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Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

Published: March 13, 2008

To the Editor:

In response to the article in the Feb. 21 edition of The Georgia Bulletin, “Young Catholics Embrace Jesus’ Message, Not Practices,” I would ask the faithful of Georgia to call upon Archbishop Gregory to make a statement. Throughout the article, the impression is given that church teachings are negotiable. Statements such as, “Increasingly, people want a dialogue with bishops and other church leaders on moral issues” gives the false impression that church teachings are up for discussion—that the laity could meet with the clergy and have a discussion and get her teachings changed or at least softened a bit. Further, the article mentions because of the lived experience of the young in the church, the church’s teachings are not “convincing” or “persuasive.” To my mind, this is evidence of two grave errors—first of all that life experience trumps church teaching, and secondly, that church teachings are supposed to be “persuasive” and “convincing.” Again, the implication is that the church must change her teachings in order to match the life experience of the faithful. Has such weak catechesis been experienced by the young faithful, that they believe that the church should be conformed to their experience? I was received into the church five years ago, and one of the things that attracted me was the uncompromising nature of the church—that she does not change based on the whims of some of her faithful. Protestant denominations routinely practice “doctrine by democracy,” that is, stating doctrinal positions based upon a vote. The article gives the impression that many of the young in the church are interested in having the Catholic Church do the same thing. Such grave error should be corrected clearly and swiftly by our bishops. I have no illusion that the church will start having “listening sessions” and “focus groups” in order to “dialog” with the young faithful in order to negotiate the church’s position on major issues, as the article implies she should. But it would be beneficial to those who are really faithful to the church to hear from our diocesan leaders that in fact to do this would be grave error, and that it is simply impossible to do this and retain our identities as Catholics. If we were to do it, we may as well join the rolls of the 30,000-plus Protestant denominations in this country.

Christopher Lewis, Rome