Letters

Poor communication

Don Gaffney

Contents - Feb 2008 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Can Catholic schools recover their 'salt' - Michael Gilchrist Spe salvi: Benedict's second encyclical calls for a rediscovery of hope in Christ - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Grace under fire: ordinations, and first Holy Communion in Iraq - Babette Francis Technical school: Salesians continue to help post-tsunami Sri Lanka - Michael Lynch SDB Paganism: 'New Age' activities continue in Brisbane Archdiocese - Tim Pemble-Smith A remarkable father remembered - Maria Rankin How to reform Catholic education: get the world view right - Chris Hilder The need for solitude and reflection amid today's cacophony - Andrew Kania What the social reign of Christ means today - Bishop Peter Elliott Letters: Dissent - Frank White Letters: Natural Law - Fr Bernard McGrath Letters: New look Mass - Jessie Roger Letters: Virgin Birth - Eamonn and Pat Keane Letters: True Church - John Frey Letters: 'Schoolies' - Fr. M. Durham Letters: Poor communication - Don Gaffney Letters: Vatican II - Anthony Bono Letters: From India - Fr. A. Alex Prabhu Books: NO PLACE FOR GOD: The Denial of the Transcendent in Modern Church Architecture - Tony Evans (reviewer) Books: WHEN MIGHT BECOMES HUMAN RIGHT:Essays on Democracy and the Crisis of Rationality - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: A YEARBOOK OF SEASONS AND CELEBRATIONS, by Joanna Bogle - Eric Hester (reviewer) Books: Books available from AD2000 and Freedom Publishing Reflection: Devotion to Our Lady: eclipse and revival - Br Barry Coldrey

I was interested though not surprised to read in Fr Brian Harrison's letter of a communication which 'had mysteriously failed ever to reach His Eminence.'

My experience may be of interest or value.

When Bishop Morris appeared in the Courier Mail wishing for the right to ordain women as priests, I wrote to him that surely the Church had always taught that this was an impossibility, and this teaching had been repeated 'definitively' by John Paul II and restated by Benedict XVI.

He replied, courteously and promptly, that this was not so. 'If you don't believe me, please feel free to write to Rome.'

This I did with alacrity, to Cardinal Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Some considerable time elapsed, and I sent a couple of more strongly worded communications mentioning my intention, if necessary, to publish widely in the secular media.

My original expectation of a speedy and substantial reply rested on the experience of writing to Pope John Paul II in 1981 and receiving a heart-warming reply in eight days. It took a while to realise that he had dictated this reply while lying in bed with a bullet wound in his stomach.

Eventually a postcard arrived from the Congregation over an illegible signature, blandly recommending that I read Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.

What do I do next - take out full page ads in the London Times or the New York Times? Is there a Bishops' Broederbond which has decided that whatever scandal or damage is done to the souls in their care, bishops will not be embarrassed by being told publicly that they are wrong ?

DON GAFFNEY
Tarragindi, Qld

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 21 No 1 (February 2008), p. 15