Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Irish Journalist leaves Catholic Church over Women's Ordination.

I had never heard of Irish journalist Olivia O’Leary until today when I learned that she had left the Roman Catholic church.

According to Irish Central.com:

"She cited her disappointment in the fact that women cannot be ordained as priests, coupled with the disgrace that “the institutional cover-up of clerical child sex abuse was a ‘proximate factor.’ "

In a RTE podcast, she tells us that she will miss the Roman Catholic Church; her reasons are superficial, at best. One does not choose the correctness of a religion's teaching because of that church's music.

Ms. O'Leary gives typical reasons for leaving the church; the child sex abuse scandal and the Church's failure to ordain women. She misses the point, however. Whether or not one chooses to remain Catholic or Muslim or whatever shouldn't be based on whether you agree with the teachings of the particular religion in question, but rather, does that religion teach the truth. There is a difference.

When giving her reasons for staying with the Roman Catholic Church for so many years, and her reasons for leaving now, nothing is mentioned of the Eucharist. She stayed for years, but not because of the Eucharist and her leaving now puts no importance on the Blessed Sacrament.

The question Ms. O'Leary - and others - should be asking is this: "Is the Roman Catholic Church the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church founded by Jesus Christ?"

If she answers yes to that question then she should understand that she must follow the teachings of the Church even if she doesn't quite understand the reasoning.

If she answers no, then by all means find another religious tradition. I'm confident that she won't find Christ's one true church in the Church of Ireland.

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