I just finished reading a letter by Steve LePore of Santa Clarita entitled, “Comfortable with Cruelty?” Feb. 4, wherein he describes the differences between churches and parishioners in East L.A. and Santa Clarita — between those living in poverty and those living in comfort, between those living in security and those living in fear. I imagine he was driven by an inner need to point out hypocrisies and stir up sympathy, empathy, perhaps even compassion for those who actually live the faith that was preached by Jesus — compassion from those who only claim to live by that faith. He makes some very good, solid points, and I can’t disagree with a single word he said, but for this …
Although he correctly points out the frailties, faults and failures of our own “well-to-do” churches, which is why I myself abandoned the “church” decades ago when I realized I was attending not much more than a Sunday fashion show, he doesn’t quite play fair when blaming those in the “comfort zone” for causing the fear that now permeates truly faithful people like those in East LA. We didn’t cause them to live in fear. They brought that upon themselves by the way they chose to proceed into this country. Jesus had something to say about that, too: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” Sorry, Mr. LePore, but you can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
Arthur Saginian
Santa Clarita
