Dear Editor, The Maynooth controversy was a missed opportunity for Catholic catechesis. Secular media interest in things Catholic lends itself to skilful use to spread the Word, not endanger it. The said media approached their usual ‘go-to’ people, including a small band of similarly minded priests who conjure up a ‘wise in their eyes’ Church, imbued with levels of confusion.
The priest-comments I encountered across the media one day were laced with disparagement and stereotyping of other priests, particularly young priests, and bishops. The core issue – the sublime nature of the ordained priesthood, the divine election of a man through no merits of his own, to a special life by God – was supressed beneath an agenda-laden bushel. As ever the questions of faith proved unseasonal.
The outcome – a Church, divinely designed as a city built on a hill, a light for the world, again mangled its yet more wrinkled dirty linen in public. Consequently an incurious world saw not the substance but what it expected to see.
Woe never substitutes for weal. Grace persists to enliven the substance of faith. Ordinary Catholics and humble priests already believe God’s grace makes obedience to the Commandments and Church teaching attractive. Priests trust the same graces to condition their celibacy to fashion their true liberation and charity-service to the laity. Many cultivate awareness of the presence of God to develop virtue. They believe in Christ’s concept of truth, resisting the fashionable trend to inaugurate confusion as the eighth gift of the Holy Spirit.
Yours etc.,
Neil Bray
Cappamore, Co. Limerick.