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VATICAN CITY – While apes evolved naturally into pre-human creatures, it was the will and desire of God that turned them into humans, an article in the Vatican newspaper said.

The only obligation Jerry Frank felt driving downtown to St. Jude Shrine, Baltimore, was an obligation of heart.

I was concerned to read the article a few weeks ago “Cardinal says liberalized use of Tridentine Mass is bearing fruit ,” saying that it is causing many “traditionalists” who left the church to request to return to full communion. These “traditionalists” did not simply leave the church. They attempted to form schismatic churches; they continue to heretically attack church dogma and apparently feel that the Holy Spirit decided to stop guiding God’s church when he did something that disagreed with their ultra-conservative agendas. The suggestion by Cardinal Castrillon that the Society of Pius X and other similar groups “have expressly recognized Vatican II as an ecumenical council, but they disagree with the way the documents have been interpreted and put into practice” is simply wrong and dangerously naïve. I have in front of me as I write this letter, a quote made in October last year from Bishop Bernard Fellay, the superior general of the St. Pius X fraternity where he says, “the SSPX demands not only a correct interpretation of Vatican II, but the council documents actually be changed.” This group has attempted to define a new category of church council to which they think Vatican II belongs that does not have the stamp of infallibility that church dogma assigns to ecumenical councils. The Tridentine liturgy may be beautiful, but it will not benefit the church if it becomes the mascot for groups attacking the church, and more conservatively minded people need to be careful that they do not associate with these groups if they are participating in Tridentine liturgies for nostalgic purposes.

In your editorial “The morality of going ‘green’” (CR/May 1), you touch upon several good points about respecting the environment and the wisdom of conservation. You also mention that the poor are the most affected by climate change. You neglect to mention that the poor are also the most negatively affected by many of the programs being proposed to “control climate change.”

While marking the 175th anniversary of the founding of their order, some local School Sisters of Notre Dame will also celebrate their own milestones. Eleven sisters from Baltimore will celebrate jubilees at Villa Notre Dame in Wilton, Conn., May 3.