Letters to the Editor: Housing, environment and the bishop of Fall River
Construction vs. environment difficult to reconcile
Ms. Ludtke’s Your Turn column on Jan. 15 touched on a subject very close to the heart of many communities on the Cape. We are all agreed that there is a great need for affordable housing up and down the Cape. At the same time, we are anxious to preserve the character of our townships, and protect our fragile spit of sand from overbuilding.
How do we reconcile our need for housing with our wish to preserve the environment? Here in Wellfleet, the town owns nine acres of land, six of which are offered to a developer for affordable housing. This is a very worthy undertaking, and on paper it looks like an ideal solution. However, it involves stripping six acres of woodland and replacing it with the development of 46 housing units, asphalt, street lighting and traffic.
Are we overburdening our environment? Are we adding pollutants to the air, water, land? As I see it, it would be healthier to find or build smaller dwellings that will not impact our free spaces, because once they are gone, they are gone forever. I totally agree with Ms. Ludtke that we have an obligation to avoid the destruction of our heritage.
Edina Kopits, Wellfleet
Fall River bishop overstepped his authority
Bishop Edgar M. da Cunha of the Catholic Diocese of Fall River may have overstepped his authority in silencing the Rev. Michael Fitzpatrick of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Hyannis for his criticism of COVID-19 vaccines, (Anti-vaccine priest in Hyannis is censured by the Catholic bishop of Fall River, Jan. 13).
It is beyond the competence of any Catholic prelate to determine the "efficacy" of a medical treatment. As for its moral legitimacy, although Pope Francis has urged Catholics to accept the vaccine, the same Vatican document that states that vaccine reception is morally licit, insists that vaccination must be voluntary.
This indicates, clearly, that those who have medical or ethical reservations about the vaccine — such as Catholics concerned about the use of fetal cell lines in vaccine production or testing — must not be coerced.
Nor does the Pope's endorsement of the vaccine nullify traditional Catholic teaching about the exercise of a properly formed conscience.
The Catholic Church expects faithful Catholics to defend the sanctity of innocent human life in an often hostile public square. One would think that the hierarchy would be accommodating to the conscientious concerns of such Catholics.
Sadly, this is not the case. When it comes to relations between the Catholic people and the Catholic bishops, loyalty, it would seem, is a one-way street.
C. J. Doyle, executive director, Catholic Action League of Massachusetts
COVID deaths account for loss of many workers
In Sunday’s paper, there was a long article explaining all the reasons why businesses can’t get workers. Nowhere in the entire article was the fact mentioned that over 800,000 Americans have died from COVID. I wonder why not. Are reporters cautioned to not relate those numbers?
True, a large number of those dead were older, retired folks, but surely several hundred thousand were workers who will never be returning to the job market. And, as long as folks don’t take the sensible precautions of getting vaccinated and wearing masks, this number is going to continue to climb.
Robin Hubbard, Orleans
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: affordable housing construction at the cost of cape's environment
