Vatican Bars Dissent on Official Church Teachings

To be a Catholic is not an easy course to follow in one’s life. And it certainly is not an easy religion to follow in the United States where dissent is a right of the people. Now, Cardinal Ratzinger is restricting public dissent with the church by theologians and, perhaps, the people of the church. The conflicts of being a Catholic and being a citizen of the U.S. gnaw at the conscience of many U.S. Catholics.

Yet in the New Testament one reads that Christ not only said that we should pray in private, as Cardinal Ratzinger suggests, but that he openly taught in the temple of Jerusalem and that he publicly criticized the religion and religious leaders of the temple. His great dissent changed the world. And though his dissent is based upon the love of God and man and forgiveness, his life was obedience and dissent. Then, in striving to be more Christ-like, is it not a Christian tradition to dissent? Yet the Vatican says no. It is not easy to be a Catholic.

MATHEW HETZ

Los Angeles