Dear Catholic Exchange:
After reading the editorial about church music, I need to add my 2 cents worth.
I mis-spent my youth listening to nothing but Led Zeppelin music. If I was in my car, I would have a cassette blaring out Zeppelin, if I was at home I was reading about Zeppelin and listening to their albums, I even went to midnight showings of their movie, The Song Remains the Same. All that changed one night when my roommates started watching a show about music and backward masking. They featured a series of groups and songs but held out the worst for last. The last song featured was Stairway to Heaven (which used to be one of my favorite songs) and the song was filled with so many Satanic phrases and terms that I became ill. The fact that a church would allow this song to be played at a celebration of God is distressing. The lyrics of the song have nothing to do with worshipping God, and if anyone would listen to the song backwards, they would undoubtedly wonder why such a song would ever be played again on a radio station in our country again.
The writer of the song, Jimmy Page, was so much into the occult that he even purchased Alister Crowley's estate in the late 1960's and began to study how to say phrases that were actually Satanic supplication when said or played backwards. I saddens me that a pastor would think this song was worthy to be played at a mass. That's just my 2 cents.
Mike Hoffman
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Dear Catholic Exchange:
Marist College has not been “Catholic” for many years. I graduated from Marist College in May 1991 as an adult returning to college. I learned early on that the college had lost its Catholic identity while at that time still claiming to be Catholic.
It saddens me to see that they will have a pro-choice speaker at graduation. It dilutes the pride one has in their college to see such a choice in speakers being made.
Thank you for your website and all the wonderful articles I find to read there.
Yours in Christ,
Jill Potemski
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Dear Catholic Exchange:
In the article, Bishop Withdraws from Catholic College Commencement, Rev. Michael McFarland, the president of Holy Cross, defended the choice [of commencement speaker Chris Matthews], making the implausible argument that Matthews' support for legal abortion “is arguable within Catholic thought.”
I would like to forward this message to the withdrawing Bishop, and ask him how this priest (McFarland) can continue as the President of a Catholic university. Support for legal abortion is in NO WAY “arguable within Catholic thought.”
Fr. John Congdon
Diocese of Fresno
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