The following letters to the editor appear in the edition of Jan. 15, 2004. Letters appearing in this space do not necessarily reflect the views of the Arlington Catholic Herald or the Catholic Diocese of Arlington. The editor reserves the right to edit letters as necessary. There is no guarantee of publication. Send letters to: letters@catholicherald.com.

HERALD 'Fattens' Up

I have been reading the Herald since coming to the Washington area in 1975. For most of that time, it was, in my opinion, a rather "thin" publication in terms of substance. Lately, though, there are many more articles of interest on a variety of subjects. I hope the trend continues.

J. Griffin Crump
Alexandria

Unwelcome Soliciting

In going through the many piles of accumulated mail today, I became very disturbed over the number of solicitations for donations, and especially the increasing number from religious organizations, many of which I had never heard of. Grant it, all of them have their special purpose and need so our society can meet its responsibility to care for those less fortunate than we are. But such items as coins, cards, Mass cards, jewelry, photo albums, other religious items, seeds, candles and return envelopes with real postage stamps on them accompany most of the solicitation letters. And worst of all, I found multiple solicitations from some of the organizations.

I understand that in order for a nonprofit to get bulk mailing rates they must send mass mailings once a month, but when you calculate how much is spent on the paper and envelopes, the time for someone to prepare and stuff the mailings, and production of the items included, I would think that it would be just as effective to do less frequent mailings without the "freebies" and thereby less offend recipients who get tired of the repeated requests. Donating is a very private act and is generally done with a very special reason in selecting to whom to make donations. I generally feel like it is sacrilegious to throw away any religious item sent to me. I have been told by the post office that if I attempt to "return to sender" they will only throw it away. And times when I have sent a letter requesting my name to be removed from a list, it has not been successful.

I would suggest that all religious organizations step back from the commercialization of today’s solicitation process and return to the simple, unobtrusive letters informing recipients who they are and not set "minimum" request levels. In the Bible, Jesus commented that the woman who gave her last coin gave more than the rich man who only gave a small portion of his wealth. Charitable organizations should be grateful for receiving even one dollar, if that is all that someone is able to donate. A standard should also be established that if after three mailings a donation were not received from a person on their list, that name would be stricken from the mailing list.

Kathryn M. D’Elia Seltman
Arlington

Biotechnology and Economic Justice

As one who can manage only a minimal regard for the opinions of your regular contributor George Weigel but who holds the greatest admiration for your infrequent correspondent Martin McLaughlin, on the subject of on agricultural biotechnology I am bound almost by conscience to write to support Weigel’s view and fall out with McLaughlin’s.

As the Vatican wrestles with the controversy in an effort to offer guidance on critical matters of hunger and justice, it would do well to heed Weigel’s advice on this topic — just as it was wise to ignore his attempts to make a moral case for our war against Iraq.

McLaughlin is correct to conclude that foods produced from biotechnology have not been proven to contribute to the goal of ending poverty and powerlessness and the hunger attendant thereto. But that is an issue far broader than science or agriculture, indeed one of economic organization.

Most of the world’s people, for good or ill, live under some degree of capitalism. The challenge is to make the capitalist system create wealth for the many rather than merely the few. That task seems to have escaped Weigel and his colleagues at what more aptly should be called the Ethics and Republican Policy Center.

Depending on how it is applied, plant and animal biotechnology can help achieve or help frustrate the goal of economic justice. Already biotechnology has allowed farmers in the United States, Canada, China, Argentina and South Africa to improve crop yields while reducing the impact on the environment.

In asserting that such benefits have not been demonstrated, McLaughlin may have been unaware of the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy’s estimates in June 2002 that six existing biotech crops — soybeans, corn, cotton, papaya, squash and canola — produce an additional 4 billion pounds of food and fiber on the same acreage, improve farm income $1.5 billion and reduce pesticide use by 46 million pounds.

We should insist that science be allowed to continue to develop crops that better tolerate drought or salt or improve nutrition — all traits that are needed in developing countries. But prohibiting the use of biotechnology, as some of its critics advocate, will negate such outcomes.

Former Congressman Tony Hall of Ohio, the U.S. ambassador to the UN’s food and agriculture agencies who takes a back seat to no one as a champion of the poor and hungry, has said flatly that "years of anti-biotechnology lobbying, demands for a ‘precautionary principle’ that no amount of science can satisfy and a mistrustful climate, fostered in part by a handful of pressure groups" are standing in the way of solutions.

Achieving the promise of biotechnology will require significant increases in public investment and a more active role for government and university food and agricultural research institutions. We should not expect that private capital will be available to invest the huge sums necessary to develop products with little prospect of profit.

James C. Webster
Editor, "The Webster Agricultural Letter"
Arlington

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