St Peter Damien, February 21

Your Excellency & Your Eminence:

Just about 100 miles from Philly, the recent sacrileges at St Patrick's are unspeakably appalling and just as bad as the 19th century attacks on the old cathedral.

My first trips to St Patrick's Cathedral were with my Dublin born dad, my Irish American mom, and my sister.  My parents were so proud of that great church having been  constructed with pennies from Irish immigrants.  I fear that the colossal responsibility for the stewardship of that great church building and for the Church itself is not appreciated by a vast array of hierarchy and other clergy.

"What should you call modern clergy and theologians who know what the Church teaches about marriage/family/sexuality but do not proclaim it - either out of reluctant fear or because they don't agree with the teaching? Would it be right to suspect them of cowardice and/or being de facto apostates? In either case, why do they then let the Church provide for their material well being?

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium say that each of us is called to 'chastity, the right ordering of sexuality. Catholic teaching is that sexual relations are exclusively reserved to married couples and that each sexual act must be open to life - contraceptive practices are absolutely excluded. As the complete foregoing of contraceptives is highly correlated with marital success, is it a theological malpractice that info on natural family planning is not better shared?" (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0996704205/RK01G297J4R4W?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp)

I pray that you will both wake up and start authentically cleaning house.  If you are not up for that, I pray that you show the integrity to resign.

Joseph Tevington

Morrisville, Pa