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Readers write: Bernie Sanders and the pope, Stephen Curry

Letters to the editor for the May 16, 2016 weekly magazine.

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Brandon Dill/AP
Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry warms up before an NBA basketball game in Memphis, Tenn.
  • By Stephen Fox Monitor reader
  • Carol Steinhart Monitor reader
  • Nancy Krause Monitor reader

The pope meets Sanders

Despite all the skeptics in the press playing down the importance of Bernie Sanders’s visit with Pope Francis and his speech at the Vatican, I believe that, yes, the pope understands and appreciates Senator Sanders. The excellent and thorough April 16 online article “What does Pope Francis say about Bernie Sanders?” (CSMonitor.com) reminds us that the pope recently strongly castigated Donald Trump. What is clear to a battered but still tireless idealist like me is Francis’s desire to complete long-overdue global reforms and to work for four or eight years with Sanders, in whom he has found a kindred spirit.

Stephen Fox

Santa Fe, N.M.

Regarding the article “What does Pope Francis say about Bernie Sanders?”: Sanders and Francis are doing a fine and critically needed job of focusing attention on global social, economic, and environmental problems. No matter whom we awaken to as the president-elect on Nov. 9, we should be grateful to Sanders for insistently telling it like it is.

What is missing from all equations is the critical issue of overpopulation. As serious as other social and economic problems are, we are not racing an implacable clock to solve them. The window of time for salvaging a livable climate, however, is rapidly closing. I thank the pope and senator for selflessly opposing the corrupt status quo and fighting for the future of us all.

Carol Steinhart

Madison, Wis. 

Stephen Curry as role model

Thank you for your wonderful April 18 cover story, “The Curry phenomenon.” It is refreshing to read about a professional athlete who is truly a role model for the next generation. Stephen Curry is not only a skilled basketball player, but his value system is in place as evidenced by his devotion to family, his religious connection, and his charitableness. He makes time to visit schools, where he shows students that healthy habits make winners.

Nancy Krause

Huntington Beach, Calif.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

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