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Letters
Our readers

Welcome Advance

Brian D. Scanlan’s forthright account (11/1) of wholesome boyhood experiences in the company of an aging priest was a welcome relief from the depressing lore we have painfully endured regarding boy-priest relationships these past years. His memories do not clamor for healing. Yet his otherwise laudable essay betrays an angst, I fear, that is all too common among Catholics still reeling from the pain and shock of the priest sex-abuse scandal. His uncompromising demand that the abusers must be driven out of the priesthood disturbs me greatly. Although I certainly agree that the guilty should pay for their crimes and I deeply commiserate with the young victims of this frightful tragedy, I winced when I read his claim. A new and sad fact is that some priests who have suffered the allegation of sexual abuse have now themselves become victims in this horrific saga.

Despite the feverish rhetoric that frequently frames this explosive issue, it needs to be admitted that not all accused priests have a history akin to that of John Geoghan or Paul Shanley, and they should not be ostracized or exiled as if they did. They are not all serial predators. Neither are they beyond the pale. Yet all of them, even those with a solitary allegation against them often years in the past, are now tarred with the same broad, all-embracing, unforgiving strokes, despite the fact that prior to the Dallas charter some of these priests had ministered effectively, if not admirably, for years in settings without children and with no accusation of impropriety. Now they’re gone; and given their record of restoration and service, there are still those who would drum them out of the priesthood altogether. Did somebody say justice?

Faced with wrenching decisions, people sometimes ask, What would Jesus do? Some fathers of the church judged Peter’s denial of the Lord a crime without parallel. But Jesus did not drive him out of the apostolic college. He not only forgave him; he reinstated him. The fallen, restored Peter retained his leadership of the church. Is this just a pious story to make us feel good during Holy Week, or should Jesus’ action be a paradigm for our own conduct in these anguished, traumatic times?

Perhaps the bishops will revisit this issue when they gather again in 2005 to ponder the norms of the Dallas charter. In the meantime, less harsh and strident language by all participants in the conversation might be not only a blessing but a welcome advance.

(Rev.) William T. Cullen

The Word
Dianne Bergant
The Advent hymn ldquo O Come O Come Emmanuel rdquo is a song of longing and profound faith But who is Emmanuel Today rsquo s Gospel tells us that the word Emmanuel means ldquo with us is God rdquo and it implies that the child born of Mary is this Emmanuel But what of the child in the firs
Books
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News
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
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Gallaudet Howard
I sit at lessons and carols for the second time, listening to St. Luke’s account of the Annunciation while a baby kicks and swims inside me. The church is candlelit and hushed, fragrant with pine boughs, nothing like the small, hot room where a Middle Eastern Jewish teenager learned from an an
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
Delivering a hot meal to an elderly woman in a public housing project is how my Saturday afternoons begin. Her meal and hundreds of others are prepared in the basement of a Manhattan church. Most are eaten right there, but enough are set aside to accommodate shut-ins as part of a program informally
Books
John P. Galvin
Robert Krieg professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame is the author of several studies of 20th-century German Catholic theologians In the work under review he examines the widely varying stances taken toward Nazism by selected Catholic theologians in Hitler rsquo s Germany His seco
The Word
Dianne Bergant
At Christmastide we hear sounds and voices that seem to be silent the rest of the year We hear lighthearted jingling bells that delight us We sing beloved carols that express messages simple enough for children to understand yet profound enough to challenge us for the rest of our lives We exchan
Columns
Terry Golway
In the aftermath of John Kerry’s electoral defeat, Democrats have begun a conversation among themselves about the importance of being able to speak to, for lack of a better term, voters of faith. The Democrats, everybody seems to agree, just cannot manage to connect with Americans, particularl
Faith in Focus
William R. Campbell
I prayed over a dead man today. His name was Jocelyn, and he had only one leg. His other leg had been amputated “not too long ago due to complications from sugar,” said the man in the adjacent bed. That man’s legs had both been amputated at the knees. I guessed Jocelyn had been in
Books
Tom Deignan
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The Word
Dianne Bergant
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Editorials
The Editors
The debate about stem cell research focuses on money and morality, on how to pay for this enterprise and how to guarantee that it is guided by ethical principles. In California last month, 60 percent of the voters dealt with the first of these concerns but not with the second. They passed Propositio
Patricia A. Kossmann
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) wore many hats throughout his illustrious lifetime: teacher, preacher, bishop, orator, writer, fund-raiser for missions abroad, convert-maker, radio personality, television star. And perhaps some time in the future, if the incipient cause takes root, there will
George M. Anderson
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Books
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News
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
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Stephen J. Pope
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Faith in Focus
Jens Soering
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Books
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