Madam, - Fr Tony Flannery is to be congratulated for spelling out the implications of the teaching of Jesus for today's world (Rite and Reason, June 26th).
Unless we read the gospel with the Bible in one hand and the daily newspapers in the other our Christianity can too easily degenerate into pie-in-the-sky, pious platitudes that fail to challenge our self-sufficient complacency. Too often our church leaders make little effort to bridge the gap between the reality of life and some "traditional teachings" that are not rooted in the teaching of Jesus.
Pope Benedict has written a really beautiful book on Jesus of Nazareth - enlightening and inspiring, a pleasure to read. It is unique in that the Holy Father explains that it is not a magisterial text, but only an expression of his personal research and says that "anyone is free to contradict me". In the light of this admirable humility, many Catholics would like to ask the Pope and his advisers to answer some simple questions:
Why did God create so many millions of people who through no fault of their own happen to be homosexual?
In spite of all our prayers for vocations to the priesthood, why does God allow hundreds of thousands of Catholics to be deprived of the Eucharist for months or even years simply because they have no celibate priest?
Is it really the mind of Jesus that Catholics are seriously obliged to attend Sunday Mass but forbidden to receive the sacrament if they are living in a second marital union, which in fact may be more life-giving and grace-filled than a previous disastrous experience which for technical reasons cannot be annulled? Traditional theology held that the Eucharist is for the forgiveness of sins, but current canon law makes it simply a reward for good behaviour.
What would Jesus say about the thousands of ordained priests in today's Church with no significant ministerial relationship with any Christian community, whose work keeps them bound to administration desks, and who "say" Mass either alone or for a few domestic servants? Why do the members of the Pope's diplomatic service representing the Vatican to secular states around the world need priestly or episcopal ordination? Is there not something seriously defective about our current theology and practice of priesthood? - Yours, etc,
(Fr) SEÁN FAGAN, SM, Lower Leeson Street , Dublin 2.