The Church and change

The deluge of ill-informed comment on the Catholic Church’s actions in holding the line on its core teaching shows no signs of abating.

Rose O’Sullivan (Letters, Apr 19), or anyone raised as a Catholic, ought to know that the Church does not modify its teachings in line with the zeitgeist of any age or culture.

Had it done so it could not and would not have survived. It would have gone the way of Protestanatism with its ongoing fracturing and fragmentation. At some point it is reasonable to argue that fragmentation will become dissolution. That is why a growing number of Anglicans in the UK and in the US are continuing to enter the Roman Catholic Church.

Colette Browne’s (Apr 18) airy assertion that the Church faces a choice of embracing “relevance or obliteration” is opinion in the same vein. What she means by relevance is the surest path to obliteration.

The essence of the Gospel is to be counter-cultural, challenging and antagonistic to the ways of the world. It is not immune to change and discovery, but not at the clamour of populist demand.

Margaret Hickey

Blarney

Co Cork