May/June 2000 - As Received

As Received
By Our Readers

But we meant it, Joe!
I really loved the “empty my bank account” option in the donations section of Envoy’s website. I really appreciate humor in the serious face of reason.
Joe Wittmer, Houston, Texas

A wedding he would
rather not attend
Why are you wedded to this idea of having a magazine? Why not put your magazine on the net and concentrate on selling, as a print item, apologetics tracts and other information, creating a publishing base of timeless items which should be propagated in arenas where a magazine would not be appropriate and computer access is not viable? I would love to hand my buddies at work a tract on Pope Fiction/Seventh-Day Adventist slander about the Pope wearing a 666 miter. I am not going to buy the book Pope Fiction and hand that to them, being too impoverished, and knowing they will not slog through it anyway. We are called to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. I believe the Internet approach, linked with tracts, to be most wise, and attractive to advertisers as well.
A. Gerard Nordskoven, via e-mail

We’re wedded to the idea of having a magazine mainly because we are a magazine. And we do maintain an Internet version at www.Envoymagazine.com. We agree with you that tracts, booklets, etc., are important and have a place in the work of evangelization, but so do magazines.
The Editor

Robbing the cradle
Before my brother showed me the Envoy Website about three years ago, after I picked up a copy of Envoy magazine in Steubenville, Ohio, I didn’t have much interest in my faith. (I’m a fourteen-year-old “cradle Catholic.”) But after I started reading all those articles, I began to develop a renewed love and interest in the Catholic Church. Now, I’m reading as much on faith as I can. Keep up the good work!
Amanda M., via e-mail

He wants substance
I am a subscriber to Envoy and I would like to add my comments. Call me old-fashioned (or maybe not, because I am only a nineteen-year-old apologist of two years), but I have some problems with your magazine in a couple of areas:
(1) I don’t like the “flashiness” (that is what I will call it). I think that the magazine is too appealing for the eyes, and I don’t think that is what it should be appealing to.
(2) Way too many advertisements. That is a pet peeve of mine. I don’t want to pay for a magazine’s color or advertisements.
(3) Articles are not appealing to me as an apologist. I find that the cover article is the only one that I sit down to read. Five dollars is too much for a three-page article.
This is of course me just being honest. I do like the cover articles! But that is about it. When I pick up a magazine on apologetics, I want substance.
Justin, via e-mail

Thanks for your note. I appreciate your candor and hope you will appreciate mine. Given your evident dislike of Envoy’s layout, use of color, content, flashiness and ads, I recommend you stop reading it. Envoy is what it is. So call us at 800-55-ENVOY, and we will cheerfully refund the unused portion of your subscription.
The Editor

Double the fun
I am doubling my subscription. I will keep one issue of Envoy for my library and the other I will give away to friends encouraging them to subscribe. If all Envoy readers would do this, I think we could probably boost your subscription rate to, oh, say, one billion Catholic readers, maybe more, take or give one or two. I would say I wish you luck, but why depend on luck when you have the Holy Spirit on your side? So I say may God bless you, your staff and your wonderful magazine and apostolate.
Pete, via e-mail

The “Divine Will Movement” strikes again!
I want to take this opportunity to voice my disappointment with your editorial scrutiny. I’m sure that by now, this will be no more than a whisper in the tornado, but I’ll proceed in any case.
I disapprove of your printing Fr. Terry Staples’ article, “Divine Will Hunting.” It is a shallowly authenticated piece of sensationalism, and to prove my assertion, Mr. Steve Patton has thoroughly answered all of Fr. Staples’ concerns in a lengthy treatise. I am no theologian, so I will refrain from bringing up the issues. I would like you to realize, however, that I am neither sending you a donation nor recommending your magazine to others because of this piece you ran. Your apostolate is, however, in my prayers. God bless you all.
Michael Lambert, via e-mail

We sincerely appreciate your prayers, Mr. Lambert. We can’t, however, agree with you on the “Divine Will Movement” (DWM). As Fr. Staples pointed out in his article “Divine Will Hunting” (May/June 1998), the writings of Luisa Picarretta are theologically defective in several ways. That’s a criticism we stand by firmly, even after (especially after) having examined several recent attempts by adherents of the DWM to refute Fr. Staples’ research. His arguments and conclusions are sound. And don’t forget that several eminent Catholic theologians, such as the late Fr. William Most and Fr. John Hardon, S.J., have also issued stringent criticisms and warnings about the DWM.
The Editor

Our Humor is torturous
[Your department title, “InQUIZition,” is] un-funny. The Inquisition was, in the main, a scandal. As amusing as holycaust.
Un-signed, via e-mail

We’re looking out for the one lost sheep and the 99 back home
[Envoy has a] marvelous Website, but it targets Christians more than “sinners.” Bringing Christ to the world ought to begin with “sinners,” since we Christians already know Him. Ardent users of pornographic sites won’t be interested in Envoy’s site; however, they are in real need of Christ. Therefore your subtitle “Bringing Christ to the World” seems pretentious. Are your efforts here really directed towards the needy or “boosting sales”?
Florian and Henri, via e-mail

Call us pretentious, but the fact is, we are sinners (happy to hear you’re not), and so are all the Christians we know. Envoy’s mission is to “bring Christ to the world” — and by that we mean the whole world, Christians included. We’re all in need of training in the Faith and ongoing reconversion to Christ. Wouldn’t you agree? And please, when you run across those ardent sinners, please send them our way!
The Editor

What? Us worry?
I love Envoy Magazine. It is such a wonderful use of humor and unusual (even outrageous) perspective to convey truth. I find myself looking for the little drawings in the margin of Mad Magazine, and wonder if Alfred E. Newmann isn’t really the editor of Envoy. Keep up the good work. You are in my prayers.
Sister Mary Charles, Catonsville, MD

Sin and rubbish
I love your magazine, but I find it necessary to correct Mary Beth Bonacci’s “Hating the Sin and Snubbing the Sinner” in the September/October 1999 issue. It is pure rubbish, and that includes the title. The title should reflect what Scripture says: “Depart from the unjust, and evils shall depart from you” (Ecclus. 19:2). True compassion for the sinner (in this case, sexually active homosexuals) is to admonish and reprove them. The Holy Scriptures repeat this over and over. That is not to say that we should chase them away from our churches, but rather reprove and admonish them.

If they leave, it is because they want to do their own will and not what God wants of them. If you have true compassion for them because they are different and are attracted to their own sex, would you have compassion for me if my desire was for children or animals? Come on, my dear Mary Beth, open your eyes. You’ve been duped! You don’t need to take my word for it; believe it from St. Paul. Read his letter to the Romans.
B. Emmanuel, via e-mail

Mary Beth Bonacci responds
As a matter of fact, I would have compassion for you if you were attracted to children or animals. And that, my dear B. Emmanuel, is where we differ. Because, despite these attractions, you would still be created in the image and likeness of God. He would still love you. So would I.

One difference between pedophilia and sexual sin (homo- or hetero-) between consenting adults is that the damage involved in the latter is not so easily recognized. That damage is serious, and must be addressed. But many of these sins are motivated by a sincere but misguided attempt to find love.

In these cases, the most effective “admonishing” consists in showing the sinner where real love is found — at the foot of the cross, where we lay all of our disordered attractions. And we demonstrate that by our actions as well as our words.

These people often leave the Church because they don’t understand real love — or worse, because they are turned off by the unloving attitudes of “Catholics” who supposedly do understand. And that becomes our sin as well.

Please, B. Emmanuel, when emulating St. Paul, don’t neglect his most important tenet: “Speak the truth in love” (cf. Eph. 4:15).
Mary Beth Bonacci

Form over substance?
In the November/December 1999 issue of Envoy Magazine, in the question-and-answer section by Fr. Brian Wilson, a person was asking if anyone has ever compared the blood of those who have received the Eucharist to those who have not. Fr. Wilson’s answer totally startled me because of his statement, “The bread and wine really — not physically, but sacramentally — become the Body and Blood of Christ.”

According to the Catechism of the Council of Trent, “all the constituents of a true body, such as bones and sinews,” are received. In [the papal encyclical] Mysterium Fidei, Pope Paul VI states that “after the change of the substance or nature of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and wine but the appearances, under which Christ, whole and entire, in His physical ‘reality,’ is bodily present.” I don’t really believe that Fr. Wilson doesn’t believe in the “real” presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, but I’m not sure what he meant by “not physically.” I hope he doesn’t mean only symbolically or spiritually, or that it is not the same physical body of Jesus who walked the earth two thousand years ago. St. Augustine says: “It was in His flesh that Christ walked among us and it is His flesh that He has given us to eat for our salvation” (cited in Mysterium Fidei).

There is a true “physical” presence of Jesus in the Eucharist; it cannot be detected physically by science, but it is what is laid on our tongue or put in our hand at every Mass.

Thank you for your wonderful magazine. It’s a great teaching tool for myself and my children.
Mrs. Deborah Cochran, Muenster, TX

They will know we are Christians by our . . . holding hands?
I read my first issue of Envoy and was happy that at last we had a real evangelization magazine that could be useful in bringing the love of Christ to all the world.

How disappointed I was when I read the July/August issue. How cleverly you stated your mission and included the reason people leave the church. The ridicule, the pomposity, the lack of love and compassion, biblical understanding and the complete abandonment of Christian values is evident in the harangue and the hypocritical words by one father Wilson whose answers to questions show his prowess but belie his spiritual conversion.

While the Church has always taught the scriptural reality of Pentecost and speaking in tongues, evidently Fr. Wilson would think this silly. Loving kindness in holding your brother or sister’s hand at Mass may be the only contact they have with anyone all week and is not silly as you would have us believe. This kind of ridicule and “holier than thou” attitude is exactly why our teenagers and countless others leave the church. This mindset is definitely opposite to the spirit of evangelization for Jubilee 2000.
Give us bread, not stones. Don’t send Envoy to prisons. They have enough problems without this kind of destructive rhetoric. Get real and edit your magazine.
Donel Tucker, Collinsville, OK

Poetry in motion
It’s hard to believe it is time to renew.
The reading is so fun
That time really flew.
So I would like to say with nary a pun
That your magazine is a sky full of Son.

I wish that I had a whole ton of money
So that I could send more to you!
But the blessings are many for me and my honey
For our children are two by two!
We only send renewal and prayers for your crew!
We pray that your journal keeps right on humming
Bringing hope to the wayward
And keeping banjos strumming.
And rest assured that this simple bard
Will keep preaching the Envoy message very hard.
Dan Flaherty, New Hope, KY

As Received

Going the Distance

Diplomatic Corps

Friends in the Field

Family Matters

Can We Talk?

Nuts and Bolts

What Would You Do?

Gray Matters

I Have a Question

Power Tools

Bible Basics

Random Access

Site Seeing

InQUIZition

At Ease

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