Canada: Religious in quest of novelties
The Canadian Religious Conference (CRC), which numbers 22,000 Canadian men and women religious, has sent a document to the Canadian bishops prior to their visit to the Vatican.
"We regret that our Church often re-states dogmas and traditional morals as a priority of life, rather than listening to people who are earching for meaning in their lives", it declares. We deplore the "legalist image of the Catholic Church and of our Canadian Church, its rigidity and its intransigent position in matters of sexual morality; its narrowmindedness with regard to access to the sacraments of remarried divorcees; its lack of compassion towards them ; and its coolness towards homosexuals" as well as, in matters of ethics and bioethics, the presentation of an ideal which leaves little leeway for development and progress, and its defense of principles which, in their radical character, do not concur with human experience (divorce, contraception, protection against AIDS, alleviation of sufferings at the end of life)".
The have asked the bishops to consider "the ordination of married men, of women, of ‘elders’ in the communities of the First Nations (natives present in Canada when the Europeans arrived). Alain Ambeault, president of the Religious Conference, added that the members of the Religious Conference had participated in a poll prior to the writing of the document. "So, we are firmly convinced", he wrote to the members, "that this message reflects the thinking of the superiors of Canadian religious communities and also that of the majority of Canadian men and women religious.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet, primate of Canada, declared in the March 29 issue of La Gazette, that he would transmit the message and concerns of the Religious Conference to the Vatican, and confirmed that the Canadian Church would never deviate from Catholic teaching.
