WEDNESDAY'S GLOBE offered a serious case of cognitive dissonance. In letters to the editor, three out of five men writing in regards to "Dissident group claims three women ordained as priests" (City & Region, July 21) reveal their discomfort at affording women in the Roman Catholic Church the same opportunity as men in offering religious comfort, preaching, and teaching, one going so far as to declare their ordination "playing dress-up."
In the roundup on the front page of the same July 23 edition, I learned "A New York priest received a suspended sentence after admitting raping three teenage boys in Boston." In the story, a church spokesman says the priest's worst punishment is that he'll be "restricted to a monastery the rest of his life."
I suggest (sad that this still needs to be said in 2008) that it is crucial that we examine long-held beliefs regarding ownership on positions of political, religious, corporate, or any other authority if we are to provide a just world for future generations.
It is difficult to let go of power, and those in charge rarely hand over the reins willingly, but I pray that cooler and kinder heads will prevail.
RANDY SUSAN MEYERS, Mission Hill
IN HIS July 23 letter, referring to the Roman Catholic hierarchy's negative responses to women who are being ordained, Paul M. Paré wonders whether it would "be easier to simply declare the participants not women." Interestingly, Jesus himself has already proposed such a sex change. In the Gospel of Thomas (discovered in 1945 and written sometime between the 30s AD and 200s AD), verse 114 reads: "Simon Peter said to [Jesus' disciples], 'Mary should leave us, for females don't deserve life.' Jesus said, 'Look, I will guide [Mary] to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.' "
RICHARD J. BEAUCHESNE, Wilmington
The writer is professor emeritus of religious studies at Emmanuel College.
