Madam, - Mary O'Regan (April 14th) seems to be unaware that the Catholic Church's laws in the area of morality are not at all like the laws of gravity or of aerodynamics, which are descriptive of reality until our understanding of reality changes.
All Church law is culturally conditioned and for centuries it was based on simple ignorance. For centuries it was a mortal sin (hell for all eternity) for married Catholics to have intercourse during menstruation or pregnancy, and all through the Middle Ages women were forbidden to enter a church or receive Communion during their menstrual periods. In Mary O'Regan's logic these laws are still binding on Christian conscience since they have never been officially revoked.
For 1,800 years the church had no problem with slavery. Indeed, for most of that time the popes and cardinals had hundreds of slaves without the slightest scruple of conscience.
How can Ms O'Regan explain that we are no longer obliged to accept the teaching of Pius VI, who rejected the "abominable philosophy of human rights", and especially freedom of religion, of conscience, of the press and the equality of all human beings. In fact, freedom of conscience was dismissed as "sheer madness" by Gregory XVI and Pius IX, but solemnly proclaimed as a basic human right by Vatican II.
Truth cannot simply be dictated and imposed under obedience, but can only be discovered and shared. As for Church "teaching", no teaching takes place until someone has actually been taught, been persuaded and convinced.
The Church is not composed of simply bishops and clergy but of all God's holy people, and Church "teaching" is empty until we listen to the God-given creative intelligence of the laity and the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through their lives of faith. - Yours, etc,
Fr SEAN FAGAN SM, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2.