Dear Friends,
I am always afraid we in the church will get into the doldrums again.At my advanced age I believe being careful has inhibited the church from taking the sacred risks it should be able to afford.
So I have been trying to define my own beliefs and hopes and expectations. The following is not meant for either publication or for anything else except to put it on record somewhere that I personally and as a priest believe Catholics could usefully talk about such matters in a radical way. Change is going to come – we should be making it not waiting for it. People said, Where there is death there’s hope, but I cannot accept that - if you know change is bound to come on Friday you make it happen on Thursday even if only to show you have some say in it.
My disagreement with people in high church places was primarily about how people including priests are treated and about due process and about materialistic values in church. We have I believe not made much progress since those days when for such disagreement I know I lost all salary for a quarter of a century but believe I gained some self respect for the rest of my life.
If the Dutch Catholics could discuss such weighty matters in the sixties, we can discuss them any time.
Beannacht De oraibh agus ar an obair.
Des Wilson
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