Catholic Herald's Missed Opportunity

I came across this story on BadgerCatholic, and I have to say, I'm disappointed, but not in the least bit surprised. The Milwaukee Catholic Herald featured a letter to the editor from a woman who feels that, rather than focusing on the words we say at Mass, the Church's time would be much better spent focusing on, you guessed it, women's ordination to the priesthood. (Cue yawn.)

There have been a number of instances of this kind of sloppy oversight on behalf of the editors of the Herald. A forum was once given to our firmly committed, pro-abortion 'Catholic' mayor to air his views on violence, a somewhat curious subject to write about as an abortion advocate. And on another occasion, space was given in the Letters to the Editor section of the Herald for a batty liberal religious sister to assert her scandalous opinion that God is, in fact, pro-choice. And now, we see more space given to the totally, utterly, thoroughly hackneyed complaint of alleged discrimination against women in the Catholic Church. Someone, stop the bleeding! Why was there no reply/clarification in the same section of the paper on the part of the editors of the Church's position on the matter? This could have been a great opportunity to spell out the Church's teaching on priestly ordination, but instead the claim went unanswered. The Milwaukee Catholic Herald is not supposed to be an unbiased paper (if such a thing exists), that ought to feel compelled out of "fairness" to equally grant a forum to both sides of the issue, and then act indifferent to the correct Catholic position. This is a Catholic paper and, even if the occasional false (and dare I say it, heretical) view is given some ink on its Letters pages, the paper should always, without fail, present the Catholic teaching in a smart, coherent way. Is this asking too much?

I don't know if this editorial reticence stems from poorly catechized individuals at the helm who aren't up to the challenge of tilting lances with dissident Catholics, or whether it's slapdash oversight, or a combination of the two, but it's a serious problem. Sadly, many Catholic incorrectly believe that women can and should be ordained to the priesthood. With that in mind, papers claiming to be Catholic, and especially diocesan papers, cannot waste an opportunity to catechize the faithful in the truth.