Housing funding is essential
To the Editor:
I am responding to “Catholic agencies strategize how to serve homeless,” in the Dec. 4 Catholic Messenger.
The policy from HUD to defund permanent supportive housing and make 170,000 more people homeless needs to receive some pushback from us Catholics. A preferential option for the poor and vulnerable compels us to advocate for our neighbors. Those neighbors’ faces are clear in my mind, seeing them as I do six days a week at Iowa City Free Lunch Program. Of the many stories I could share, here is one:
This past summer, a new guest showed up to Free Lunch Program burdened by anger. He had some disabilities, and life had kicked him around far more than anyone deserves. An angry outburst and series of threats got him banned from our site for two weeks. But at the end of those two weeks, he showed real remorse and a desire to make amends. I was surprised to find that I began to look forward to seeing him each day.
On a day in early fall, he entered the dining room looking happier than I had ever seen him. He sought me out and said he wanted to show me something. Holding a key up next to his shining eyes, he beamed, “I got an apartment!” His face, his smile, his whole being were flooded with joy and relief and a renewed sense of hope.
Moving from temporary shelter into permanent supportive housing was life-changing for this individual. The place he now calls home is the type of housing this new HUD policy seeks to undermine.
Limiting funding for permanent housing is both nonsensical and cruel.
As a nation, we are better than this. As Catholics, we need to contact our elected officials and speak up.
Diane Platte
Iowa City
Tuk-tuk driver displays true greatness
To the Editor:
Last month I visited our parish office to have a couple of Masses offered. One was for a recently deceased Trappist monk, whose intercession I had sought a couple of days after his death and received a wonderful answer to prayer. The other was for a soldier who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for valor.
This got me thinking about where true greatness lies.
I have met quite a few men whom I consider great. One chap I see regularly drives a tuk-tuk, a three-wheeled vehicle used for short trips around the city. Once a month I do a ‘big-shop’ at a supermarket and he brings me home. When we first met I noticed an array of photographs along the top of the windscreen, he and his wife on each end and all his children at various stages of their education in the middle. When I asked about them, his eyes lit up and I heard all their stories.
The job is hard. Seven days a week, morning until night, a lot of competition for passengers, blistering heat in summer, torrential rain and floods in rainy season. But his life, and that of any great man, is attached to a higher purpose, something bigger than himself. He loves his family. This is the fuel for the journey, to provide for them, give them all that was needed. His toothless grin reveals his joy in sacrifice and selflessness. It is a daily dying to himself for others.
Greatness is not inaccessible, nor is it a special gift to a few extraordinary souls, it’s to choose to serve in love and keep going however intense or dull the life may be, until the end be it long or short.
Stephen Clark
Manila, Philippines
Helping our loved ones return to the Catholic Church
To the Editor:
Catholics who believe Catholicism is the most beautiful, sacred, and loving path to God want our loved ones who have left the faith to believe it too. Many of them are not comfortable with organized religion or exploring a spiritual path, but they feel the need to connect with a higher power or a power greater than themselves. This yearning to connect is hardwired into our souls. Pope Benedict XVI described the soul as “nothing more than man’s capacity for relatedness with truth, with love eternal. People of faith call truth and love ‘God.’” What everyone yearns for, whether they realize it or not, is peace of soul. Catholics know that peace of soul comes from having a personal relationship with Jesus, but sometimes our loved ones are not quite ready to hear that.
Instead, try saying a version of this: “Whenever you are with someone you love, be aware that seeing the love you have for them reflected back to you through their eyes makes you feel very happy and even joyful. Think of this feeling of happiness and joy as a power greater than yourself. Name the power ‘Divine Friend.’” When they are ready to hear more, tell them to think of this power as a friend: human and divine, constantly at their side, sharing their burdens and joys, loving them unconditionally, and being delighted to be with them. Ask them to talk to their Divine Friend in their thoughts and to be aware when their friend seems to be listening. Then leave the rest to the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. One day your loved one may say to you, “I want to go to Mass with you because I know my Divine Friend will be there.”
Carrie Delcourt
Milan, Illinois
Reform treatment of immigrants
To the Editor:
Pope Leo XIV and the American bishops have called attention to the moral problems involved in our current treatment of refugees and immigrants. The USA needs to review and reform its treatment of immigrants. No Christian could sincerely defend the current arbitrary and cruel treatment of numerous human beings being deported without due process. The government said it would be focused on those committing crimes. Eye witness accounts and court proceedings prove that is largely untrue. Atlantic magazine (11/9/2025) has documented how arbitrary ICE agents’ actions often are in reality. Catholics know that every human being is our brother or sister and child of our loving father. That belief is clearly not reflected in this current practice. Maybe worst of all is the separation of children from parents being deported without provision for their safety and care. Our duty is to work so that such inhumane behavior is ended.
Donald Moeller.
Professor Emeritus St. Ambrose University
Davenport
