LETTERS.

Once a priest, always a priest

KATHY COFFEY'S ARTICLE ("A PRIEST IS A TERRIBLE thing to waste," September) was of great, interest to me. I can identify with most of Coffey's remarks about the rough passage we married priests have faced in our transition (even if we followed strictly the canonical rules, as I did), as well as the many church land mines thereafter, especially from certain bishops, some pastors, and some radically rightist groups.

However, after 29-plus years as a married priest, I believe I can and should add some observations that are rarely mentioned in the media, religious or secular.

A healthy percentage of us married priests do exercise many priestly, prophetic, and servant ministries. Some (like myself) prefer to do this within the parameters of official church leadership.

I have helped catechists, parents, and youth in various programs of catechesis. I have contributed to many Bible study programs as a teacher and a writer and have led courses in adult Catholic education. I have given help to lectors and liturgical ministers. Several choirs have benefited from my wife serving as organist and choir director, and from our role as cantors. The life of a married priest can still be priestly.

Until the Lord calls us home, we continue to exercise our priestly, prophetic, and servant ministries.

James Beiersdorfer Sun City Center, Fla.

Coffey's article was very informative. I was truly amazed to learn how the church treats ex-priests. I had no idea, and it is a waste of talent. Where is the compassion that Jesus always showed in all circumstances? It sounds like sour grapes to me by those who are having trouble with their own sexuality.

The pope is asking us to show mercy in the next millennium, which is here now. He should allow the 100,000 married priests worldwide to come home.

Catherine Lacy Margate, Fla.

I just had to write about Coffey's article. I give her credit for having the courage to write it, and I agree with her.

What would Jesus do? I believe he would use our married priests. He used Peter, didn't he? And didn't he rebuke the Pharisees because of their nitty-gritty laws? They often were more interested in the law than in caring for the people.

Celibacy is not God's law, it is church law, which is subject to change and should be changed.

Shirley M. Noel Northridge, Mass.

Judgment call

Tom McGrath's September The Examined Life ("We can be better than bitter") drew conflicting feelings as I read it. It all sounds reasonable--give everyone a break. Don't speak ill of anybody. Love everyone, and be humble and not judgmental. Don't make unpleasant pronouncements against a certain group of people--after all, we are all sinners.

But wait a minute. It is the obligation of the church (i.e., the pope) to tell us what is right and wrong, good and bad, according to the teaching and magisterium of the church.

McGrath expressed ignorance as to why the gay-rights festival in Rome would be so offensive. Maybe he should have mentioned that the gay-rights festival was timed to coincide with the Jubilee World Youth 2000 gathering in order to provoke confrontations and to denigrate the Catholic Church. Does McGrath not realize how gay-rights parades often do offensive, shocking, and even obscene activities during their festivals in direct attack on the Catholic Church?

Mary Halvorson Via e-mail

I was thrilled to read McGrath's insightful and courageous article. I strongly support his novel, yet much needed, suggestion about "the church declaring a moratorium on official pronouncements about the orderedness or disorderedness of homosexual orientation and behavior."

As a gay Catholic in lay ministry to the lesbian and gay community for 24 years, I can attest to the fact that such "official pronouncements"--and silencing of those in ministry to the community--cause severe setbacks to advancing reconciliation from and to the church.

Such pronouncements and activities lead to further alienation, despair, anger, resentment, and pain, not only for lesbian and gay persons and their families but also for the greater church and Body of Christ, who understand and are sensitive to the destruction, separation, divisiveness, and violence that ensues.

I agree with McGrath that we as church are long overdue in reassessing our beliefs and church teaching relating to human sexuality and behavior in light of all the information and experiences at our disposal.

Bill Welch Santa Clara, Calif.

Moved by the Word

More power to Bob Zyskowski for his article "Bible study: It's not just for Protestants anymore" (August). Bible study was one of the practices advocated by the Second Vatican Council.

Where Bible study takes hold, Christian life flourishes. My wife and I have seen this in many Bible study groups we have shared in since Vatican II. Currently, like Greg Hoffman who works in prison ministry in Minneapolis, we are members of a Bible study group in a county correctional center here in Indiana. It is open to all at the center, from whatever background they come.

We have witnessed the Spirit move in the minds of the men and women who take part in these discussions after we read and study the Word of God.

Hermes D. Kreilkamp Rensselaer, Ind.

Different is good

I was touched by Patrick Reardon's heartfelt reflection on teaching the Holocaust ("Never again: Six ways to teach our children about the Holocaust," August). In my teaching in Catholic high schools in Chicago (through the Catholic/Jewish Educational Enrichment Program), I have witnessed firsthand the serious struggle of teachers and students to come to some understanding of this overwhelming event.

I was, however, confused by the conclusion of Reardon's article. It is headed "Treasure diversity," but argues that we must "stop thinking of `us and them' and start seeing that it's just `us.'" It seems to me that we do not have to say that everyone is "us" in order to understand that it is wrong to kill. While scientific research has now shown that human beings are overwhelmingly like one another on the genetic level, we are different in religion, culture, ethnicity. Perhaps we could be courageous enough to risk seeing diversity as God's will for human beings.

Human differences should not be erased but embraced, celebrated, and loved. Each of us is different and each of us is created in God's image.

Rabbi Laurence Edwards Chicago, Ill.

Vietnamese gifts

Congratulations to U.S. CATHOLIC for beginning an occasional column on issues of diversity (The Gifts We Bring).

You could not have chosen a more poignant article and person to lead off this column than Peter C. Phan ("Under the bamboo cross," July), whose own life--like those of thousands of other Vietnamese--was torn out from under him in the mid 1970s.

His intent in the article is not to plead victimization or to scold the U.S. for its policy, but rather to reflect on the mythology of the Vietnamese people, their customs and sacred tree, the bamboo, as a complement, not a contrast, to Catholicism. Nowhere present is there any tone of rancor but rather one of reconciliation and of how Vietnamese people are assimilating into various cultures, most specifically the U.S., after devastations that we still do not fully comprehend.

I salute him and your magazine for including this article.

Dennis Patrick Slattery Santa Barbara, Calif.