I guess most of you believe in a living God. Most of you believe that God has a Son named Jesus who died for us and our sins and rose from the dead to always be with us if we let Him.  People that believe in a living God have so much proof of His existence. God is not 'in our time'. He watched for 240 million years. in the Mesozoic - Jurassic time frame, dinosaurs walking around and all kinds of fern plants happily growing. He started everything out of nothing - before 'The Big Bang', the explosion that started our beginning 13.7 billion years.ago,  How can anyone not believe in a Creator? Can anyone of us build just our 'Milky Way' system in which we live in?  Wasn't it great that He took a seed (smaller than a golf ball) and a tree grows about 400 ft. tall and weighs about 5000 tons.That tree is the giant Sequoia or Redwood. God gives us major intelligence.

Recently, people have found out about DNA, atomic energy, etc, but no one can build a Universe, only a Supreme Person that we will never, never, never equal. Look up Fr. Robert Spitzer, sj. book "Proof in the existence of God' Pope Francis, sj. is now with us. He will change many ways hopefully helping the poor and to live a modest life like most of us do. Pope Francis said that he will keep marriage between a man and a women only and no abortion or forbidden contraceptives.

Sincerely,

Bruce Moorhead

Susquehanna,PA.

Shame on you, Johnnie Cabot. Not too long ago you were sent to stand in the corner for a yarn about the safety of fracking fluid (FF). This time it's off to the woodshed with you for telling three whoppers. We'll confront you with each.

You said, there's “almost a mile of solid rock between [the Marcellus Shale] and surface water supplies which are located at about 300 feet. There's no way any of that [FF] will 'seep up' into water supplies.” Ouch!

Johnnie, the only place “a mile of solid rock” exists on this planet is in your imagination. Rock layers always have cracks and faults. Moreover, rock at great thickness is never monolithic but a composite of strata, predominantly sandstone, shale, mudstone, and limestone.

As for, “There's no way [FF] will 'seep up into water supplies.” Stuff and nonsense.

As a matter of fact, it is extraordinarily common. Subterranean waters 20 miles underground commonly breach the surface. They're called steam vents and there are tens of thousands of them in the United States. Yellowstone National Park alone has 4,000.

Granted, we don't have steam vents in Pennsylvania, but we do have fracking that forces water under titanic pressure down one mile into the Marcellus Shale. This shatters the shale, creates fissures, then widens, connects, and elongates them to form passages for gases and oil to escape.

Even after fracking operations have ceased extremely high pressures persist for as long as six years before an equilibrium is established. During this time FF is continuously forced upwards, where the weight of overburden is least.

Computer modeling suggests that this pressure and time are sufficient to transport FF into shallow aquifers in less than ten years. Alternately, FF could push brine into near-surface aquifers.

There is another way that FF and methane can vent onto the surface.

Pennsylvania has about 200,000 unmapped oil and gas wells; no one knows where they are. Many of these wells were simply abandoned, uncapped or improperly capped, and they are all deteriorating.

If a shale well is drilled near one of these forgotten wells, methane could migrate from the high-pressure active well to the low-pressure vacated well. The hidden well could erupt like Old Faithful shooting an unwelcomed combo of FF and methane 30 feet into the air.

Unfortunately, you continued: “Most [FF] is pumped out again . . . leaving behind a very, very small amount of chemicals . . . heavily diluted by water and sand.” Shame. Shame.

Let's take a closer look at this “very, very small amount of chemicals [left underground] . . .heavily diluted by water and sand.”

On average, 20 percent of FF or about 1 million gallons remains permanently underground. This 20 percent contains 10,000 gallons of highly toxic fracking chemicals. (Not exactly a “very, very small amount.”) This noxious mixture is further contaminated with heavy metals, brine, and radioactive materials from the Marcellus.

These deeply buried, polluted pools were thought to be inconsequential. It was assumed that freshwater could not be found at great depth and that even if it were, it would be too expensive to pump to the surface. These assumptions are being rethought.

As the world's population grows, freshwater is becoming a rarer, more valuable, and sought after natural resource. Hydrologists searched for this precious commodity and found it at unexpected depths.

Europe discovered potable water reservoirs several miles beneath the surface. And Mexico is prepared to spend $40 million to pump and treat ultra-deep water for Mexico City.

In the U.S., aquifers that are drawn on for large scale irrigation have dropped more than 300 feet. Are we polluting these deep waters with FF, the very waters that may one day be crucially needed for farming?

But perhaps we're being unjustly severe on Johnnie. Dollars and sense keep poor company. Money tempts all of us to lie to others, even to ourselves.

We'll give Johnnie a choice: a trip to the woodshed or a 1,000-word essay titled, Why I Should Tell The Truth to be published in this newspaper. If his essay doesn't appear in the March 20 edition, that will mean that Johnnie preferred going to the woodshed.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

Recently I read of a report that showed that only 34% of Protestant Christians and 24% of Catholic Christians attend church on Sunday. And we wonder what is happening to our beloved country? Being baptized into the Christian faith is not just a social gesture to help us feel righteous. Imagine a minister going through seminary and then refusing to take on the responsibilities of preaching. Imagine a Catholic going through years of study and prayer to become a priest and then refusing to offer Mass. He becomes a priest to offer daily, to God the Father, the life, death and resurrection sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Baptized Christians have a very important role to play in God’s plan, for they must, “fill up the cup that is lacking” as Colossians l: 24 tells us. Catholics must listen to Scripture to learn God’s plan for salvation. Then we must unite with all faithful Catholics on Sundays, to offer to the Father Christ’s great sacrifice re-presented on our altar. Jesus suffered for each of us individually. Each Christian, individually, owes it to Christ to enter into His passion and do all that we can to bring God’s world into the reality we pray for each day - “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done”.

Dr. Alice von Hildebrand once commented on following our own conscience. She wrote, “conscience, as filtered through one’s own pride and rebellious spirit is derailed into implying a right to follow one’s own will and wishes under the rubric of conscience, no matter what the outcome”. In this Year of Faith come home to your inheritance. Join us in church asking God to save our soul and our country.

Sincerely,

Annette Corrigan

Jackson Township