LETTER TO THE EDITOR

A disappointing pair of editorials

Posted

TO THE EDITOR:

First, I was disappointed to read in the newspaper’s Sept. 26 editorial, “Socialism and the New Green Dictatorship,” a criticism of the need for ecological concern. It was also an opportunity to criticize the Swedish teen, Greta Thunberg, who has been fearless in her efforts to chide the wider society into taking more seriously their responsibility to champion our care for God’s gift of the earth on which we live.
For those who have read this editorial, I would encourage them to read the proposed summary of the recent Synod of Bishops: Special Assembly for the Pan-Amazonian Region which took place in Rome. In that document, the following statement is made: “Our planet is a gift from God, but we also know that we are facing the urgency to act on an unprecedented socio-environmental crisis. We need ecological conversion to respond properly.” (paragraph 65).
This Synod asserts that the need for an understanding of the crisis of our environment calls us to a serious ecological concern. We are not dealing with a false dictatorship. Rather, we are attempting to face the challenges that the treasured gift of our planet is facing. These challenges are real and we must take them very seriously.
That quote finds its culmination further on in the document when it clearly states that not to deal with the challenges of climate change is to enter into the sinfulness of our times.
A second editorial, published Nov. 7, discusses the calling of young people to worship in the Extraordinary Form. Without a doubt the chronic absence of young people and/or adults (recent studies that this problem begins at the age of 13) is a very serious and even frightening problem. But this editorial does a grave disservice to both the cultural reality of this very serious problem and the struggle that the Church is involved in as it tries to offer a proper evangelism to the wider Church community both young and old. To suggest that the solution is found in a ritual from the past is not only misleading it is also naïve.

Father Ronald E. Brassard, Senior Priest