Letters - Teachings of the Popes, in the Past and Now
To the Editor:
“The Pope and the Crowds,” by Ross Douthat (column, Sept. 20), describes popular respect for the role the pontiff “has played in sustaining Catholicism for 2,000 years.” But more is at work than appreciation of a rock of religious stability in a time of change. Many non-Catholics appreciate the church’s insistence on human dignity against dehumanizing and uprooting trends of the modern world.
These produce what Pope John Paul II decried in his 1995 encyclical “The Gospel of Life” as a spreading “culture of death,” which sees “so-called quality of life ... primarily or exclusively as economic efficiency, inordinate consumerism, physical beauty and pleasure.”
The affirmation of the sacred nature of the person against depersonalizing trends, voiced by Pope Benedict XVI no less than John Paul, is far more important to us than particular stands of the church on issues like gay marriage, abortion or contraception.
Harry C. Boyte
Minneapolis, Sept. 20, 2010The writer is co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College.
•
To the Editor:
Ross Douthat marvels at the institutional survival of the papacy these 2,000 years. So might we all. But it is too bad that he sees the current crisis of priestly sexual abuse as having nothing to teach the official church about its longtime rule of clerical celibacy.
When, 500 years ago, Martin Luther declared for a married priesthood, he was not simply adapting to “the prevailing values of the age.” He was adapting to some facts about human fulfillment. Protestant ministers like me have reason in our marriage to exclaim, “Thank God for Luther’s version of ‘relevance’!”
I have always hoped that papal teachings would someday acknowledge that celibate priests serve hierarchical controls but not the humanity of priests. Official irrelevance to the nature of human sexuality loses the loyalty of a lot of Catholics these days.
I wish that Mr. Douthat were proposing a more nuanced wrestle with the challenge we all have to face: when to adapt, when to learn, when to resist, when to stand firm. It is the essence of Protestantism that on this and many other subjects, religious people have a lot to learn.
Donald W. Shriver
New York, Sept. 21, 2010The writer is president emeritus of Union Theological Seminary.
Comments
Post a Comment