St. Ann’s gives thanks to those who supported its mission

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.”

That profound observation has guided the Community of St. Ann over the past year as we have prepared to close the doors of our beloved church and 136-year-old parish on Terre Haute’s north side. It will continue to guide us as parishioners move to other area churches while two of our most significant ministries — our medical and dental clinics — remain in the former St. Ann school building, and the church itself becomes the new Catholic Charities-St. Ann Christmas Store.

In the late 19th century, the primary focus of St. Ann’s was children who had been orphaned and needed a home and loving care. Children remained the focus throughout most of the next century as St. Ann School and the Sisters of Providence served the educational needs of generations of Terre Haute families. When the school closed, our outreach turned to the health care field with, first, the free medical clinic and mental health services, then the dental clinic. Our food ministry has fed countless neighbors for nearly 40 years.

In every incarnation, the people of Terre Haute, Vigo County and the greater Wabash Valley have been there to help make St. Ann’s a beacon of stability, compassion and hope in our neighborhood. We could not have served well without you. Our hearts remember your generosity and sustenance. We thank you so much for your support.

— Sister Constance Kramer, SP

Parish Life Coordinator,

and the St. Ann

Parish Council

Terre Haute





No deception, just GOP spin

This is in response to Mrs. Fifer’s recent letter:

What a riot of drivel and Fox News talking points. I see Mrs. Fifer is taking Mr. Boehner’s position of denying the obvious. Everything in that piece is an actual distortion of reality, but that is delusional “tea”hadist for you.

The facts are in the record number of anti-choice and anti-contraception bills passed and being passed in several states where Republican “tea”hadists hold the majority and the governorships.

Just to hear the Republicans say that “We are not waging a war on women” does not change anything at all, because it is a lie. They are waging a war on women and here is a sampling:

Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona, just signed a bill into law limiting access to contraception — the Tell Your boss Why You’re On the Pill Bill amendment. She also signed a Planned Parenthood defunding bill into law, which effects low-income, poor women by not allowing them access to health-care needs because they do not have insurance. She also signed a bill that makes women wait until the 20th week of a pregnancy before being able to have an abortion.

Utah Republicans passed a bill mandating a three-day waiting period before a woman can have an abortion. Alabama Republicans passed a law restricting abortion from being covered by the new insurance exchanges.

Republican Mary Fallin of Oklahoma signed a bill to make it easier for abortion providers to be sued as well as prescribers of abortion drugs like the morning after pill.

Sam Brownback and Kansas Republicans have passed legislation to financially punish women via the tax code for seeking an abortion as well has mandatory literature which is full of fallacies like “abortion increases the risk of breast cancer.” The bill also allows doctors to withhold information regarding the pregnancy, aka to lie to the patient in order to prevent an abortion. Mr. Brownback admits to not even reading the bill and has agreed to sign it into law anyway simply because of the anti-choice content.

Georgia Republicans passed a bill called the “fetal pain” bill, which bans abortions after 20 weeks, regardless of fetal development issues, rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother’s life. No exceptions. One Georgia Republican did not know what the bill would be, but he signed it anyway.

Even in D.C., Republicans are not focusing on job creation, but more abortion restriction laws, an issue that was resolved in 1973 with Roe v. Wade.

There is no liberal agenda of deception here, this is all created by the Republican “tea”hadists themselves. In November they are going to get a lesson in reality.

— Robert Everhart

Terre Haute



Disdain for only liberals

In an election year, the word liberal is often used loosely and sometimes with derogatory connotations by letter writers on this page. A case in point: the May 14 letter of Loren Fifer, “Liberals distort women’s issues.”

Just who is a liberal? Here are some thoughts on the subject. Fifer should watch the YouTube video: “Common Fallacies About Group Differences.”

During the summer break on a college campus three painters were having a lunch break. One young painter said to the other two: “You know, any one American can beat any 10 French men.”

A mysterious voice comes out of the air: “At what?”

Suddenly, there was silence in the room. Then the young painter answers: “Baseball!”

The mysterious voice comes back: Would you be willing to bet a week’s pay that any one American can beat 10 French men, let us say, at fencing?

There is silence in the room again. Baffled by the challenge of the mysterious voice, the young painter yelled: “I don’t care what the guy says, I will still say any one American can beat 10 French men.”

Does this kind of logic reflect true patriotism? Is someone challenging this kind of logic as unpatriotic? Is the questioner of false logic a liberal?

During the American Civil War, almost all of the dirt poor Southerners who were fighting to preserve their right to own slaves were never going to be able to own them. They were fighting for an idea, a concept; it was the concept that everyone can become wealthy. This, of course, was as ridiculous then as it is now. The rules of success vastly benefit the already rich and nothing that a really poor man can do is going to change the odds that he or she will ever really be rich.

Despite this reality, the Republican Party and conservatives favor cutting the taxes for the top 1 percent wealthy. Are those who oppose the tax cut for the wealthy a liberal bunch and those who support such a tax cut for the wealthy, conservatives?

Fifer writes: “I was also under the impression that girls as well as boys went to college to get an education, not participate in wild sex parties and drunken orgies.” Ms. Fifer: Are these college students children of liberals only?

— Khwaja A. Hasan

(Formerly of Terre Haute)

Wadsworth, Ill.



Writer doesn’t know the Bible

Liz Ciancone’s April 10 Mstakes column (“Pastor Pat may want to re-read his Bible”) generated a Readers’ Forum reply from Ruby Clapp titled “Bible encourages religion in public.” I want to commend her.

Ciancone remarked, “We are admonished to practice our faith in private and to follow the golden rule.” Clapp’s response was biblically 100 percent correct. The column by Ciancone is in violation of the scriptures.

Apparently Ciancone doesn’t know her Bible, which is the word of God which we are admonished to live by day to day in Matthew 4:4. There is no mention of the “golden rule” or those words in the scriptures. And I wonder if she knows what scriptures imply. And silence is not commanded.

I can give you a couple of verses that might give that idea to someone who is looking to pervert the scriptures, but I bet she can’t tell us what those verses are, and if she did, they would have to be taken out of the context around them which gives a total explanation. Way to go, Ruby, “my sister”. Not only, as you said, “I think that you owe your readers a correction” but I think an apology is in order.

Whenever the Bible comes into question it’s always misrepresented by people who know nothing about it but they judge it and those who hold it dear to their souls for life. James 4 11 (check it out). And by the way this is what they did to Jesus and put him on the cross and said a whole bunch of things about Him that we were not true and even the things Jesus said were misquoted.

I hold no animosity toward the column or any of the readers because I used to do the same thing. I pray that she and all the readers meet the same savior I met in January of 1978. By the way, He is the Son of God and if you don’t know that for sure, you ought to prove it to yourself. You can prove it all yourself with God. If you’ll ask Him personally and get into the Scriptures, then you’ll see for yourself. There is only one way to heaven and Jesus said that He was the way, the Truth, and if you want life and eternal life, He is that life. Get to know Him.

I know this will never make the newspaper because of its content, but I had to say something, because I could not remain silent.

I challenge whoever might decide to keep this from the public eye, by not printing this, is not following the heart of why newspapers were created in the beginning, to get the news out to the public. And don’t forget your right to a public forum and right to respond to such articles. Thank you in advance for your consideration. Jesus loves the editor and wouldn’t want you to keep silent either.

By the way, if you agree with Ciancone, why do you have a paper at all?

— Daniel Helms

Terre Haute



Flawed primary discourages voters

I started reading the article about the primary election which appeared on the front page of the Monday, May 14 edition and got as far as the third paragraph and stopped.  Do you want to know where I was. I was at home. I refuse to vote in the primary elections any more because it is no one’s business if I am a Democrat, Republican, independent, liberal, or yellow with purple dots.

I think Indiana and any other state that practices this needs to change this law, and if it is a federal law then shame on the federal government, they preach independence and freedom, but take it away here. Just as soon as they stop this, I will start voting in the primary again. For years I voted in the primary and that question always put me off, so I quit and will not start until they stop it.

As for voting being a privilege our soldiers have won for us, of course it is and my family has fought in every conflict, war, police action and anything else the government wanted to label it since before we were a country, all the way back to my seventh and sixth great grandfathers who both have DAR numbers from the American Revolution.

So why don’t your use your “power of the press” and get something done about this and I bet you would see the numbers of voter turnout for the primary more than triple, as I know I am not the only person who feel this way.

— Vicki R. Rainbolt

Brazil



Recognition was much appreciated

In our world of today, you always read a lot of negative headlines, but there still is lots of good done for people who have a job and love doing it.

My husband, Dennis Everhart, a retired firefighter for Vigo County and now a school bus driver for South Vermillion School Transportation Corp., recently was one of the four bus drivers who won HI-99 Bus Driver of the Year. I’m very proud of him, to say the least. To think that out of all the counties that HI-99 reaches, he was chosen to be one of four.

He received a really nice plaque plus really nice gift certificates from the following business: six different concerts tickets from 8 Seconds Saloon of Indianapolis; two free frappe tickets from McDonald’s; two Caboodle Cupcakes; four six-inch subs from Subway; Sonic Restaurant, $50; Walmart, $10; K-Mart, $5; two Cinnabons; Casual/Male XL, $20; Vanilla Reward Visa, $10; two Grand Ole Opry tickets; two tickets for the Historic Tour of President Benjamin Harrison Home in Indianapolis.

Again, thanks to little 6-year-old Dominick Hanson and mother Alyson for nominating Dennis, plus for all the businesses that gave a gift certificate. You made a day to remember for school bus driver 8-02.

— Carol Everhart

Clinton



Who’s fanning marriage issue?

This is in response to the Tribune-Star’s Opinion column by Kathleen Parker on May 15 titled “The evolution of a political narrative.”

Parker does the difficult job of seeming to agree with the current administration while questioning its motives and effectiveness. She went to far as to say her thinking had also evolved and even chastised him for shuffling the issue off to the states. After another 10 inches (or so) on the issue she then states that the issue is being forced “to the fore by Democrats.”

After thousands of prohibitive, right canceling bills had been issued in all of the states’ assemblies and over 100 actually passed, she finds the reactions of proponents to be a diversionary tactic to get the voting public’s mind off the economy. It seems to me that the GOP and the ALEC bill writers are the ones fanning this issue, or at least were in the beginning. Now that it has not gone their way, they cry foul.

The current and future state of the economy is an issue the opponents of this administration might want to back away from. The news is too good for the GOP with the monthly surplus and jobs increasing in most sectors (admittedly government jobs are still on the way down). The GOP has been trying to have us watch each other so we don’t watch them continue to obstruct and pare down the very programs that are helping the middle and lower economic people while increasing the haul the very tip-top tier tries to scare you into ignoring.

Please don’t support this “he hit me back first” kind of politicking. It only encourages them.

— Lisa Jo Sparks

Sullivan