Sir, - Father Patrick McCafferty's simplistic understanding of "He who listens to you, listens to me" in Luke 10:16 (March 11th) raises difficulties for Catholics who know a bit of history. Pope Pius XI in 1931 solemnly declared that co-education was against all Catholic principles: "It is erroneous and pernicious, and is often based on a naturalism which denies original sin. . .Nature itself, which makes the two sexes different in organism, inclinations and attitudes, provides no argument for mixing them promiscuously, much less educating them together."
Pope Leo X declared, against Luther, that the burning of heretics was fully in accordance with the will of the Holy Spirit.
Pope Pius IX denounced "as a madness injurious to the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls" the opinion that "freedom of conscience and worship is the proper right of each person, and that this should be asserted in every rightly constituted society".
The Second Vatican Council solemnly proclaimed the opposite, namely that the rights of personal conscience have their foundation in the very dignity of the human person.
Father McCafferty admits that we must follow conscience, but it must be an "informed" conscience, as if it were simply a matter of accepting the "information" supplied by our spiritual leaders. If he is suggesting that we must suspend our God-given intelligence, common sense, and personal experience of life, why speak of conscience at all? Is he not forgetting that all doctrinal statements, including those of the Bible, are historically and culturally conditioned?
We accept the bible as God's word, but not as a dead word carved in stone. To be a living and life-giving word, it must come alive in each new age and in every culture. The challenge is to make that a reality in today's very complex world. - Yours, etc.,
Father Sean Fagan, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2.