BishopAccountability.org
 
  Letters to the Editor
Pray for Change

By Ted Blount and Bonita Springs
Naples Daily News [Naples FL]
September 25, 2003

Letter writer Hilary Smentek seems to think the best response to exposures of misdeeds within the Catholic Church is to shoot the messengers — especially if they are Jewish.

It shouldn't matter to Catholics whether or not "The Magdalene Sisters" is accurate in every detail. Movies, press reports and other forms of media rarely are.

What should matter in this case is whether or not institutional abuse of many young women of a physical, psychological and sexual nature took place in Ireland over the span of a century while church leaders and other Catholics remained silent. That is the message delivered in this film.

What we now know is that the Irish asylums were only symptomatic of a much larger pattern of sexual abuse and perversion within the church. This problem wasn't caused by Hollywood or the media. We Catholics ought now to follow the example of Jesus Christ and set out to change the structures that allowed this to happen.
 
 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.