I see Father Richard McBrien is under attack again, possibly by readers who are too thin-skinned to accept that the Catholic Church is not 100 percent sinless after all. A hard fact to ignore, after all the headlines in the secular press (and even The Catholic Messenger) in recent years.
Along with the weekly headlines, Fr. McBrien’s column is among the first I read, because of (not despite) the fact it sometimes presents counterpoints to our popular awareness of things “Catholic.” Fr. McBrien’s weekly input of just a few dozen column inches represents a very small percentage of The Messenger’s content, and I think we can tolerate that deep a scratch in our collective epidermis.
Contrary to the accusations of last week’s letter writers, the occasional counterpoint does not cause me to “wonder then wander” or to seek “an excuse to leave.” To the contrary, it draws me in and I usually read the whole paper from front to back.
I’ll pray that Fr. McBrien’s health returns and that his perseverance as an objective journalist is not eroded by detractors, and that The Catholic Messenger continues presenting its excellent balanced view of reality.
John Bruesch
Long Grove
