Letter: Catholics seek to be teachers and pastors

Catholics seek to be teachers and pastorsSir: Andrew Brown's opinion that one extreme article about "the late Archbishop of Liverpool ... could lead to a Catholic civil war" (11 May) greatly exaggerates the real situation here and shows a serious misunderstanding of Catholicism.

Since the Second Vatican Council there have always been some extreme voices who do not represent mainstream Catholicism. Those who feel the bishops have been too slow to introduce the Council changes usually say that we keep too close to Rome. Those anxious about change often say we don't teach the whole of Catholic Faith. When I was a mainstream diocesan bishop, I was once attacked in two periodicals at the same time: in one, for forcing Roman teaching on reluctant believers; in the other, being disloyal to Rome and not entirely orthodox. Neither was representative of the mainstream then; nor are their successors now.

Andrew Brown claims we use "coded language, faithful to the Roman line but at the same time allows a cheering latitude to individual conscience". He seems to misunderstand traditional Catholic moral teaching that we must always obey the certain judgment of conscience (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1800) but that we also need to form that conscience according to Catholic teaching.

Our International Synod of Bishops met in Rome in 1980 to discuss the Christian family in the modern world. Pope John Paul's subsequent Letter to the whole Catholic Church in 1981 faces the pastoral problem that many Catholics find Catholic sexual morality very difficult. He wrote that in this field, "the Church is teacher and mother and acts as such. As teacher, she never tires of proclaiming the moral norm ... As mother, the Church is close to the many married couples who find themselves in difficulty over this important point of the moral life." So, priests and bishops who acknowledge the difficulties which people face, and help them in their struggle, are not being disloyal to the teaching itself.

This probably explains why Mr Brown believes what is quite contrary to my long experience: that most Catholic bishops of England and Wales reject Humanae Vitae and the more recent Veritatis Splendor. We seek to be as Jesus himself was; at the same time, clear teachers and caring pastors.

Hugh Lindsay

Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria

The writer was Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle 1975-1992