17 12, July, 2020 catholicweekly.com.au E ditorial & letters Dorin’s World Send your letters to:
[email protected] By the post: The Editor, Level 13, 133 Liverpool St, Sydney NSW 2000 AUSTRALIA Popland faces decisive vote this weekend T he struggle between the civilisa- tion of life and the culture of death in Poland is held on 12 July. If LGBT and pro-choice candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski wins the presidential elec- tions then the most likely, pessimistic scenario is the one predicted by the Pri- mate of Poland, August Hlond: “Either Poland will be a Catholic country, or it will cease to exist”. Therefore every single Hail Mary seems precious. Forming an internation- al prayer chain may save Poland from its internal and external adversaries. Paul Suski Sydney NSW Respect all round for teaching and teachers I t should be highly appreciated that teachers play a crucial role in soci- eties. They are committed to educating and developing leaders and builders of enterprises who create value for their stakeholders and society at large, devel- op ideas and leaders that transform the world, they create environments where students are supported, inspired and helped to achieve their fullest potential. They cultivate students not for only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice and oppression that burden the lives of so many. Teachers also educate students for a life of fulfilment and accomplishment, create and translate knowledge to meet global and societal needs. Teachers are responsible for bringing out our students’ talents to broaden their interests and to develop their personal qualities. They aim to foster confidence, perse- verance, tolerance and integrity; to en- hance communication skills; to embrace creativity; to encourage teamwork; and to promote an open-minded and out- ward-looking mentality so that students are ready to make a really positive contri- bution to their wider communities. We should deeply value, respect, cherish the roles discharged by teachers particularly during this difficult time of COVID 19. Handsen Chikowore London UK Communicating the Faith, Bishop shows the way F urther to your editorial ( Catholic Weekly 28 June) in which you refer to Bishop Robert Barron’s various forays into documentary and the web as outstanding examples of using modern means of communication to “ teach the truth of Jesus and to witness to him”, his 10 part DVD series Catholicism is a great example of that. In producing this documentary he travels all over the world and explains the faith through word and vision; it is stun- ning. I found the episodes where he talks about the Eucharist and Mary, particu- larly inspiring. It is expensive, at least A$150.00, but, at the moment, you can watch the series on the Word on Fire website, on a 7 day free trial or purchase a one month, all ac- cess pass for US$19.95. This series should be in every Catholic school library. His book Catholicism , based on the series, is also worth reading. Chris Rule Gilmore ACT Illegal mining, land use, devastating African nation I llegal mining in Zimbabwe is de- stroying the beautiful landscapes and ecosystems. The officials who are responsible for environment manage- ments are not holding illegal miners to account. People are also cutting down trees ille- gally and there are no efforts being done by the government to address this issue as well. Poor methods of farming usually near the river banks is also creating mas- sive soil erosion. President Emerson Mnangagwa is fail- ing to act and stop those mistreating na- ture and arrest them. Environmentalists should pressure the Zimbabwean gov- ernment to act urgently to put an end to land degradation. Kudzai Chikowore Harare, Zimbabwe Author is right: trans phobias hurt society A uthor JK Rowling is about as famous and accom- plished an author as it’s possible to get. Until re- cently she was widely admired throughout the world for her creations of a world of good and bad wizards and witches and the dramatic tales of their strug- gles. But no more. Like a number of other famous and ac- complished figures - such as Australian feminist Germaine Greer - she has earned the ire and venom of the trans activ- ist community for questioning their definitions of sex and gender, and in particular what constitutes a woman. There is something nightmarish in the transgender activ- ist lobby’s attacks on JK Rowling. But then there is something nightmarish and even grotesque in the push by gender ac- tivists to impose their own totalitarian fantasies on everyone else, including, on numerous occasions, children. But first, some background. In recent weeks, Ms Rowling has had the temerity (in the eyes of the trans activist community) to question the thinking and assumptions which underpin the whole movement as to what constitutes a woman and the uniqueness of feminine life and experience. On 6 June, Ms Rowling retweeted an article mentioning “people who menstruate,” questioning the obvious refusal to use the word ‘women.’ “‘People who menstruate,’ she tweet- ed. ‘I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Some- one helpme out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” It be- came clear that Ms Rowling’s interest in the trans issue went far deeper than the vapid reasoning of her attackers and critics when she ventured to write further on the issue of the transgender paradigmwhich declares that sex and gender are purely mental and psychological irrespective of biology and yet simultaneously material and physical. Her comments were a red rag to an enraged transgender lobby and their politically correct hangers-on. Quick to join the public denunciations and rebukes against her were the now-famous actors associated with the production of her movies who derided andmisrepresented her perfectly ra- tional and commonsense observations about the objective reality and experience of femininity as examples of intoler- ance, bigotry and prejudice. It is interesting, at this point, to observe in passing that was really happening was that indi- viduals whose sole claim to fame is the ability (to some ex- tent) to pretend to be someone else for 30 to 40 minutes over several months of filming (not exactly the greatest achieve- ment to which one might aspire in life) somehow supposed that they were now eminent masters of the entire debate surrounding the transsexual phenomenon (as opposed to the amateurish world-famous author) and somehowmoral- ly superior to her as well. Fortunately, JK Rowling is made of tougher material than that and was not cowed by the skin-deeps. “The long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones have been now been tracked over a lengthy period,” she tweeted this week. “These side-effects are oftenminimised or denied by trans activists …None of that may trouble you or disturb your belief in your own righteousness. But if so, I can’t pretend I care much about your bad opinion of me.” It is entirely likely that if JK Rowling sat down across the editorial table from The Catholic Weekly there would be plenty of debate on all sorts of issues. But, we like to think, that debate would be reasoned, rational, reasonable and above all respectful of one of the cleverest andmost accom- plished authors of the 21st Century. Yet JK Rowling, like Ger- maine Greer and other feminist writers, is perfectly correct to question the manipulation of language around feminin- ity that is at the very heart of the transgender lobby’s fanati- cism. The problem is simply defined: in an effort to appro- priate and bend the word ‘femininity’ to their own ends, the transgender lobby has to deny that masculinity and femi- ninity are, in fact, objectively real. If femininity exists, it is, in the end purely a subjective feeling. If masculinity exists, it is purely a subjective feeling. In order for this paradigm to succeed, the uniqueness of the feminine experience which includes things such as the experience of menstruation, for example, has to be - bizarrely - denied. On the issue of transgender activism and ideology, JK Rowling is really the small boy from that wonderful fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen who, alone among all the fat- uous and unctuous courtiers points out what everyone else refuses to say for fear of non-acceptance: that the Emperor is as naked as the day he was born. The transgender lobby, weirdly, want to make JK Rowling into a character from one of her own novels - She WhoMust Not Be Named. Ordinari- ly, we call such attempts at suppressing intellectual truth a form of bullying. But there is a certain fascist quality to it all as well. LETTERS For Catholic jobs go to www.catholicjobsonline.com.au