A Public Letter To Dr. Janet Smith ~ Steve Kellmeyer




The Fifth Column: A Public Letter to Janet Smith:


Dr. Smith,

Mark Shea, Carl Olsen, Dr. Ed Peters, and others have felt that I have treated you scurrilously on my blog.

So, in the interests of fair play, let me explain precisely where the problems lie.

1) For over a year now,
you have defended or allowed to stand your defense of Chris West’s erroneous understanding that anal sex foreplay is morally permissible. You have publicly and privately held that such foreplay is permitted by the moral manuals. However, neither you nor other Chris West defenders nor Chris West himself have produced any evidence of this assertion – the best anyone has been able to do is provide a discussion of oral sex foreplay from a single manual published in the 1950s, and pretend that this discussion extends to anal sex foreplay. It doesn’t, as that same manual attests.

So, now that you’ve had a year to find it, you must produce the documentation you obviously have in hand from Catholic moral manuals produced prior to Vatican II directly on point concerning anal sex being permissible as foreplay by September 11, 2010 or publicly withdraw your support for this position and apologize for having held it.

Furthermore, you must publicly ask Chris West to produce his documentation within a deadline chosen by you, or you must publicly withdraw your support of Chris West’s teachings on this point. If you would like to ask him or his minions for a private or public apology for having deliberately misled you, that is certainly understandable.

For my part, if you produce the documentation, I will publicly apologize for having ever doubted you

2) For over a year now, you have publicly and privately supported Chris West in his erroneous position that the Easter Candle is really a phallic symbol. You have claimed that this interpretation is supported in the typology of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

So, you must produce the documentation you obviously have in hand from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church; direct quotes, with the sources cited, demonstrating what you say is true, by September 11, 2010 or publicly withdraw your support for this position and publicly apologize for having held it.

Furthermore, you must publicly ask Chris West to produce his documentation within a deadline chosen by you, or you must publicly withdraw your support of Chris West’s teachings on this point. If you would like to ask him or his minions for a private or public apology for having deliberately misled you, that is certainly understandable.

For my part, if you produce the documentation, I will publicly apologize for having ever doubted you.

3) You must publicly ask Chris West to attest and affirm that continence is a virtue, as Pope John Paul II, Thomas Aquinas and the Magisterium of the Church have already affirmed.

If he refuses to do so, you must publicly withdraw your support of Chris West’s teachings on this point.

4) According to Chris West’s own words, "If you could not be alone together the day before you got married and not sin, there is no magic trick, there is no waving at the wand at the altar, that suddenly makes your sexual behavior beautiful, true, good, lovely, and pure.” You must publicly ask Chris West to explain exactly when the sacrament of marriage is conferred.

If he says anything other than “the sacrament of marriage, together with its sanctifying graces, are conferred upon the couple when they publicly exchange marriage vows before a deacon, priest, bishop or appropriate delegate in the manner and with the intention required by the Church”, you must publicly repudiate his teachings and publicly call upon his bishops to correct his teaching.

5) You must also publicly state, and call upon Chris West to publicly state, that the sacrament of marriage has three purposes, one of which is a remedy for concupiscence, that the Church does not expect those who enter into marriage to have conquered concupiscence and that we are not to expect those who enter into marriage to have done so. Further, you must publicly call upon West to make these points in future teachings.

6) You have publicly taught people by saying, “God is a pathological stalker.” You must withdraw this statement and make an equally public apology for having made this scandalous assertion.

Dr. Smith, for years you were a lion defending the Catholic teaching on contraception. All I’m asking is that you show the same attitude of fervor and respect towards Her other teachings.

If you do these things, I will treat you with the deference and respect I accord all true teachers of the Catholic Faith.

If you cannot do these things, then I’m afraid I can’t show you any more deference than I showed Nancy Pelosi when she continuously mis-quoted and mis-applied Aquinas and the Fathers.

After all, if you can’t document what you say, you and Chris West are making precisely the same error Pelosi made, and for precisely Pelosi’s own reason: you have your own agenda, and it is not the agenda of the Church.

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