{"id":5757,"date":"2006-01-05T10:10:32","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T10:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/from-john-allen-to-you.html"},"modified":"2006-01-05T10:10:32","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T10:10:32","slug":"from-john-allen-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/from-john-allen-to-you.html","title":{"rendered":"From John Allen to you"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

Dear People of \u201cOpen Book\u201d:<\/p>\n

I have followed with great interest your discussion of
my interview with Godspy and Amy\u2019s reactions to it,
focused especially on the question of divisions in the
Church, and what to do about it. What I\u2019d like to
offer here is an attempt to synthesize your discussion
so far, as a way of seeing if there are some core
points upon which all can agree, that might serve as a
basis for efforts to move forward. Since I\u2019m
considering writing a book on this subject, your
comments would be extremely helpful to me.
Do the following five points seem like a fair summary?<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1.\tAny call to communion in the Church, or to dialogue
as a means to that end, which implies going soft on
Catholic doctrine has no future. If people sense that
the price of admission is fuzziness about Catholic
identity, such efforts will be dead upon arrival. At
the same time, calls to communion which come off as
efforts to stifle legitimate debate, or to avoid adult
conversation, will be similarly unproductive.<\/p>\n

2.\tDiscernment is an important element in real
dialogue, meaning the right to reject an idea as
erroneous without violating the rules of polite
exchange. The aim is not just \u201cgetting along,\u201d but
getting to the truth. Indeed, the reason we want to
open ourselves to others is the hope that in doing so,
more of that truth might become clear to us. <\/p>\n

3.\tWe shouldn\u2019t exaggerate the problems of division
today. Division has always been a fact of life in the
Church, and in many ways it\u2019s healthy. Nor should the
accusation of creating \u201cdivision\u201d be lodged against
those trying to defend strong convictions. Harmony
feels good, but it rarely leads to change; it is
loving challenge that forces us to grow. Hence we
shouldn\u2019t demonize division, just as we shouldn\u2019t
demonize those from whom we are divided.<\/p>\n

4.\tWhile \u201cideological\u201d borders are important in the
Church, there are other divisions that are just as
worthy of notice, including, as one poster observed,
the difference between those engaged in direct
pastoral work in the Church and those who aren\u2019t. <\/p>\n

5.\tOne should not allow the media, or virtual
conversations such as Internet blogs, to dominate
one\u2019s impression of the current situation in the
Church. As always, it is the most shrill and
determined voices which make noise, but they don\u2019t
fully represent most people on the ground. Indeed, on
the question of communion and dialogue, many \u201caverage\u201d
Catholics are probably far ahead of the chattering
classes.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear People of \u201cOpen Book\u201d: I have followed with great interest your discussion ofmy interview with Godspy and Amy\u2019s reactions to it,focused especially on the question of divisions in theChurch, and what to do about it. What I\u2019d like tooffer here is an attempt to synthesize your discussionso far, as a way of seeing if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom John Allen to you - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/01\/from-john-allen-to-you.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"From John Allen to you - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear People of \u201cOpen Book\u201d: I have followed with great interest your discussion ofmy interview with Godspy and Amy\u2019s reactions to it,focused especially on the question of divisions in theChurch, and what to do about it. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}