Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

WCR Letters to the Editor

Focus on the here and now

The article entitled "Sexual Union gives Image of the Divine"(WCR, June 25) purported to be an extension of Pope John Paul II's musings on heavenly existence before and after the fall from which Bill Donaghy extrapolated some observations for the purpose of addressing a symposium sponsored by the Catholic Organization for Life and the Family.

Perhaps I am so sickened by the twaddle served up by the hucksters who peddle religion on radio and television that I am no longer capable of making detached assessments of Mr. Donaghy's flights of fancy, for I certainly found them somewhat out of place in a Catholic newspaper.

In trying to be fair to the man, I try to remember that I was raised to believe that we have very little to go on when it comes to speculating about what awaits us in heaven, but, meantime, we have enough to occupy us here.

In fact, the words from St. Paul on the issue still seem to suggest to me that public speculation about heaven is pretty much a waste of time, whatever our private fantasies on the subject.

It can be said that Mr. Donaghy's projections are quite harmless, yet as I look again at Mr. Donaghy's imaginings voiced as a public contribution to a Catholic audience, and reported in the WCR as such, I think I want to voice my own distaste for the straining for effect which results in this sort of goldfish bowl remark about heaven : "We can just swim in and out of each other, all in this great dance around the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

That kind of pious moonshine is probably best left to the boys pacing up and down on TV before an uncritical audience.

Bill Finn
Edmonton

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