TO INTELL EDITORS:

Columnist Gail Collins shares "a really old story" concerning her mother-in-law when she was young and raising a family under difficult conditions, Feb. 11, "Contravening contraception."

The poor woman went to confession and told her priest that she and her husband were using birth control. "You are no better than a (prostitute) on the street," said the priest.

This reminds me of a similar episode which occurred to a group of desperate men just hours before they were committed to liberating fortress Europe from the Nazis during WW II.

Anthony Beevor, the author of "D-Day, The Battle for Normandy," writes: The 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion "was in a very suggestible state" that may have been made worse by their Catholic padre, who was appalled to learn that the men had been issued condoms.

In his sermon before takeoff, he ranted that "they should not be going to meet their deaths with the means of mortal sin in their pockets!" At the end of the service, the ground was apparently littered with discarded packets.

On the same Opinion page was the latest "People Poll" results in which the majority of readers responded negatively regarding the question concerning the decision by Shippensburg University to allow vending machines on campus which offer the Plan B contraceptive, also known as the morning-after pill.

No surprise there, when we all know the same like-minded folks will not tolerate Plan "A" with regard to sex education in the public schools.

James R. Bowen

Elizabethtown