Courtney McGrailDear Editor, What are we going to do about the huge gulf that exists between the more erudite members of the Church and the ordinary people who are not being taught to meet Jesus Christ in the world of today?
The teaching Church in the Vatican seems to have become an increasingly unwieldy bureaucracy. Words like ‘curia’, ‘synod’, ‘collegiality’, ‘hegemonic power’, ‘Mariology’, ‘clericalism’ and many other such terms present a threat to the people in the pews (even if they try to better their understanding of the ‘set-up’ in the Vatican). There is no one teaching us the basic messages of Christ, no one pointing us to more readable books or chatting with us about the Good News of the Gospels as relevant to today.
What would Jesus Christ think of today’s teaching (or non-teaching) of ordinary people on love, mercy, forgiveness, mercy, justice, peace, selflessness, along with the other challenges he exemplified. Are the Eucharist and the accompanying liturgy of today understood by those who attend Mass? Does it bring an uplifting of the hearts to people? Mostly not.
Yes, we know that everything, including our way of life, has become increasingly complex. But if a parent is explaining a word such as ‘justice’ to a child, the parent does not use the terminology of the judiciary. Yet a good parent can get the idea of justice across to the child simply and lovingly.
I believe that our relationship with Christ (knowing how loved and understood we are) comes before rules and regulations. But the teachers need to have achieved that loving intimacy themselves if they are to reach out for the hand of a child of God and gently lead that child to the Father.
I pray for Pope Francis who shows himself as such a great-hearted teacher but who is up against the power of those who erect complex arguments to support their cold erudition. Let’s commend the Holy Father to the wise spirit of God.
Yours sincerely,
Angela Macnamara,
Churchtown, Dublin 14.