Church continues to move forward

On the occasion of (“stuck in cement”) Pope Benedict XVI stepping aside, the announced need for “a new face and a new look” is uninformed [“Church has the opportunity to transform,” Northwest Voices, Feb. 14].

Instead, in October the Church kicked off the Year of Faith and the New Evangelization (admittedly in “memento” Latin, but in many dozens of other languages as well). Three leading themes are in step with the real needs of the 21st century.

First is the transcendent dignity of each human person without exception.

Second is preservation of the family which is equally at risk.

And third is personal freedom of religion — understood by the Second Vatican Council (1962-5) as “immunity from coercion” by the state or any other social group.

Even with the demise of state-sponsored atheism under the late Soviet Union the global challenge remains in China and the Islamic world of course, but also here. In the United States, freedom of religion is now being narrowly redefined by executive fiat as “freedom of worship.”

On being up to date, maybe the English writer and convert G.K. Chesterton got it right when he said “the Church grows younger as the world grows old.”

--Peter D. Beaulieu, Shoreline

The privileged will support the privileged

I agree with Natalie Beaulieu, but as a lifelong Catholic, I don’t think a group of sheltered, privileged old men who have never lived in the mainstream of life will choose anyone but another sheltered, privileged old man.

If they chose a younger, innovative priest, they could be saddled with him for a long time.

--Corrine Chodora, Redmond