As your own newspaper reported, the 2008 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey documented that 31 percent of adult American men and women who had been raised Roman Catholic had abandoned their religion.
I believe one reason more Catholics have not left is because theologians like Father Richard McBrien continue to remain Catholic and struggle to make the church truly Christian in character.
If Christ were to return and Christian churches were all the same except one group allowed women to hold leadership roles while the other group would not even find them worthy to purify the vessels after communion (Cf. General Instruction of the Roman Missal), with which group might Jesus be more inclined to worship?
If Jesus returned and found the Catholic Church ordaining married clergy baptized in other denominations but denying the same option of marrying and having a family to those who were baptized Catholic, might he be inclined to view this as a double standard in need of changing?
Fr. McBrien addresses these issues with the hope of making the Catholic Church a place where Jesus Christ would feel “at home,” and a place where Catholics might consider themselves truly Christian.
Fr. McBrien’s article has not been appearing regularly as it has in the past. Because it is the one article I really look forward to reading in The Catholic Messenger, might I inquire why it is no longer published weekly?
Gene Thomas Gomulka
Coronado, Calif.
