It is difficult to reconcile construction and environment
Ms. Ludtkes Your Turn column, Jan. 15, touched on a topic that is very dear to the hearts of many Cape communities. All of us agree that affordable housing is an urgent need in Cape Town. We are also keen to preserve the character and integrity of our towns, as well as protect our fragile sandstone spit from overbuilding.
How can we reconcile our desire to preserve the environment and our need for housing? Wellfleet owns nine acres of land. Six are offered to a developer as affordable housing. This is a worthy undertaking and it seems like a great solution. It involves removing six acres of forest and replacing it with 46 housing units, asphalt, street lighting, and traffic.
Are we overburdening our environment? Are we adding pollution to the land, water, and air? It would be better to find smaller dwellings that won’t impact our free spaces. Ms. Ludtke, I agree that we have an obligation of preservation.
Edina Kopits (Wellfleet)
The Fall River bishop abused his authority
Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha from the Catholic Diocese Fall River might have overstepped his authority when he silenced the Rev. Michael Fitzpatrick from St. Francis Xavier Parish Hyannis was censured by Jan. 13, for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccinations.
It is beyond the authority of any Catholic prelates to determine the effectiveness of a medical procedure. Its moral legitimacy is not in question. Pope Francis has asked Catholics to accept the vaccine. However, the same Vatican document that says that vaccine reception can be morally licit insists that vaccination must only be voluntary.
This shows that people who have ethical or medical concerns about the vaccine, such as Catholics worried about the use of fetal cells for vaccine production or testing, should not be coerced.
The endorsement of the vaccine by the Pope does not negate Catholic teachings on the exercise of a properly formed mind.
The Catholic Church expects faithful Catholics will defend the dignity of innocent human life in hostile public spaces. It would be easy to believe that the hierarchy would be sensitive to such Catholics’ conscience concerns.
Unfortunately, this is not true. Loyalty is a one-way street when it comes to relations between Catholic people and Catholic bishops.
C. J. Doyle is the executive director of Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
Many workers die from COVID.
Sunday’s Sunday paper contained a lengthy article that explained all the reasons why businesses cannot find workers. The fact that more than 800,000 Americans have died of COVID was not mentioned anywhere in the article. I wonder why? I wonder if reporters are warned not to relate those numbers.
True, many of the people who died were elderly, retired people. But, it is likely that several hundred thousand were workers who will never go back to work. As long as people do not take the wise precautions of wearing masks and getting vaccinated, this number will continue climbing.
Robin Hubbard, Orleans
Cape Cod Times first published this article. Affordable housing construction at the expense of the environment