Why are Priests Silent on Morality?

by Letters Editor · September 19, 2018

Peter Hendricks, Cape Town – Do you ever hear a priest give a sermon on moral living? God said: “If you love me, keep my Commandments”, but if a priest should ask his congregation to name the fifth and eighth Commandments, most probably only 3% would put up their hands.

Sermons often are flat, and there is no substance; nothing to chew on for the rest of the week.

Also, few go to confession. People choose what suits them, not living according to what is right or wrong. Truth cannot be changed or altered: you seek it and live it.

Simply take a walk and look at the newspaper posters on lampposts, and you’ll see that there is an urgent need for sermons on moral living.

My daily walk gives me the bad news. At the bottom of a local bridge is a list of children murdered in 2017. There are about 60; the younger ones aged 14 months, 18 months and two years, and on until the oldest of 16 years.

This is the aftermath of the world’s sickness. We are not born rapists or murderers: we cultivate these evils in our own lives.

Next, I come to the posts with abortion adverts, which I usually tear off. For R300 you can murder the child within you — but if you discipline your child, you go to jail.

Some priests also don’t have to take on the responsibilities; others do. Yes, it can be a lonely and difficult life as a priest, but on the other side of the coin they get positions, they get people’s respect, have jobs for life, and many drive new cars.

If a priest really knew what married life is all about, he would soon gather that it is no piece of wedding cake. You can talk about running across the desert or doing an ultra-marathon only if you have done it.

The Holy Land is the road you walk every day. When going shopping or out walking, show a little kindness to beggars along the way. They will show you the Road to Eternity.

There are great priests, and Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI, in his weekly column in The Southern Cross, is the star of the show. It is priests of this calibre that I’d bend down to and kiss the soles of their feet.

Also, remember that the crown jewels of the Catholic Church are its faithful men and women, including great saints who lived their entire lives true to God’s Word.