Letters to the Editor

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Church must stay the course, remain a light in the darkness, reader says

In a letter to the editor in the Oct. 5 issue of The Criterion, a letter writer raises some serious points concerning unity in the Catholic Church. Moral relativism rampant today has pretty much destroyed any real unity the Church, and society in general, once had. This idea that, “I wouldn’t do that, but it’s OK for you,” allows for vast differences in opinion as to what is morally right and wrong.

If the letter writer’s statistics are accurate—and I can’t say they aren’t—the moral cat is already out of the bag, the toothpaste out of the tube. No wonder that so many people consider the Catholic Church to be out of step with society with facts such as these. Satan certainly appears to be winning in the court of public opinion.

On the other hand, the Church’s role as moral arbiter has been severely compromised with the clergy sex-abuse scandal. This is the proverbial “plank” in our eye plainly visible to others which erodes our ability to lead on moral issues.

Though most of those cases happened decades ago, as Editor Emeritus John F. Fink notes in the same issue, the cover-up and continuing revelations keep it on as today’s news.

Unity. Unity will elude us until: God takes those actions the letter writer alluded that some pray for; or: the Catholic Church capitulates and finds alternate lifestyles acceptable. That 70 percent will seem like unity anyway.

I believe that the Church must stay the course, even as unpopular as that is today. We must remain a light in the darkness, a voice crying out in the wilderness. Otherwise, there will be nothing for the people to come back to when these social experiments with drugs, abortion, lifestyles and immorality ultimately are shown to be failures.

This won’t be easy and will require the unity and action of the remaining faithful in support of the Church.

- Robert Rose | Indianapolis

Criterion reader says Church must unite for the safety of our children

I saw the letter to the editor in the Oct. 5 issue of The Criterion, and was somewhat distressed when I read it.

The letter writer says that commentators have argued “that Catholics should ‘come together’ to solve the current clergy sex-abuse crisis.”

He wonders how we can find unity to address the issue because of the culture war going on in the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality.

The issue here is sexual abuse of children by priests they have trusted! It is not about homosexuality.

We need to come together to protect our children, whether they be male or female, from adult predators.

Homosexuality among religious in our Church is also a critical issue, but whether we agree or disagree with the Church’s teaching about gay lifestyles, surely we can unite for the safety of our children!

- Louise A. Anderson | Terre Haute