Re: “Parish consolidation is a failure of Seattle Archdiocese’s leadership” [Nov. 9, Opinion]:
Nicholas O’Connell blames the decline in Church attendance on the Catholic clergy, even singling out Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne.
O’Connell and the group of which he’s a member, Heal Our Church, provide the same old fast fixes: ordination of girls and married males, an enormous lay administration, and the softening of Church doctrine on controversial ethical points. He neglects to say that these fixes have been tried within the mainline Protestant church buildings, whose membership has solely plummeted quicker. Whether or not we like them or not, such tweaks gained’t fill pews.
O’Connell should be conscious that these traits have an effect on each main non secular group within the West. Faith (and civil society as an entire) is going through a problem of mass detachment, and the Church is simply rising from the ugliness of the abuse scandal — however the normal angle inside my “parish household” is humble and hopeful. Archbishop Etienne has been supportive.
The approaching years could also be powerful, however now’s the time for Catholics to face by their Church, not clamor for a brand new one.
Jonathan Bayley, Bainbridge Island
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