WCR Letters to the Editor

End the need for ecumenism

This approach will not eliminate diversity, which is good, but will melt away the division between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church and also remove the need for discussion and compromise, and clear up all confusion between all faiths and ethnic groups.

There would be no need to call upon God anymore to give us that unity for which we have prayed so long, for our prayers would have been answered. It would do away with the fear that the truth needs to be watered down in order to reach some compromise.

There would be no further need to promote Christian unity using methods like prayer in common, fraternal knowledge of each other, ecumenical formation dialogue and collaboration in various areas of service for all these would be redundant.

The churches would be spared the strife to overcome division because division would be no more.

The proposal to create ecumenism, or more exactly to eliminate the need for it, would be to invite every Church leader, be it priest, minister or rabbi, to declare openly to their congregation and to the world (and this would heal all division instantly) the following statements:

Our theology, understanding and truths are one way but not necessarily the only way to God.

The path we have chosen is not necessarily the only path but one of the paths, and all paths converge leading to our final destination.

These statements would create unity within diversity, and clear up any misconstrued beliefs, especially the universal one, that the pearly gates only open for those driving one particular make of vehicle and that all other makes will be detoured to . . . hell?

Jim Verhesen
Rocky Mountain House

Administrators are leaders

I was rather surprised to read the statements that "two Alberta dioceses . . . are currently without a leader" and "The St. Paul Diocese was also left leaderless." The article then goes on to speak of the administrators of these two dioceses.

It is my understanding that the administrators of St. Paul and Grouard-McLennan are leaders in their respective dioceses.

The Code of Canon Law also seems to say that administrators are leaders. "The diocesan administrator is bound by the obligations and enjoys the power of the diocesan bishop, excluding those matters which are excepted by the nature of things or by the law itself" (Canon 427, n. 1).

There are a number of other canons which outline what an administrator may do in the diocese.

I suggest that the writer of the article interview the administrators of the affected dioceses. I am sure that he will discover that the diocesan administrators indeed lead the faithful of their respective dioceses as they each await the appointment of a new bishop.

Leo Hofmann
Vegreville

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