SIR – David Baugh, a divorced Catholic now in a happy, stable relationship with a widowed lady, regrets that “there has been no positive statement except from the Pope” to address his issues (Letter, February 3). Now Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”) responds to the synods on the family which themselves represent a patient and detailed process of inquiry and reflection among the people of God. After these years of prayerful thought, who else can express the mind of the Church more faithfully than the Holy Father?
Pope Francis encourages “a responsible and personal pastoral discernment of particular cases” (Amoris Laetitia n 300). What more can be needed? Why, do you think, do we have all these bishops, priests and deacons around the place, if not to accompany faithful Catholics? What more is David Baugh waiting for?
Yours faithfully,
Fr Bob Eccles OP
Blackfriars, Cambridge
SIR – I cannot speak for all my peers, but I observe that there seems to be a growing disenchantment among engaged young Catholics regarding the Holy Father. I am 23, so my contemporaries and I became active in our faith during what we now realise was a springtime for the Church.
The many of us who have come across the Order of Malta have done so in the context of taking disabled pilgrims to Lourdes or giving dignity to the homeless in our university towns. The Holy Father’s treatment of these, our endearingly bonkers and profoundly Christian role models, seems to have left not a few young Catholics disheartened.
While his first encyclical addressed the topic of the environment deftly, the Holy Father has failed to substantially engage with our doubts and concerns about the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and contraception in Amoris Laetitia. He has singularly failed to love the young clergy who care for us and whom we count as friends, leaving them isolated and demotivated, and has provoked great confusion on several fronts as we struggle to live the Gospel.
What young Catholics want has not changed since John Paul II’s visit to Poland in 1979. We want God. We want Jesus in a culture that does not. We want leadership with integrity. We are not being nourished by this pontificate.
Yours faithfully,
Wilfrid Jones
Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge
SIR – The dual nature of the Order of Malta, as both a religious order and independent sovereign entity, has led to different interpretations of the extent of papal authority over the internal affairs of the order (report, February 3). One may draw a parallel with the co-principality of Andorra, where one co-prince is, ex-officio, the president of France and the other is, ex-officio, the Bishop of Urgell. Although the bishop is appointed by the Pope, the Holy See cannot intervene in the affairs of the co-principality. The resignation of the bishop or his removal from office by the Holy See has no impact on the sovereignty of Andorra.
The Order’s constitution provides that the Grand Master is elected for life from among the professed knights who have the noble proofs for honour and devotion; the Pope must be informed of his election or resignation but papal confirmation thereof is not required. Nonetheless, it is hard to see how Fra’ Matthew Festing, whose religious and spiritual devotion cannot be in doubt, could refuse a request from the Pope to give up his office.
History has shown that challenges to established authority, whether justified or not, seldom lead to the outcome the challengers expect. Few could have imagined the eventual outcome of the parliamentary challenge to Charles I in 1640 or the seemingly moderate demands of reformers in France in 1789.
Whatever changes may be proposed in consultation with the papal delegate will require the sanction of an Extraordinary Chapter-General (ECG), and agreement on such revisions may be necessary before the proposed date for the election of a successor to the Grand Master. This may mean an extension of the Lieutenancy for a full year and a postponement of the ECG until such changes are agreed.
Yours faithfully,
Guy Sainty
London W1
SIR – The reason that “largely Polish clergy” serve the small Catholic population of Kazakhstan (Feature, January 27) is that the flock is ethnically mostly Polish. It is formed from the descendants of Poles ethnically cleansed by Stalin from the western territories of the USSR in the 1930s. These were to be joined by Poles deported from eastern Poland when Hitler and Stalin partitioned the country in September 1939. Often being given just moments to leave their homes, these forcibly removed exiles, with no priests, would be sustained by their deep faith.
Often over generations they kept up secretly reciting prayers in Polish, even after the language was all but lost. This faith, now that it may be practised in the open, may well be at odds with much current Catholic thinking in the West and in America.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Olizar
London SW15
SIR – The current translation of the Mass does not improve with familiarity. It is, therefore, heartening to see that Pope Francis has formed a commission (Report, February 3), headed by Archbishop Roche, to look into whether the formalistic approach adopted by the Vatican in Liturgiam Authenticam should be revisited and matters of liturgy returned to the competence of local bishops’ conferences.
Vatican commissions are not renowned for their speed, but one hopes that in time we will see the current translation unceremoniously dumped where it belongs and, who knows, the ICEL (International Committee for English in the Liturgy) 1998 translation, itself 17 years in preparation, adopted in the English-speaking world.
Yours faithfully,
Martin Clitheroe
Bedford
SIR – I enjoyed and agreed with most of Pastor Iuventus’s column (January 27), but take issue with his claim that “what has triumphed is democracy”: the Brexit vote was carried 51.9 per cent to 48.1 per cent, whereas Mr Trump polled 46.1 per cent of the popular vote to Mrs Clinton’s 48.2 per cent. Brexit shouldn’t trouble us Catholics, being more profoundly and truly European than any artificially contrived superstate. Mr Trump, on the other hand, has already made America grate (sic) again.
Yours faithfully,
Simon Jones
Sheffield
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