LETTERS

LETTERS
April 2006

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GOD IS POSITIVE. YOU'RE NOT

I have received your paper for years.

Before I say anything else let me start with the statement that God is bigger than any one religion, bigger than the world, and bigger than the universe. Each generation must find God in their own way. Your paper is not helpful in the way it always displays the negative in the world. God is Love, and more positive news would be more than welcome. All worldly newspapers are dwelling on the negative. In this respect your paper fits right in with the non-believer papers. God is positive, not negative. Change your attitude so people will listen and create some influence.

After reading your people I find myself disgusted with the world and the Church. I am not at peace with myself. Change the world by changing myself. The central issue of Christianity is "LOVE," which is missing in your paper.

Unsigned
received via e-mail

MEAN ENOUGH FOR KINDERGARTEN

I would like to be removed from your mailing list. The March 2006 issue of San Francisco Faith struck me as unkind and not supportive of the Roman Catholic tradition I was raised to understand. The article on the "Bishop's Boys" displayed a meanness and arrogance that even in Kindergarten I would have been asked to reconsider and reflect on. The advertisement on St. Bozo's Parish was even more disconcerting.

I have come to understand that there is a difference in viewpoint in regards to progress in the Roman Catholic Church. Some people look for the richness of tradition and some look to identify how God is speaking to the church in today's environment. This debate is healthy and necessary. Clearly, Jesus spent much time helping people understand that paradoxical truths are present in the world and should be embraced instead of judged harshly and demeaned. The fact that change is inevitable and wonderful, and the fact that change requires proper discernment and must be approached with caution, at times seems contradictory; but in fact both are true. It is only through prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit that the right balance between these two conflicting truths are found.

I commend your and your staff's dedication to doing God's work. I have no doubt that you are only following the calling you are hearing from God. I do not judge the statements as right or wrong in the eyes of God. I believe that God is present in both the faith you profess and encourage and also present in those who view their faith in a more liberal fashion. Your viewpoint and voice is critical to the process of making sure that all Catholics are heard. I do feel, however, that it is not consistent with my beliefs to receive a newspaper at home that supports meanness and unkindness to others who are simply journeying in their faith. I believe you would be more effective by using a tone that demonstrates an understanding of the logic of the other side of a debate, but then clearly describes your position in a convincing way.

God bless you in your work and know that you and your staff will be in my prayers.

Gilbert Brady,
Los Altos

Editor replies: I would dispute Mr. Brady's assertion that "change is inevitable and wonderful." Some change, like death, is, I suppose, inevitable, but not every change is inevitable. Neither is change necessarily "wonderful" -- either in the modern sense of "very good" or in the proper sense of "wondrous." A cancer is neither very good nor is it particularly productive of wonder (maybe horror, but not wonder). But a cancer is certainly change. So is pneumonia. That is why, as Mr. Brady says, change requires discernment, for many changes are harmful. Discernment, in turn, often requires a subsequent rejection or condemnation of the thing discerned.

Paradoxical truths should be embraced, of course. That God is one essence in three persons is paradoxical, but nevertheless true, for there is no contradiction between one and three in this statement; person and essence are not identical. If they were, we would not have a paradox but a contradiction. When two statements contradict one another, there is no paradox, for a paradox contains only a seeming, not an actual, contradiction. Contradictions should not be embraced, for one side of the contradiction (at least) must be false. And what is false should be rejected.

Mr. Brady seems to see a dichotomy between the "richness of tradition" and "how God is speaking to the church in today's environment." This suggests a misunderstanding of tradition, which is not the same as antiquity, though it embraces it. Tradition includes all that the Church has taught and practiced from her beginning to the present; it is the root of the tree and the branches and the fruit. Thus whatever new insight the Church has is not set against tradition but is drawn and developed from it. A new insight, if it is valid, is a part of tradition. But this is key -- to be valid, a new insight must not contradict the old insights and the root propositions of the Faith but must develop and explicate them. The tradition cannot say at one time that abortion is always immoral and later that it is sometimes permissible. The latter "insight" would contradict what has gone before in the tradition and thus be proved no part of it. The tradition can say (and has) that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ and that it must be worshipped, for the latter statement follows rationally from a proper understanding of the prior one. Therefore, in the Church, "progressive" and "traditional" are not contrary but are (dare we say) paradoxical names for the same thing.

As for the Faith's "meanness" and "unkindness," I don't know what to say. Some have called us balanced and even gentle. Another paradox, maybe.

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