Sir, - I wish to make some comments on Dr. Gaffney's recent book The Way We Live Now, published by Gill and MacMillan. I admire Dr. Gaffney's research, expertise and scholarly analysis of varying social and psychological issues. However I was most saddened and disappointed with the chapter "A Crisis of Sexuality in the Church".
Nobody denies recent scandals, defections and abuses in our Church. Such human failures and wrongdoings hurt us all and leave us humbled and deeply saddened. Nevertheless the Church's doctrine on human sexuality is clear and wholesome, as is her teaching on other moral and ethical issues touched on in this particular chapter.
The Holy Spirit of God is at all times guiding the Church in her Magisterium (teaching authority). Jesus has promised to be with the Church until the end of time. The Church is not a human institution. It was founded by Christ and draws its strength from Him.
In a sinful world, all of God's gifts to us, such as sexuality, can be greatly misused and abused. We cannot, however, let human sexuality's potential for misuse blot out the very fundamental, theological and anthropological fact that human sexuality is God's most wonderful and beautiful of, gifts to us. As we read in Genesis: "In the beginning He created them: male and female He created them". Human sexuality is thus a comprehensive gift to limit its comprehensiveness will of necessity lead to an inadequate theological understanding of it. Unfortunately, this is what Dr. Gaffney has done in this particular chapter of her book.
I disagree totally with her comments: "The Church is clinging to increasingly irrelevant pronouncements about what is good, bad and unmentionable and at times it looks as if the moral authority of the Church may also be swept away.
To speak of priests having to be celibate, or of the burden of celibacy, is to approach the charism of celibacy from a very negative viewpoint. Let us not forget Jesus's words about the rewards of renunciation and the fact that celibacy is "for the sake of the Kingdom". Notwithstanding celibacy, we all know, is a Church law and it is quite possible for us to envisage a time when the view of celibacy may become optional for our clergy.
I quote from the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education and Guidance on Human Love: "The Spirit of Prayer helps us to live coherently the practice of the evangelical virtues. The interior life gives rise to Christian joy which wins the battle against evil and beyond every moralism and psychological aid. The Virgin Mary is the eminent example of Christian life. The Church, through centuries of experience, is convinced that the faithful - especially the young - by devotion to her have known how to realise this ideal."
I believe that a new flowering of grace and a new springtime is about to emerge, as we prepare to enter the Church of the Third Millennium under the guidance of our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II. - Yours, etc.,
Coachford, Co. Cork.