Guest posted for Dawn Eden, hoping to clarify some issues concerning the West flap.
Thanks Dawn!
Update: I have been sent to the corner.
Mary Victrix
Guest posted for Dawn Eden, hoping to clarify some issues concerning the West flap.
Thanks Dawn!
Update: I have been sent to the corner.
Mary Victrix 
That was a great response. Thanks, Father!
Thank you, Jillian.
Thanks for that contribution Fr. Dawn’s Blog and your article on it are making the rounds here on the Island of Long… where a heated debate is raging.
Ave Maria
There is a phenomenon among the ultra-orthodox of any group (Christian or not) called “shooting their wounded”. In effect people are so zealous for purity orthopraxy (right action) that as soon as any public
figure executes a misstep, they’d rather euthanize them posthaste even if it does damage to the cause at large. Did von Hildebrand speak with West privately before making a public pronouncement that will probably have the effect of cutting him off at the knees? Not even Cardinal Ratzinger at the CDF was so merciless. Why not work with the guy to fix
what’s broken so he can go on with renewed strength and fight the good fight instead of shipping a zealous soldier home in a body bag? I forget which verse it is (I am Catholic after all), I think it’s Matthew 19, but it speaks of the correct process for correcting someone. The first step is not “Plaster your condemnation all over the Internet.”
It’s confront the person one on one. The second is, take a handful of people with you. The third isn’t plaster your condemnation all over the
Internet either, it’s take it to the church.
These people who have moral authority need to exercise it as carefully as the Holy See does. Or at least as carefully as the bishops.
If West’s ministry is destroyed, as I suspect it will be by imprudent individuals who think that their orthodoxy is going to save the world and in so doing, we’ll have suffered a great loss, whether or not his
message needed a little bit of fine tuning.
Mea Culpa for the times I’ve lacked the prudence and charity to correct with kindness and mercy!!
Rachel,
West’s ideas are fair game. He is a public speaker and he knows very well that many things he says are controversial. His Nightline interview reached millions of viewers. He is a big boy.
Furthermore, this issue generated a vigorous public discussion in which many like yourself came to his defense. West’s ministry is not going to be destroyed.
More light than heat, yes, is needed. I think I have held myself to that standard.