open up the churches. Businesses can spread viruses far easier than a church ever could. This is hypocrisy of the highest order.

Jerome Desilets
Powell River


As we enter the second year of the coronavirus trial, there may be a spark of hope for the opening of churches. Thanks to the courage and faith of three Fraser Valley churches we, by the Grace of God, may find ourselves celebrating the victorious rising from the dead of our Lord Jesus inside our churches.

Watching Pope Francis celebrate Mass in Irbil, Iraq, I was touched by the historic Christian context of the places he visited and by the faith of the remaining Christians in Iraq. At the same I was saddened by the tragedy of the invasion and destruction of Iraq under fabricated pretexts, a land where Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Yazidis, and others have lived in relative peace and friendship.

A common thread between these two events is that most Western governments do not respect and protect the rights and moral codes of religious people. By closing our churches and depriving us of God’s spiritual nourishment and our right to free religion and worship, they not only forced their atheistic attitudes on us but also their prejudice and scorn. 

Anton (Tony) Gazdik
Campbell River

 

Re “Pope’s Iraq visit shows solidarity with Christians,” (B.C. Catholic, March 8)

While it is noteworthy and commendable for Pope Francis to visit Iraq to stand with the “unprotected and mistreated” Christians of that beleaguered nation, one wonders why he does not seem to extend the same degree of sympathy and empathy toward Catholics in China and Hong Kong.

In China, the faithful members of the underground Catholic Church – as opposed to the so-called “patriotic” Catholic Church where God is placed somewhere below the Chinese Communist Party – have been under increasingly severe persecution. Christian worship has been significantly curtailed and restricted and, as a result of the controversial agreement between the Holy See and China, the Chinese government now has the right to nominate candidates for bishops. Chinese Catholics are being forced to accept the gospel of Xi Jin-Ping.

In Hong Kong, the once vibrant Catholic community has been muffled, and democracy advocates, including many Catholics (media tycoon Jimmy Lai among them), have been arrested and incarcerated, guilty until proven otherwise. They face the very real risk of imprisonment within China. Civil servants in Hong Kong are now forced to swear an oath of allegiance to the state.

I implore the Holy Father to speak out for the “unprotected and mistreated” Catholic Church in China and Hong Kong, to speak up and speak out for the voiceless and for all those faithful Catholics who can no longer speak for themselves. 

Patrick May
Vancouver