Gary Nelson: Church doesn’t need ‘cleansing,’ just more charity and prayer

Re “How Pope can cleanse the Catholic Church” (Page 9A, Feb. 11): Someone once said, “I love the Catholic Church, it’s just the people I can’t stand.” This points to the one weakness of any Christian community: sinful and sometimes misguided people are necessary in order to carry on the mission and message of Jesus Christ.

Whenever anyone characterizes the Church as having “liberal” and “conservative” factions, I know this person does not understand what the Church is and what it teaches. I read my way into the Catholic Church 13 years ago. Anyone who takes the time to objectively study Christian history would have to agree it is the same Church Jesus started in Matthew, 16. And anyone who went deeper into its actual social teachings would likely find they agree with 99 percent of it and that the remaining 1 percent they disagreed with would still be internally consistent with the rest of Catholic social doctrine.

This opinion of columnist Emma-Kate Symons, that The Bee published, certainly suits the public appetite for yellow journalism, but it unfortunately misses the point. Pope Francis isn’t “cleansing” the church. We are all weak and subject to errors in our thoughts. What we all could use is more charity in word and deed, and prayer.

This story was originally published February 14, 2017 at 10:43 AM with the headline "Gary Nelson: Church doesn’t need ‘cleansing,’ just more charity and prayer."