NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger
By Tom Moran/ The Star-Ledger
Last Sunday, Star-Ledger editorial page editor Tom Moran wrote about his struggles with Catholicism, describing himself as a “refugee from the Catholic Church.”
This week, the Star-Ledger is publishing letters from our readers about their own struggles. This is Part 3 of 3.
It’s right to defer to church leaders on faith
I am a Catholic. Have been since birth. I have spent nine years as a Franciscan seminarian before deciding that neither religious life nor priesthood and I were suited for each other. I have often disagreed with church leaders on their interpretation or implementation of the Christian message. Yet Jesus knowingly placed the fate of the church into the hands of mere humans whom He promised to guide via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is a testament to this guidance that, despite the errors of frail human leaders, the church and its fundamental message continues to exist—and I continue to believe in them.
I believe that people who equate the actions of human representatives of this, or any other institution, with the efficacy of its principles are either unaware of the distinction or else actively seeking rationale to excuse themselves from whichever of those principles seem a burden to them. I am aware of many who profess to be followers of a particular creed who are ignorant of the beliefs that are required in order to be a legitimate member of that community. …
Church has become too polarizing
I am a 60-year-old man who has stopped attending a Catholic church earlier this year.
The reasons for my departure include a church that has become more polarizing and exclusionary, more openly political on pro-life and personal choice issues, it’s shameful squandering of money on insignificant changes in its liturgy, the Vatican rebuke of the U.S. religious women for their social stances, its on-going failure to transparently deal with and accept its outrageous failure to deal in an appropriate manner with its abuse of children, its audacity to terminate the employment of an Indiana parochial school teacher for pursuing in-vitro fertilization and the Vatican bribery scandal.
I am curious how the Bishop of Newark, the Bishop of Trenton and the NYC Cardinal and others can be so openly vocal about current political and life choice issues yet have been so silent on the Church’s child abuse scandal and issues of global tragedy like genocide in Africa. I see the Catholic Church as concerned only with its image even at the expense of many of its most vulnerable members, children. There was a time that the message in church was, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, I sadly miss those days.
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