Praise Update on the Dissent Document

Catholic Exchange reports on a former priest who had signed a document protesting Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae in 1968 and has long regretted it. Here is his letter to Fr. Thomas Euteneuer.

Dear Fr. Euteneuer,

I have signed and am returning the Pledge of Assent to Humanae Vitae for the Laity. There is for me a special significance in signing this Pledge, and [it] will give me a peace of mind and heart that I have not experienced since 1968. In 1968 I was a young Franciscan priest studying in the Graduate School of Religious Education at Catholic University. I personally knew Fr. Charles Curran and Fr. Dan Maguire, and was a student of Fr. Robert Faricy, SJ. Since they, as well as many other professors and graduate students were signing the Protest Document, I went along and did so also.

In 1975 for personal reasons not related to any doubts or questions about the Faith, or the Church, or the Religious Life…I requested and obtained…a dispensation from Pope Paul VI returning me to the Lay State. Later, I was married in the Church and raised my two children in the Faith….I have had many conversations with my Pastor and with his assistant (who is my spiritual director) about my days as a Franciscan Priest, and have been active in many of our parish’s lay apostolate and ministries.

But I have always regretted having signed the Protest Document against Pope Paul’s teaching in 1968, and having learned a few years ago that Fr. Faricy had publicly repudiated signing the Protest, I had wished that I, too, could repudiate in some official way, having signed the Protest….And so your “Pledge” document offers me an opportunity to correct my mistake, and find healing - and telling you about all this helps me to feel that my repudiation of the Protest is now known and accepted in a kind of semi-official sort of way by an “authority” in the Church.

And thank you for reading this, thereby humoring an old man, who despite everything else, knows that he is a “priest forever, according to the Order of Melchizedek.”