Letter to the editor

Through a Glass, Brightly

Dear editor:

Steve Moyer in the Daily Mail of Feb. 9, called the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals a fringe group -- wacko extremists with a ditzy message-in a class with the Earth Liberation Front. In fact, PETA rejects violence, leaving them only dramatics that make life interesting for the wise who ponder their point. Now then, is their message "morally blind" for being trivial? Not according to A New Catechism of 1967, Herder, which Lutheran church historian J. Pelikan of Yale Divinity School called "The best and deepest of the Christian heritage confessed with a clarity and relevance seldom seen in any theoogical works."

Page 421 reads: "Our attitude toward animals is a reflection of our love for men. We may not kill, much less inflict pain, without due cause. We must avoid such actions for the sake of the animal itself (its own end), otherwise this attitude will not help to civilize or otherwise educate men."

That's exactly PETA's message. Does Steve know any other way to overcome moral decay than by civilizing and educating? Nicolai Hartmann in his Ethics, 1926, 2.461 writes that "genuine morality must build from below up and build incessantly at the foundation."

That has to carry man's higher pretensions. Cruelty to animals is one step from abusing the weak and helpless among us, then those we dislike. One isn't likely to find abusers among sincere PETA members; what the prostitution is that Steve objects to is the hallmark of moral decay.

Thomas Aquinas wrote in SCG 3.69, my transIation, "To take anything away from the self-realization of creatures is to vitiate the Creator's majestic intentions." That's the road to moral decay that Steve missed.

So Steve's article is callously un-Christian. Upon what foundation then does he propose to build a case for moral enlightenment? Might makes right?

He needs to look through a brighter glass. When my ethics book comes out, he'd better be ready to eat crow. On second thought, Steve, leave the birds alone. They're God's creatures too.

-- Harold Jank

Nevada