Church must bridge gap between formal teaching and real life
■ I want to make a small but important clarification re Kim Bielenberg’s important article (‘All changed, changed utterly... Welcome to liberal Ireland,’ Irish Independent, June 2).
I am quoted as saying: “On issues such as sexuality and gender, the Church’s teaching is not received by the ordinary baptised Catholic.
“This is true of divorce, contraception and increasingly abortion also.”
It is not my position that the Church’s moral teaching on abortion is not “received” by the faithful. Rather, it seems to me many conscientious Catholics as well as concerned citizens accept the Church’s teaching that human life makes a moral claim for protection from the moment of conception.
However, given the political and legal context of Ireland today, they may well have voted Yes in the hope of making abortion more rare and protecting the life and health of women.
This prudential judgment, made conscientiously, is deserving of respect.
It is of a different order from the gulf that has opened up between the “sense of the faithful” and the Church’s moral/doctrinal teaching with respect to issues like contraception, divorce, homosexuality and even the ordination of women. The Church needs to address this disconnect between formal teaching and lived reality.
Pope Francis has proposed a way of doing this.
When can we expect the bishops in Ireland to convene a national synod to address these and other issues at this time of crisis and opportunity for the Catholic Church in Ireland?
Gerry O’Hanlon, SJ Cherry Orchard, Dublin 10