IT WAS CHESTERTON who said that "the time has come when people believe, not in nothing, but in anything". This came to mind when I read Dr Dorothea McEwan's feminist, mish-mash critique of Pope John Paul's beautiful and dignified Letter to Women (Catholic Herald, 21 July). Her unconvincing response is clearly a muddle of New Age Creation Theology, Jungian psychology and eco-feminism.
Dr McEwan and her feminists may yelp and squeal, but undoubtedly they are not speaking for Catholic women, nor is their neo-modernist ideology compatible with authentic Catholic teaching. On the other hand, the National Board of Catholic Women see the Pope's Letter as "positive and hopeful... a healing message".
It would also seem that Dr McEwan views Our Blessed Mother's exemplary lifestyle as being simplistic and irrelevant within her feminist theology. Thus the identification of Mary's femininity with the "Church as female" no longer bears any ultimate significance for Dr McEwan.
Who can dispute Pope John Paul's steadfastness and brilliance amid the current waves of feminism, subjectivism and relativism as being a miracle of grace?
lime magazine in America nominated him "Man of the Year". If only the voices of all Church leaders could be similarly heard uttering crucial guidelines instead of muttering about trivia.
Sr Mary Kilday, FMSJ Manchester