YOUR correspondent from Powis speaks of Bishop MurphyO'Connor as a partisan figure for his critical review of Catholics and Sex. (Letters, April 24).
A little earlier it was suggested that the publishers SPCK be boycotted for not publishing Daring to speak Love's Name. Most authors accept that manuscripts will be turned down and books when published will receive critical reviews.
I wonder if the authors in question believe that they have a special right to be heard when taking issue with the Church's moral teaching. In each case the authors have been favoured with publication. but your correspondent would seem to imply that such publications should be above criticism, despite taking the Church's teaching to task.
My main contention is that the authors are not moral theologians and despite their intelligence and benefits of higher education they do not seem to quite understand the role of the Church's teaching.
As for "opening windows wider" as your correspondent has suggested, the glass has already been kicked out by fashionable sexologists.
The Church's teaching has been so drowned by "sex talk" the problem in the "real word" is not releasing people from moral bondage. but helping those who have been brought up without any moral framework and who so often only find the benefits of the Church's reaching after great suffering.
I would respectively suggest a little suffering of this kind may help to enlighten the minds of our much-publicised authors.
Rev M T Elvins Henfield Sussex