So Bishop Richard Malone is now on public record, through his spokesman Brian Souchet’s “Another View” attack on William Slavick (Feb. 11), that he prefers ad hominem name-calling to addressing issues.

Slavick’s editorial identified Malone’s campaign against same-sex unions as violative of Second Vatican Council recognition of distinct state responsibilities, religious liberty for all, and freedom of conscience; of the church’s recognition of the human dignity of all, and of charity.

Slavick indicated how the new missal translations are illicit and unacceptable, and listed burning moral issues the bishops ignore in favor of pelvic preoccupations. 

He provided as much “evidence” as 700 words allows.

Souchet addresses none of that substantive criticism. He faults Slavick for calling the diocesan “assessment” a “cut,” a semantic quibble, and misrepresents Slavick’s reference to campaign “contributions” as “the special collection.” Slavick questioned the $200,000-plus Malone spent beyond the yield of that special collection and outside contributions. Souchet also misrepresents Slavick’s unmistakable concern for the legal rights of same- sex couples as opposing church limitation of the sacrament of marriage to heterosexual couples, about which Slavick said nothing.

To carefully identify wrongdoing is, for Souchet, “mud-slinging,” “distaste for the church,” “intolerance and bigotry,” “slander and libel.” What many besides Slavick are “deeply offended” by is the hierarchy’s characterization of millions of human beings as “objectively disordered” and its unjust and uncharitable determination to deny them legal rights it does not deny the divorced, adulterers and fornicators, not to mention priest abusers of innocent children and bishops complicit in those crimes.

This is supposed to defend marriage, when no one encounters married or courting couples anywhere whose marriage has been threatened by same-sex unions.

Souchet’s majority of Mass-going faithful agreeing with Malone translates to about 10 percent of Maine Catholics!

Pamela Murphy Ewers is a resident of North Berwick.

 

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