Bishop's book of the month

Last week there was a humorous exchange at the Bishop’s meeting over
an apparent typo in the draft of Faithful Citizenship where it said
“end
marriage” instead of “defend marriage.”

Though sometimes you have wonder.  Last week Leon Suprenant posted
about the use of a book by a dissident theologian being
recommended by the USCCB’s marriage website at
www.foryourmarriage.com.   A Daring Promise: A Spirituality of
Marriage By Richard R. Gaillardetz is promoted as
the book of the month. Gaillardetz is your typical dissident
theologian and Charles Curran admirer who apparently supports
homosexual
acts, women’s ordination,  has a quite flawed view of the
structure of the early Church and a narrow view on papal infallibility
and the magisterium (though an expansive one on the sensus fidelium).

The book that is recommended is reviewed on the bishop’s site and says.

Several points may disturb some
readers.  draws upon Pope
John Paul II’s theology of the body yet offers gentle criticism. After
admonishing couples to embrace church teaching on family planning
through sound understanding and surrender to the rigorous demands of
Christianity, he notes that a couple who still “cannot discover in
(magisterial teaching) God’s will” can follow their consciences. While
he says most “domestic churches” are constituted by marriage and
include children, he includes under that term other households.

Gee how could basically saying that if you
don’t want to follow the Church’s teaching on the grave sin of
contraception you just follow your badly formed conscience  be
something to “disturb some readers?”  Well I guess if you just
happen to be faithful to Church teaching and truth.   Forget
about those “rigorous demands of Christianity” and for example “picking
up your cross daily.”  If only Gaillardetz had been there for
Onan to explain to God how Onan’s was just following his conscience.

One Amazon reviewer noted about this book
“He comments on how he ran into a former classmate who was brilliant in
college and now she was married with kids and he couldn’t help but feel
sorry that she “sold out” and stopped using her God given mind.”

The comment section of the original post
has some detailed critiques of the writings of Richard
R. Gaillardetz.

In a new
post by Leon Suprenant.

Regarding our recent post on the U.S.
Bishops� new �For Your Marriage� website, we received the following
comment from marriage and family expert John F. Kippley regarding the
site�s recommendation of the work of Dr. Richard Gaillardetz:

�Thanks for directing me to the long analysis of the works of the
dissenting theologian,  Dr. Richard Gaillardetz.  It
appears that what he is doing is simply a repeat of what Fr. Curran and
others did in the Sixties . . . I thought the bishops were beyond that
stuff. . . . It is just crazy that the bishops would even mention works
by someone like Gaillardetz. . . .�

Another reader contacted the USCCB about the problematic site and
received this response:

�Dr. Gaillardetz is a well-known and respected Catholic theologian who
holds the chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Toledo. He has
been a guest presenter at a meeting of the Bishops� Committee on
Marriage and Family. I don�t know if you�ve read �A Daring Promise,�
but it presents a realistic�and hopeful�vision of married life in a way
that is accessible to average Catholics. It is an important book in its
field. I think our reviewer did justice to the book by identifying its
strengths as well as noting what might be disturbing.�

Despite this disappointing response, we have good reason to believe
that the shortcomings of the site are being addressed at this time, and
we�ll keep our readers posted regarding further developments.

I hope he is right, but I am not exactly
encouraged by the response.  When you say dissenting from the
magisterium “might be disturbing” instead of saying that it is flat out wrong you are not exactly making your case.