Healing church's wounds

Your editorial, "Planning a day of fasting and penance" (NCR, Dec. 29), was one of the most meaningful articles I have yet to read on the sex abuse scandal in the church. Once again, your paper has lifted my spirits. I think without your kind of reporting, I would be in total despair about my church. In a previous issue, a priest was quoted as saying, "that he wasn't around at the times that these things took place and therefore he couldn't judge the people who were involved" (NCR, Nov. 10). I could hardly believe my eyes when I read that sentence, coming from a priest. Contrast Fr. Tom Doyle's commitment from the time he first learned of the breaking scandal to the present day. I pray that the church will take your advice to call on Fr. Doyle and use his expertise to begin to heal the wounds of our church. I also would love to see an article about Fr. Doyle, though I have read about him often and have praised God for him each time. Rather than advance his career, he did the right thing. He is a true follower of Christ.

JOAN KENNEKE

Bethesda, Md.

I appreciate the unhesitating way you keep the sexual abuse scandal before us. Your unstinting focus will, please God, bring us sooner rather than later the cultural change the scandal demands. One of the most perceptive diagnoses was the article by Sidney Callahan (NCR, March 21, 2003). In another place the most encouraging sign we are indeed on the threshold of cultural change is the final statement of the laity from Daejeon, South Korea, where they took to task the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conference's working paper on the family "as too passive and condescending." The laity's response referenced Lumen Gentium, declaring marriage an "ordo" in the church as much as the priesthood, "constituting in its own way the ministry of engagement as a community of love and human intimacy ... rather than merely a receptacle.... The family can be understood as a concrete actualization of the one reign of God... All approaches that tend to picture family life as inferior to religious or priestly life need to be resisted and avoided." Their new vision and paradigm on family is prescient, bold and encouraging.

MATT TUMULTY

Portland, Ore.

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