Mahony’s Call for Aid to Poor

“Where is the leadership?” laments Cardinal Roger Mahony as he criticizes state legislators for failing to create a “safety net” for the elderly, disabled and immigrants who will lose benefits due to welfare reform (“Mahony Says Poor Need a ‘Safety Net,’ ” May 30). This from a religious leader who is constructing a $50-million cathedral in the midst of L.A.’s poorest of the poor.

That $50 million would make a mighty large safety net--and would be a far greater legacy to California citizens than an overpriced monument. True, the privately donated money was earmarked specifically for building a cathedral, but a real leader would request that those funds be put to a use more fitting the church’s mission--serving the poor and needy.

On the other hand, maybe Sacramento legislators should be the ones to provide more funds. After all, they already have a beautiful building to meet in.

KAREN LINDELL

Sierra Madre

* We at the L.A. Catholic Worker wish to thank Cardinal Mahony for his bold public stand on behalf of the poor. His condemnation of proposed welfare cuts is directly in line with the prophetic tradition of Jesus. The great suffering that these cuts will cause, indeed have already caused, are part of the daily experience related to us by the hundreds of men and women who come to our soup kitchen on skid row.

Thus we would respectfully request as we have over the course of the last two years, in personal meetings and public confrontations, that the cardinal make his concern for the poor, and his imitation of Jesus, more credible by designating the money slated for a new cathedral to be spent on housing and services for the poor.

JEFF DIETRICH

Los Angeles Catholic Worker