A parish priest's pastoral letter to his people
My good friend, Fr Stephen Boyle, is parish priest of the Good Shepherd Church in New Addington. Last Sunday he published a pastoral letter for his parishioners on the subject "Sex is for family in a state of loving" - the "state" of loving being marriage, of course. He gives a sympathetic, encouraging and well-argued account of the Church's teaching on marriage, the marriage act, contraception, chastity and related topics. The context is his prayer for the Confirmation candidates that they may bear that fruit of the Holy Spirit which is chastity.
Read the pastoral letter here.
3 comments:
The letter looks very good and it's commendably conscientious of Father Stephen to issue it to his parishioners.
I have one little quibble with it, however and that is this: it focuses solely on fornication and not at all on adultery, either pre or equally importantly, post-divorce adultery. And crucially without reference to the indissolubility of Christian marriage the document doesn't make complete sense. What is the point of saving sex for marriage if marriage is not lifelong? How can marriage be a sacrament if it can be dissolved? And so forth.
The letter was particularly related to young people being confirmed. Hence he focusses especially on chastity before marriage.
But he does mention that this is a factor that will make divorce less likely and I think there could be little doubt in anyone's mind that adultery would be wrong too if what he is saying is correct.
But I do agree that the question of faithfulness in marriage, is an important one on which to give some prudent and encouraging teaching to engaged and married couples.
How refreshing! It would be WONDERFUL if we could see but a fraction of this letter or its like in our Parish!
Praying for priests,
Nancy
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