Regarding your Monday editorial, ‘Listen to voices from within’ (Nov. 25, pg. 6):
I trust that, because you encourage the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to ‘listen to voices from within,’ including mine, you will likewise pay heed to this voice.
Given the widespread knowledge that men with homosexual inclinations are already among those in the ranks of the ordained (see, for example, Peter Smallcomb’s letter in the Nov. 26 issue of The Daily Free Press – ‘Oversimplifying solutions to the church crisis,’ pg. 11), my comments about admitting such men to the priesthood, all else being equal, did not seem to me to constitute ‘breaking news.’ You have made it so only by attaching to it a call for the ordination of women and the possibility or threat of my leaving the Catholic Church over such issues.
It should be made clear that I was neither questioned on these issues by your reporter, nor did I offer an opinion on them. Quite to the contrary, my comments were that any man, with or without homosexual inclinations, presenting himself for ordination ‘need(s) to accept the Church’s teaching in the area of morals (including sexual issues) and matters of faith.’ In addition, lest there be any lack of clarity, I love the Catholic Church, believe her to be instituted by Christ as an instrument of salvation (despite the failings at times of her human ministers) and I have no intention of leaving her.
I hope that those in the Church, and those outside her visible confines, will listen to this ‘voice from within.’
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