In response to Timothy Rutten's scandalous diatribe against our beloved Blessed John Paul II (May 8, "Is Pope John Paul II fit for sainthood?"), a few salient facts need to be examined and explained.
The Holy Father in Rome cannot be the personal confessor nor prosecutor of every Catholic priest in the world, whether good or bad, except where dogmatic truths of the church are in question or rejected. The responsibility for individual priests' private or public actions rests with the local ordinary or bishop of each diocese. The pope as the vicar of Christ on Earth must deal with the weighty issues of dogmatic errors that may occur through disobedience to the Magisterium or teaching arm of the Church.
What's more, the writer extols liberation theology, that ideology rejected by the church because it places a heretical Marxist theology in place of sanctity and the primary role of the church, which is the salvation of souls. The church is the foremost organization in the world when it comes to assisting the poor and underprivileged, spiritually, economically, and financially. The writer defends such heretical clerics as the ex-priest Hans Kung, the ex-communicated archbishop Lefevbre and others of that ilk who preached that Marxist liberation theology that supported such thoughts as violent revolution while replacing the church's priority of salvation, thereby reducing the mystical body of Christ to a vehicle for socialist and marxist revolution.
Those who despise and revile the Catholic Church always have and always will choose the church's greatest figures as objects of their scorn in order to place their vituperative stigma upon it using their bigotry and gross ignorance as a vessel to support their erroneous theories. The church is a church of sinners and saints, and we pray for all, including the above writer that they may find the loving mercy and forgiveness God.
Perhaps the whole media should check their facts before printing religious bigotry under the guise of freedom of speech. Otherwise they may need a new banner; "All the news that's unfit to print."
The writer lives in Calabash, N.C.
