Dear Bishop Dewane:
For many years now at about this time of year I receive your
invitation to attend a Holocaust commemoration. I have never attended, and I
realize you are entitled to know why.
In addition to being a Jew and a Holocaust survivor, for the
past fifty years, I have been a feminist activist in Sarasota and elsewhere. I
abhor the Catholic Church’s medieval positions with regard to women and other
matters of human rights. Your policies against the ordination of women, against
the use of contraception (which is ignored by the vast majority of your
members), and against abortion and your requirement of celibacy for most of your
priests are anathema to me. Your policy involving celibacy goes against
everything we know about man’s nature. It is absolutely ridiculous to require
adult men to be celibate. What these policies have produced, among other
things, is a worldwide epidemic of priests who abuse young children and other
priests who cover such acts up.
I will certainly not be associated with any such church or
diocese. Please, therefore, remove me from your mailing list. At such time as
you give up these antediluvian principles and join the 21st century, you can let
me know, and I will be happy to attend your Holocaust
commemorations.
Best,
Sonia
Sonia Pressman Fuentes
Speaker, Author, "Eat First--You Don't Know What They'll Give You,
The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter"
Speaker, Author, "Eat First--You Don't Know What They'll Give You,
The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter"
Bravo to you Sonia. Never have truer words been spoken. The Catholic Church has always treated women as second class citizens and I don't see that changing for the immediate future. Leaving that organization (in the 7th grade) was the most liberating experience I have known, and I'm a male. I can't imagine what it must be like for women.
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