Sunday, May 16, 2004
Quite a number of months ago, former roommate, permanent friend, Michael Pelletier received a tersely worded email from an outraged father deriding him for having such a vulgar email address. The father in question was not Michael Pelletier's father because Michael's name is not Beau, to whom the missive was addressed.
I took it upon myself to add to the confusion by emailing Beau's father, Eric, and complain to him about his son's flagrant disrespect for the internet and its users. This falls under the heading of "Messing With People That Most Likely Do Not Deserve It" and brands me as a degenerate.
The whole thing reads like a particularly meaningful episode of 7th Heaven with Beau standing in for the perpetually troubled, yet sensitive, Simon. Except this is all about real people and that's what's disturbing.
To: xxxxx@xxxxxx.net
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 2:09 PM
Subject: your son, beau
Your son, Beau has been emailing me obscene messages from his, eatpoopoo@hotmail.com. This one in particular I found disturbing:
"The only good fetus is a dead fetus. I'm all for late term abortions, pop it out and stomp on it for all i care. thank you for your time please email me."
I was frankly deeply offended by this, as my wife and I head up a group called Canadians From Conception. It is people like your son who make our struggle, our battle to ensure rights for all, especially the unborn, that much more difficult.
I pray that your son may find guidance and direction in his life through christ.
yours in christ and eternal salvation
myron roderick black
Dear Mr. Black,
Thank you for your message that you sent to me. I am sorry that you received such a disturbing email as my family and I are definitely conservative pro life Christians and I, like you, am repulsed at such a thoughtless message.
My son Beau does not have an email address as you have described. One of his classmates at school has assumed his identity under that email address and has been using it to cause trouble. He has even sent me an email several weeks ago using that address. I confronted my son about it and both he and two of his friends corroborated this account. I trust my son in this as I was fortunate to baptize him in 1998. He has today returned from a mission trip to Oklahoma with his youth group at church. They left on Sunday June 8 and he has not had access to email all week.
Please send me the copy of the email that you received as it must have contained not only my son's name but my email address as well, unless you got my address from our church's web site. I like you want to see this issue to a complete and just solution.
Again, I am sorry that you have become enmeshed in this affair and I pray that you do not receive any more disturbing messages.
In Christ
Eric XXXXX
What makes me write about all of this, close to a year later, this article from cbc.ca:
Pope names six new saints
Basically the pope made Gianna Beretta Molla, a saint, because she refused to have an abortion which probably would have saved her life. It is pretty selfless and admirable that a woman would put the health of her (unborn) child above her own health. Far be it from me to dictate why someone should have an abortion, but is refusing treatment that would save your life really a miracle?
I find the story mostly scary because it reinforces the Catholic church's strict adherence to the pro-life ideology, which is not a stance that all Catholics adopt. It proves yet again that the church sees itself as being above God. The church dictates to its adherents how to worship and what to worship and that seems to be the problem with the modern Catholic church. It has become blind to the needs and desires of its followers. Look at the Catholic crackdown on Eulogies. The church dictated how people should mourn during its services, basically placing a ban on lay people giving personalized eulogies during funeral mass. What good does that do? How does that improve the relationship Catholics have with their God?
It just seems that the Pope has done a lot in his reign to take humanism out of Catholicism and it's creating a church that feels incredibly empty and it's not just because everyone's too busy on Sunday sinning to attend mass.
No comments about how I criticize the church for lacking humanism and compassion while I email random people on the internet and play cruel jokes on them, that's just much too obvious.
I took it upon myself to add to the confusion by emailing Beau's father, Eric, and complain to him about his son's flagrant disrespect for the internet and its users. This falls under the heading of "Messing With People That Most Likely Do Not Deserve It" and brands me as a degenerate.
The whole thing reads like a particularly meaningful episode of 7th Heaven with Beau standing in for the perpetually troubled, yet sensitive, Simon. Except this is all about real people and that's what's disturbing.
To: xxxxx@xxxxxx.net
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 2:09 PM
Subject: your son, beau
Your son, Beau has been emailing me obscene messages from his, eatpoopoo@hotmail.com. This one in particular I found disturbing:
"The only good fetus is a dead fetus. I'm all for late term abortions, pop it out and stomp on it for all i care. thank you for your time please email me."
I was frankly deeply offended by this, as my wife and I head up a group called Canadians From Conception. It is people like your son who make our struggle, our battle to ensure rights for all, especially the unborn, that much more difficult.
I pray that your son may find guidance and direction in his life through christ.
yours in christ and eternal salvation
myron roderick black
Dear Mr. Black,
Thank you for your message that you sent to me. I am sorry that you received such a disturbing email as my family and I are definitely conservative pro life Christians and I, like you, am repulsed at such a thoughtless message.
My son Beau does not have an email address as you have described. One of his classmates at school has assumed his identity under that email address and has been using it to cause trouble. He has even sent me an email several weeks ago using that address. I confronted my son about it and both he and two of his friends corroborated this account. I trust my son in this as I was fortunate to baptize him in 1998. He has today returned from a mission trip to Oklahoma with his youth group at church. They left on Sunday June 8 and he has not had access to email all week.
Please send me the copy of the email that you received as it must have contained not only my son's name but my email address as well, unless you got my address from our church's web site. I like you want to see this issue to a complete and just solution.
Again, I am sorry that you have become enmeshed in this affair and I pray that you do not receive any more disturbing messages.
In Christ
Eric XXXXX
What makes me write about all of this, close to a year later, this article from cbc.ca:
Pope names six new saints
Basically the pope made Gianna Beretta Molla, a saint, because she refused to have an abortion which probably would have saved her life. It is pretty selfless and admirable that a woman would put the health of her (unborn) child above her own health. Far be it from me to dictate why someone should have an abortion, but is refusing treatment that would save your life really a miracle?
I find the story mostly scary because it reinforces the Catholic church's strict adherence to the pro-life ideology, which is not a stance that all Catholics adopt. It proves yet again that the church sees itself as being above God. The church dictates to its adherents how to worship and what to worship and that seems to be the problem with the modern Catholic church. It has become blind to the needs and desires of its followers. Look at the Catholic crackdown on Eulogies. The church dictated how people should mourn during its services, basically placing a ban on lay people giving personalized eulogies during funeral mass. What good does that do? How does that improve the relationship Catholics have with their God?
It just seems that the Pope has done a lot in his reign to take humanism out of Catholicism and it's creating a church that feels incredibly empty and it's not just because everyone's too busy on Sunday sinning to attend mass.
No comments about how I criticize the church for lacking humanism and compassion while I email random people on the internet and play cruel jokes on them, that's just much too obvious.
