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Dear CatholicExchange:
A Protestant in my office recently sent out two e-mails of a Christian nature. After he sent out the second one, which concerned a religious group meeting, management issued an e-mail to everyone in the department asking him to rescind the message “due to the diversity of the office.”
I was more offended by this response than I was by the message itself, which I had read and deleted because it didn't pertain to me as a practicing Catholic. Anyway, his first article, which follows, was one of those chain e-mails about Jesus. It was nice and originally I intended to send it on to only a few friends. But given management's reaction, I am sending it to you with a request that you publish it so it can be read by thousands.
Sincerely,
Mark Sterancsak
Thank you, Mark. In the interests of helping you flout the secular designs of your company's management, I have prepared the story to run in our Teen Life channel beginning October 14. (I've made it Catholic as well.)
In JMJ,
Tom Allen
Editor, CE
Financial Deck Stacked Against Large Catholic Families
Dear Catholic Exchange,
I could really relate to Carol Kennedy's article today about housing prices. I came up with the same connection regarding contraception and the effects it has had on the economy years ago. In the fifties and sixties a family with one modest income could buy a decent house, a car and even send their kids to college. Now, with the huge influx of women into the workplace resulting in two income families, the “forces that be” have seemed to adjust accordingly, making everything more expensive and harder to obtain on one income. This often leads to the necessity for the second person to work, which in turn requires that the kids be raised in an institution (day care). It almost seems diabolical, which I am sure it is at the source. My wife and I have been blessed in that we can get by (barely) on my income, although you won't find many of the luxuries in our home, such as large screen tv's or atv's in the garage. This in turn leads to a simpler lifestyle that I believe is more favorable to spirituality.
One other financial burden that Mrs. Kennedy didn't touch on is the family vehicle. This may be because she is just starting out with her family and can get by with a car that seats five. In our family of nine, when we needed a new vehicle to accomodate all of us, there weren't many options available. You seen, the bigger the vehicle, the more they cost. And as a general rule, the bigger the catholic family is, the less money they have. The huge suv's only seat eight, and they are way out of our price range anyway. Our only option was a twelve passenger utility van that looks like a school bus and is about as confortable as a wheel barrow. It was also very expensive and we had to refinance our house to buy it. However, it isn't like the old days before seat belts when my seven brothers and sisters and I would all cram into a car built for five or six. We attend many catholic events, such as retreats and home-schooling groups, and it seems that these large vans are becoming the trademark vehicle of the new evangelization. Our license plate reads “ROOM4MR”.
Andrew J. Nadeau
Springvale, Maine
