Letter to the Editor/A "sincere apology" (Dos Palos, CA)

Dear Editor,

As a Catholic, I would like to make a public apology to anyone who has been hurt or offended by anything that has been said at any of the Catholic masses in our area during the month of October.

According to official Church teaching, all people are free to act, behave and vote according to an informed conscience. Priests and deacons in their training, if they attended the required classes, have been educated in the complex way a conscience is formed. Catholics believe that all people are ultimately responsible to God for how they act in accordance with each person's individual conscience.

Catholics do believe in faithfull citizenship. That is, we all have a duty to become informed on issues and a duty to vote, each according to our individualy informed conscience, and on one is to coerce or force his point of view on others. The Catholic Church does not teach that parishioners are to be told from the pulpit how to vote, only that they should become informed with all the facts from both sides and then vote.

I did a survey of Catholic friends who live in various other parts of the starte to see if any had been told from the pulpit to vote for Proposition 8. Some were shocked and others were horrified to hear that anything was said during Catholic worship that was demeaning to any person or group. In general, Catholic teaching requires us to ensure that all who come to worship are to be made to feel welcome, and no one should feel discriminated against. In fact, ther sermon at a Catholic mass is called a homily, coming from the root homo, which means we all come together as one in Christ. The ordained minister's role is to help us understand scripture so that we will put aside our differences for the sake of worshiping God, who made us all, male and female or gay or straight, in God's own image. Jesus was accepting, welcoming, understanding, and forgiving and never judgemental of people who were condemned by the prevailing culture of his time for living different lifestyles.

Catholic teaching recognizes that in the US, we live in a democracy, not a theocracy, and that our public laws are to protect the equal rights of all. The Catholic Church has its own policies regarding marriage as a sacrament for all those who wish to marry in the Catholic Church.

I extend my sincere apology to all those who have suffered from any ridicule or because of any misunderstandings regarding Catholic Church teaching and the political decision-making process.

Janet I. Miller
Dos Palos, CA

(The Dos Palos Sun welcomes Letters to the Editor. All letters must be signed with the writer's real name and a daytime pnone number for verification purposes only. No anonymous letters will be printed. We reserve the right to edit any letter for the purposes, of space, clarity and appropriatness, and will not publish any letter deemed libelous.)