catholicweekly.com.au 17 2, August, 2020 E ditorial & letters Dorin’s World Send your letters to:
[email protected] By the post: The Editor, Level 13, 133 Liverpool St, Sydney NSW 2000 AUSTRALIA Married priests stretch back to the beginning I n the New Testament, St Paul gives clear guidelines for married priests (and their wives) and even bishops. What good does the Catholic Church do to largely forbid in the Roman church, what scripture permits? There are many other churches in communion with Rome such as the Ma- ronite church, the Ukrainian Catholic Church and so on whom Rome allows to have married priests. Why deny the Ro- man church the proven successful ser- vices of married priests? The scandalous record of proven civil offenses by ‘celibate’ priests and broth- ers in present times contrasts with the wonderful record of moral behavior and service generally, by married Catholic priests in the Eastern churches. Should this example be ignored? It is true that we need better men for the priesthood in many cases. Where is the hard evidence that the Roman Cath- olic Church is well served by denying the faithful service of good men as priests and their wives? K Greenaway Hanwood NSW Dr Martyr’s married clergy logic is obviously flawed P hilippa Martyr’s Comment article, ‘Better men make better priests’ (CW, July 19) had me questioning her logic, understanding and qualifica- tion this subject. She rightfully reports that the Nation- al Council of Priests support married priesthood, but then displays her igno- rance (or makes the NCP the recipient of her undeserved cynicism) by suggest- ing their lack of resolve in not having any married clergy amongst their number. Really? I didn’t think the Latin Rite had made it possible for that to happen yet! To suggest that anyone is “urging an end of chastity for the priesthood...’ is lu- dicrous. Chastity is not to be equated to celibacy, which, as one reads further, is revealed as the subject of her article. All manner of vocations are called to live chaste lives. Chastity does not per- tain only to single lives. As for celibacy, no one is calling for its end in priestly life but rather as an option for those discern- ing their call to priestly life. No matter howmuch Dr Martyr invokes Fr Dwight’s Longnecker’s research bearing out a transformative experience of chaste celi- bacy, rather than giving some argumen- tative support for chaste celibacy, would it not be more humanly and spiritually appropriate to let those who feel called to priesthood to beckon the Roman Church to listen to what the Spirit is saying re- garding married priesthood? Leonard Blahut Hazelbrook NSW Pope Francis is spot-on about capital punishment O ne US state conducted a review of the death penalty and came to the inclusion that such a high proportion of the guilty verdicts were unreliable that they cancelled the death penalty in that state. They also found that there was a large incidence of false evidence and the set- ting up of alleged criminals by the police. They discovered a high proportion of those actually put to death had a black or coloured background, low education and economically deprived socio-envi- ronment. There were several instances of uneducated or mentally ill detainees being badgered, isolated and physical- ly and psychologically abused until they finally caved in and confessed to crimes they had never committed. I amwith Pope Francis. There is no justification for the use of The death pen- alty in our modern society. Stephen Early North Richmond NSW It’s not how much but what we can give that counts T he Catholic Weekly editorial of 19 July Why we all need to give to our parish’ reminds me of a function that I attended in Sydney on the occasion of welcoming a Franciscan priest who just returned from a six-year mission in PNG. He gave a very moving speech mixed with sadness and anger over the sufferings endured by the Papuans from poverty and injustice. In it he described the poor living condi- tion in the country, people died young and many children had red hair due to malnourishment. He appealed to the audience to give generously by saying: “None of you is too poor, none of you is too rich. Give gener- ously, till it hurts”. Ina Kite Terrigal NSW The Left’s long march through literature T HERE’S no doubt that the cultural-Left’s cancel cul- ture and political correctness movement is ram- pant in the West’s schools and universities intent on indoctrinating students with its neo-Marxist in- spired ideology, especially when it comes to identity politics involving the new trinity of race, gender and sexuality. The way the literary canon and literature in general has been subverted and destroyed over the last 20 to 30 years pro- vides a clear example. Instead of literature being valued for its moral and aesthetic character and whether it has stood the test of time, the definition has been exploded to include graffiti, SMS messaging, students’ own writing, movie post- ers, video games and multi-model and digital texts. As arguedby FrankKermode in AnAppetite for Poetry , such has been the impact of cultural-Left ‘theory’ that literature has been relegated ‘to a positionof one among an inexhaustible and indiscriminate array of other texts: in short, to save it is to destroy it’. Particular literary texts, insteadof being valued as ex- amples of their art, are deconstructed and critiqued in terms of power relationships andpolitically correct ideology. A recent Australian example involves an evaluation of texts set for senior school English by the University of Melbourne’s Alex Bacalja and Lauren Bliss titled What counts? Inclusion and diversity in the senior English curriculum . After analysing set texts over a ten-year period, the academics conclude that they are guilty of promoting ‘white consciousness’ and of be- ing ‘heteronormative’. For those who are not woke, ‘white con- sciousness’ promotes racismand prejudice against ‘people of colour’. Being heteronormative is also a crime as it describes the overwhelmingmajority of women andmenwho are hap- py with their birth sex. In opposition to literary classics by novelists such as Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Charles Dickens and PatrickWhite, the two academics argue theremust be a greater focus on texts embracing a ‘diversity of sexualities’, ‘by Indigenous Aus- tralians’ and those ‘outside theWesternworld’.They are not alone.The Australian Association for the Teaching of English argues that the English classroommust focus on ‘questions of gender and sexuality’ as the existing selection of texts unfairly privilege ‘heterosexual and cis-gender identities as the norms against which to define the other’. Forget literarymerit andwhether the works selected have something profound and enduring to say about human na- ture and the world inwhichwe live. Identity politics and vic- timhood rule, so if you are LGBTIQ+, indigenous or Asian you jump to the head of the list. As outlined inMark Lopez’s forth- coming book School Sucks: A Report on the State of Education in the Politically Correct Era , even Shakespeare is not immune frombeing criticised and condemned for promoting white supremacismand racism. At a training session for English teachers, the academic presenting compared Shakespeare to a neo-Nazi skinhead, arguing that both are racist and guilty of imposing white colonialismon resentful black people. Lopez also presents a scathing and forensic analysis of how for years now the works chosen embody a neo-Marxist, post- modern agenda, calculated to impose sterile and doctrinaire groupthink.The United Kingdom is not immune from the cul- tural-Left’s longmarch through schools and universities. As a result of the Black LivesMatter movement, ‘woke’ politicians and academics are increasingly arguing that subjects such as English and historymust be cleansed of imperialism, racism andwhite supremacism. BAME authors andwriters are centre stage and the school curriculummust be rewritten to acknowledge British imperi- alismand the exploitation and slavery of millions. Much like original sin, the crime can never be forgiven as structural rac- ismand unconscious bias run riot. Those wishing to knowwhy great literary works are now critiqued as cultural artefacts guilty of reinforcing capitalist, misogynist and racist ideology need look no further than Lou- is Althusser’s concept of the ‘ideological state apparatus’. Althusser differentiates between a capitalist state’s repres- sive apparatus and an ideological one; the second involves institutions associatedwith religion, the education system, family, and political, legal and cultural systems. Taken togeth- er they enforce the ruling ideology by conditioning citizens to accept as natural or beneficial what is oppressive and ex- ploitive. Add the headymixture of postmodernism, decon- structionismand LGBTIQ+, feminist, gender and postcolonial theories and it’s understandable why literature as a subject no longer exists andwhy students are being served a weak and insipid gruel guaranteed to promote cultural-Left, sterile groupthink. The above opinion by Dr Kevin Donnelly first appeared in the London-basedThe ConservativeWoman LETTERS Got something to say? Throw a brickbat or a bouquet! Write a letter to the Editor. Details above.