This letter in the Catholic Times (13 Oct 2013) really deserves a wider audience. Well, it made me laugh!
Can it be possible that the Catholic Church in this country has pre-empted Pope Francis' blueprint for Church reform?
If discourse on sexual morality is to be abandoned in favour of pastoral care, we in these parts abandoned it years ago. The last recorded sermons on sexual morals given locally were from our church pulpits in the early 1960s, and ever since pulpits were dismantled there has been little said on the subject.
Contraception, adultery, sodomy, abortion, masturbation, although very prevalent and openly accepted in today's society, appear to be not for mention within the precincts of our churches. But for the persistent complaints of one of your columnists and your regular correspondents objecting to the Church's teaching, sexual immorality would be out of the public eye and a thing of the past.
If the Catholic Church is identified solely by its sexual moral precepts, it is largely due to those within the Church who persistently raise objections and maintain the the Church has got it wrong. It is a paradox that the ones who object are the ones who are doing the preaching, and perhaps we should be thankful to them for keeping the matter before our attention.
Jeff Thompson,
Chorley, Lancashire.
Who typed this up? The spelling mistakes are terrible!
ReplyDeleteI don't seem to recall Pope Benedict speaking very often about contraception, sodomy and masturbation and certainly not in homiles. Is it not possible that he felt homilies on such topics rather unseemly in the midst of the sacred liturgy. Whilst some traditionalists might like to hear sermons on contraception, masturbation, and sodomy, many of us might find such talk unnecessarily intrusive and even embarrassing. moreover, traditionalists, who rightly follow true moral precepts will not really be in need of such homilies.
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