Catholics and their male priests

Re: Catholic Church Risks Irrelevancy, letters to the editor, Nov. 14; Sorry, The Pope Is Still Catholic, Michael Coren, Nov. 12.

I am open to letter writers disagreeing with the Catholic Church, but have to object when they spread untruths. Michael Coren was, of course, correct when he wrote that the prime role of priests at the Mass is to represent Christ. The Latin term is “in persona Christi Capitis” (“in the person of Christ the Head”) and the principle has been affirmed and reaffirmed by the Church for at least 700 years. All Popes since Paul VI have referred to it, and it is noted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 1548).

Michael Olsen, Kanata, Ont.

If Michael Coren’s intention is shore up the image of the Catholic Church, then I would suggest he does it a great disservice by inaccurately portraying it as a fossilized, immutable object. Catholicism, contrary to his misconception, has evolved remarkably, albeit slowly throughout the ages.

Mr. Coren claims the Church can never ordain women to the priesthood because the priest “represents Christ.” He really means Jesus, who was in his earthly life a male. Christ, on the other hand, is beyond gender and therefore can just as easily be represented by a woman. Nowhere does the New Testament prohibit Christ’s priesthood for women. No matter how Mr. Coren disingenuously spins this with his ideological bias, he simply cannot affirm dogma where none exists. Scripture, too often used as a bludgeon to kill debate, is the word of a God who reveals Himself as a God of history, the fullness of whose revelation is a work in progress, not a once and for all event in the past. Ironically, Mr. Coren titles his book, The Future

of Catholicism, but it’s more an uninspiring longing for a past that has never really existed.

Daniel Bellemare, Ottawa.