Say you’re a Canadian archbishop and president of your country’s bishops’ conference. Nineteen priests issue a widely read open letter declaring their opposition to an element of Catholic doctrine. Would your natural reaction be to say, It’s too bad they chose to make a public spectacle, but life goes on?
It is if you’re Archbishop Andre Gaumond of Sherbrooke, in an article linked by Jeff Miller. He also says that this is no reason to throw them out of the Church.
The same article says that one of the priests says he hopes the letter “will open up dialogue on the issues.” As Jeff so correctly observes, why should we open up dialogue on a matter that is a settled doctrine?
Hey let us also open up dialogue on other settled Church teaching. How about the divinity of Christ for example or the natures of Christ. Or how about the the Church’s love for the poor? Let’s us dialogue about charitable efforts for the poor. Dumping these charitable efforts could really help the bottom line of most parishes. Maybe we can find 19 priests tired of running soup kitchens, etc that could write an open letter in support of cutting off the poor and opening up dialogue on the issue.
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