"Dissent on Vatican document in Canada" (C.I., April, 2006).

It is sad there are still some renegade priests in the Catholic Church today who feel it necessary to resort to minor acts of terrorism such as "open letters" in order to achieve their own personal agendas on certain moral issues. I refer specifically to the 19 Quebec Roman Catholic priests who are taking issue with the Church's opposition to both same-sex "'marriage" and the ordination of active "gays" into the priesthood.

Underlying this exercise of boldness, however, are the more subtle and more dangerous attacks against Church teachings which are made manifest in so-called Catholic seminaries and Catholic weeklies like the Prairie Messenger. Here we find the real creation and impetus of organized dissent.

In the March 8 issue of the Prairie Messenger, for example, columnist Maureen Weber exalts the 19 dissenting Quebec Catholic priests, referring to homosexual activity as an authentic expression of "love." She ostracizes Catholic "theology of the body" for its procreative stance, claiming quite amazingly that the life-giving forces involved in the "sexual expression of love ... have nothing to do with children." Her views are consistent with those of editor Father Peter Novecosky, who incorrectly equates the Church with a democracy emphasizing "community" only in a non-spiritual and limited sense, as a "broader perspective from which to judge more immediate and pressing [Church] issues." He goes on to stress how "some Church members feel marginalized by Church teachings on sexuality, marriage and the role of women (Prairie Messenger, Mar. 22)."

Most disturbing is the deceptive way in which Fr. Novecosky attempts to justify his position by appealing to comments of the Holy Father on the same issue but in an entirely different context, made to look the same. This is a standard ploy of dissenters to garner support and escape detection. Where Pope Benedict XVI in the article uses community in the context of denouncing individualism, Father Novecosky speaks of "community" as a means of gleaning individual power under the title "God's people."

I agree with Fr. Alphonse de Valk's suggestion that perhaps more governance and less nice guy posturing is needed from our Canadian Bishops to ensure a more united Catholic Church. In a recent editorial (Mar. 2006) of Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Father Kenneth Baker concurred, stating: "What the Church needs is bishops who have the will and the 'guts' to rule, to discipline, and to demand obedience."

Hamilton, ON