Too late for ‘reality check’

June 19, 2015
G.P. Heckert
San Mateo

Re “Dublin Archbishop: Church needs ‘reality check’ after marriage vote,” June 5:

Archbishop Martin and Italian Cardinal Parolin and German Cardinal Kasper are quoted lamenting the Irish vote to redefine marriage. One cardinal stated that the vote “shows the church has been too quiet on these issues. Now is the time to discuss them.” I have a clue for the cardinal. Now is too late. They blew it big time; the time to start discussing it was almost decades ago, when signs of the movement were showing up all over the Western world. Now broken, it’s going to be very difficult to put this egg back together.

Unfortunately, the same thing is true for our country. It’s embarrassing that it started its momentum in San Francisco. The California Catholic bishops put up some serious money years ago to pass Proposition 8 to save traditional marriage, and it was approved by the voters, with help from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But few local pastors personally supported the effort; only about half allowed pamphlets or signs to be distributed after Masses, and very few discussed the issue in homilies. There are now probably tens of thousands of immigrant Catholics in the area that have never heard a priest discuss it.

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