Letters to the Editor for November 19

Here are today’s Letters to the Editors…

Submitted by Stephen Seufert, state director of Keystone Catholics and an area native:

“We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.” – Pope Francis

Pope Francis has rejuvenated and galvanized the Catholic Church. However, Francis has done this without changing doctrine. Why then, does his papacy seem so refreshing, and to others, so radical? I’ll try to answer those questions through my own experiences as a Catholic.

I was born Catholic in Levittown, Pennsylvania. Up until the age of five, I went to mass with my family at Saint Michael the Archangel. We then moved to Fairless Hills and became parishioners at Saint Frances Cabrini.

I went to elementary school at Saint Francis up until fifth grade, where I then transferred to Pennsbury. Even though I no longer went to Catholic school, I still felt a strong connection to the faith. To this day, I strongly believe my time at Saint Francis helped shape who I am today. I continued to go to mass with my family and attended CCD in order to receive the sacrament of Confirmation.

However, it was around that time I started to question not the faith but the institution and the people who controlled it. There were those in a position of leadership, whether it be at the parish, archdioceses, or even the Vatican level, who displayed a sense of superior moral authority in which they could judge others. They used the faith as both a shield and sword to legitimize their institutional authority and power.

This abuse of power and lack of accountability could be seen most clearly during the priest abuse scandal here in the Philadelphia Archdioceses. I recently had a conversation with one of my aunts about how she thought the Catholic Church was being unjustly singled out. I agreed with my aunt that such abuses do occur outside the Church. But what set the Catholic Church apart from other cases is the length it took to cover up the abuses.

By isolating and insulating themselves from the community; a grave injustice was committed in the eyes of the law and of the faith.

Corruption and mismanagement in the realm of finances has also led many Catholics to question Church hierarchy. One glaring example would be German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebarta-van Elst, aka “The Bishop of Bling”. Bishop Tebartz-van Elst is under investigation for spending $42 million on home renovations.

Furthermore, it’s estimated that in United States, one third of archbishops live in building worth more than $1 million. Pope Francis, on the other hand, lives in a small suite in the Vatican guesthouse.

Pope Francis is calling for a transparent Catholic Church. One in which discussions and decisions aren’t made behind closed doors. Francis’s style of governing has ‘confused’ and ‘disturbed’ many traditionalist Catholics. Traditionalists, who make up the majority of weekly churchgoers, fail to comprehend why Pope Francis is taking this approach.

These are the same traditionalists who largely blame a growing secular society for the closing of Saint Ann, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Our Lady of Fatima, Immaculate Conception and Saint Joseph the Worker in Bucks County. Traditionalists have no desire to step out of their comfort zone and proudly see themselves fighting a culture war in which they are the last defenders of an embattled faith. Luckily, the Pope rejects such a mindset and is committed to reforming a rotten institutional structure. Francis’s appointment of more moderate voices to positions of power is an indication of such a course.

Pope Francis, instead of retreating inward, has tried to embrace a world in constant motion. The Pope understands life is messy and complicated. For example, it’s not enough to simply be against abortion in the age of Francis. Various academic studies link women with low incomes and job insecurity to an increased likelihood of seeking an abortion. Through a god given thing I like to call reason, one can clearly see poverty as the forerunner to abortion. Should not Catholics obsess about fighting poverty? I sense that for mainly political reasons, many traditionalists Catholics are more comfortable railing about the evils of abortion than to focus on the complex issues surrounding it.

By walking with those who suffer, and by speaking plainly and truthfully, Pope Francis as rejuvenated the faith for millions; including yours’ truly. Does that mean I’ll be going back to mass regularly? Who knows. In my experiences, millennial Catholics seem to prefer activism rather than sitting in a pew. If that’s the direction of a 21^st century Catholic Church, Catholics everywhere should fully embrace it. Otherwise the Church may soon find itself without a flock.

Submit Your Letter to the Editor

Do you have something you want to say about a town issue? Want to praise your community members for something they did? You can do that by writing a Letter to the Editor.

LevittownNow.com accepts Letters to the Editor on issues that are important to local residents.

Our editorial staff asks that your Letter to the Editor is free of spelling and grammatical errors, clear, and void of libelous statements. We also request that letters are kept under 500 words.

Here are some keys:

• Please include your first and last name, town and email address (so we can contact you back or verify your identity.) We will only publish your name and town.
• Feel free to type letters in response to other people’s opinions, but just be sure to reference the original letter. Why? So no one is confused.
• The choice of letters for publication is at the discretion of LevittownNow.com editors.

To submit your Letter to the Editor, submit it to tom@levittownnow.com with the subject “Letter to the Editor.”