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Thursday, March 28, 2024

From readers: September 12, 2019

Why bother?

Reading your 6-6-19 articles on participating in the upcoming synod begs the question, Why bother? As someone who feels disconnected from the Church (one of the group that the “synod’s leaders” seek to involve) I am told the topics for discussion “will not be breaking new ground on what the Church believes or teaches” — leaving what for me?

I want to discuss: When are we going to recognize that women belong in the priesthood? Why is the laity not given a direct voice in the selection of parish priests? Why the Church is not embracing our LGBTQ community as Jesus would have? Why isn’t the voice of the Church shouting at the Southern border where the poor and disenfranchised are lingering in cages?

Your articles conclude, “A synod is not a process for changing Church teaching or wielding … political power,” and while there will be voting, “it’s not a democratic exercise.” At age 72, I’m too old to start turning over tables in the temple, so I think I’ll just sit in my chair and continue looking out the window.

Dennis P. Moriarty
Belle Plaine

Editor’s note: Ideas, concerns, criticisms, encouragement … All are invited as Archbishop Bernard Hebda and Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens hold prayer and listening events to prepare for a 2021 archdiocesan synod on pastoral needs and direction in the local Church (see story, and the archbishop’s column). Their desire to hear and understand will be reflected in many different ways, including stories and Letters to the Editor in The Catholic Spirit. The bishops’ encouragement is clear and strong: Participate. Pray. And be open to the grace and endless creativity of the Holy Spirit.

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Saintly ministry

I appreciated Dave Hrbacek’s article about Father Baraga in your Aug. 8 issue and would like to add an important feature of his saintly ministry among the Ojibwe Native Americans, namely his publishing the first dictionary and grammar of the Ojibwe language, which enabled other missionaries to help bring Christianity to the Ojibwes in the nineteenth century. A testimonial to this fact can be found in the book, “Lady Unafraid,” by Joseph Raleigh Nelson, p. 258, which I borrowed from the University of Minnesota library, in which Methodist Pastor Murch says to Bishop Baraga: “I have had no facility in learning a foreign language. It has been a great handicap to me in my work. If you, good friend, had not been so generous, so patient in helping me, I must have been even a greater failure than I have been in my work. An achievement like this of yours is so monumental, it is too great for me to even grasp.”

Roland J. Mayer
Church of the Epiphany, Coon Rapids

Share your perspective by emailing CatholicSpirit@archspm.org. Please limit your letter to the editor to 150 words and include your parish and phone number. The Commentary page does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Catholic Spirit. Letters may be edited for length or clarity.

 


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