Letters to the Editor for Friday, September 6, 2019:
America needs heart transplant
Christ teaches us that evil words and hateful deed flow from corrupt, sick hearts, the source of sinful behavior. A profound massive conversion of heart is needed in our society to counteract mass shootings.
The Quran reminds us, “God does not change the condition of a people, unless they change the condition within their hearts.”
Our sick, disturbed society needs a massive heart transplant, removing hardened, stony and hateful hearts, giving us new hearts filled with God’s love, mercy and respect for all human beings on planet earth. Band-Aid solutions will no longer work to solve what is basically a deep spiritual problem. We need to examine the root cause of these tragedies.
Our constant prayer must be the scriptural cry: Lord, create in me, in us, a new heart.
This heart transplant can only be done by the divine physician. Simply put, we urgently need God’s help to pull us out of the quagmire of hate, anger and violence.
The antidote to our sickness is not just stricter laws, but stricter observance of the most basic command of love and respect for one another. Be the change you want for a better world.
This heart transplant begins with prayer, and using the divine medicine given to us in the prayer of St. Francis: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hate, let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is doubt faith. Where there is darkness light, and where there is sadness joy.”
Michael Pfeifer, OMI
Bishop emeritus
Diocese of San Angelo
Presidents’ debts noted
Letter writer Imelda Coronado on Aug. 9 continued blaming Obama-Biden for the national debt and somehow praising Donald Trump by comparison. Previously, in her June 12 letter the dollar amount she faulted Obama-Biden for was a total $9 trillion increase over eight years, yet an easy Google search informs that Trump’s increase has been $2 trillion so far, more than George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each in the same period of their terms, and that he is on track to add $9 trillion over a projected eight years, the same amount she criticized Obama-Biden for.
Meanwhile, she ignored Trump’s having campaigned to obliterate the national debt in its entirety, never mind the added dimension of fiscal criminality and lack of ethics in exorbitant costs for those constant golf trips to his own properties, the security expenses including charging rent to those government employees, and the looting of public offices by his family members and fat-cat appointees.
His supporters justify their diehard allegiance on their having known what they were getting. The rest of us also knew.
John Garza
McAllen
Keep better track of former felons
In June the city of Mission lost a brother in blue who was killed by an armed convicted felon. I implore our state representatives to pass a law in the name of Cpl. Jose Espericueta and call it “Speedy’s Law.”
Currently convicted felons report to their probation officers, if they are on probation, but what about the thousands in Texas who are past parole and without supervision? This law would authorize local and state law enforcement to conduct random home visits to ensure that convicted felons are free of weapons and narcotics. They would use K-9 detector dogs that are capable of seeking out drugs and guns. This law would also cover federally convicted felons who reside in Texas.
I know there will be some civil libertarians out there who will be concerned about civil rights violations of these felons, but in my humble opinion these criminals forfeited those rights when they chose to be on the wrong side of the law. So with that in mind I ask the readership of The Monitor to call their state representatives so they can craft a law that will keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons in the state of Texas, and give our men in blue a safer work environment.
Jake Longoria
Mission
