Here comes another cry from the heart, this time from Matthew Walton of Palmerston North, who's fed up with "official (Church) newspapers that suppress reasonable debate".
Yes, that means he's had another letter turned down by NZ Catholic. I know the feeling: I decided the same some time ago, and for the same reason.
NZ Catholic, like any newspaper, has a perfect right to bin letters they don't like. I don't envy editor Michael Otto. It can't be easy for a journalist to biff challenging, possibly controversial letters because they don't toe the editorial line.
Who draws that line, and where? NZ Catholic is, after all, a creature of the bishop: it's owned by +Patrick Dunn, President of the NZ Bishops' Conference.
Emeritus Bishop Peter Cullinane underscores the line, perhaps, in the latest issue (May 5) in a whole page devoted to the polarizing Pope Francis effect.
"Why is this?" he asks for openers, and closes, many column inches later, by saying, "The Church's mandate to teach has not changed; the way it teaches has needed to change, based on greater respect for the person and for conscience. Pope Francis' style of leadership invites people to become more fully human and more fully alive through the exercise of personal responsibility".
Well, isn't that nice? Heart-warming, really. There you have it, people. If that's the view of +Cullinane, how many of our bishops will respond to the call from 31 theologians, philosophers, scholars and academics to investigate the charges they make against the Pope of the canonical crime of heresy?
Yet letters to the editor on the previous page give our bishops a hint of resistance to 'becoming more fully human and fully alive' (whatever that may mean). Jim Costello of Punakaiki gets down to tin tacks, asking what others think about "the gradual (some would say surreptitious) removal of kneelers" which makes it difficult (but not impossible) to go down on our knees before our Eucharistic Lord and Saviour at the Consecration.
And not just one but three letters object to Cardinal Dew's 'call me John' innovation. The first is from Kathryn A Leslie of Palmerston North, who is "proud to call my priest son "Father".
Why should Otto print these letters and not the one below, from Matthew Walton? Is it because Costello et al are merely questioning clerical M. O., while Walton (who, incidentally, dismisses +Peter's thesis), is challenging our clergy's faith?
It would be a courageous, faith-filled and disinterested bishop who would countenance letters in his church newspaper that call into question the faith of his own priests, as Walton does, as follows:
"We Catholics now constantly hear homilies based around a personalised theology.
They are heavily focussed on relationships - with God, Jesus or neighbor, and on 'the Word' (Scripture).
Daily, there is a distinct absence of teaching on Dogma or
Tradition. It's as if someone has said Dogma/Doctrine is ideological and
Tradition is fundamentalist.
Yet sound Catholic preaching is based on the three pillars of
Gospel, Sacred Tradition and Magisterial or True Doctrine. No way should
Catholic preaching be totally consumed by the social, personal and communal
aspects of Christian Faith.
Nor should a priest's presentation of Scripture be based solely
on human philosophy, psychology and sociology. In all that is spoken, where lies
the meaning, where the mystical element, where the Faith?
Deeper knowledge of God, reverentially given, leads to deeper
love of God, to deeper faith. The Church is a near limitless storehouse of the
knowledge of God.
The absence and neglect of this knowledge shows the presence
of ideological intent."
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