If ignorance were bliss, I suspect Joseph G. Siclari and his disciples would be king! King Joseph of Levittown could then ban all those undesirables, such as myself, whom he claims use their "...sarcastic and condescending tone..." to belittle his lack of education. Off with their heads! King Joseph could set up checkpoints, at both ends of Hempstead Turnpike, to screen out those undesirables who dared enter his kingdom. Levittown residents would probably be cowering in their homes, lest they offend King Joseph, and businesses along Hempstead Turnpike would be shuttered due to lack of patronage.

Sounds silly! Yet, in my humble opinion, that is exactly what Siclari's venomous letters are spewing. Whatever creditable issues he may have raised about a handful of Progress House clients, a New York State Department of Mental Health outpatient funded-facility, were lost in his diatribes against William F. Reilly, PhD and Donald Lee Warner. Dr. Reilly and my fellow parishioners from St. Bernard's Church should be complimented, rather than castigated, for taking the initiative to open a long delayed dialogue with the staff and clients of Progress House. It also took a great deal of courage, I'm sure, for Donald Lee Warner to publicly write of his own bout with alcoholism and mental health. The fact that he has been able to turn his life around, earn a college degree and obtain full-time employment is a credit to his own perseverance and that of the Progress House staff. It is a classic example of our tax monies being well spent.

I've had the privilege of knowing Bill Reilly since the 1950s, when he returned to his Manhattan College alma mater as Associate Professor of Philosophy. Bill was already a Levittown resident in 1955, when he introduced a bunch of Bronx "knuckleheads," like myself, into a greater understanding of the influences pre-Socratic philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle had on St. Thomas Aquinas and his writings, particularly Summa Theologica. It wasn't until the mid 1970s, however, when I joined Bill as a member of St. Bernard's Parish Council, that I fully appreciated the depth of his intelligence and commitment to the social teachings of the church. Bill, for example, was already involved in the Rockville Centre Diocese's mission of fostering a greater degree of understanding and dialogue between the Catholic and Jewish communities. Bill, a daily communicant, has been in the forefront of numerous social issues confronting our community and it is understandable that he raised an awareness of Progress House to our conscientiousness.

James P. Ward