There have been several articles in the Sun Journal about priest celibacy, women in the priesthood and homosexuality in the seminaries of priests.

I believe, as the Roman Catholic Church teaches, that a holy priest, by the Sacrament of Holy Orders, serves as an “alter Christus,” “acts in Persona Christi,” “another Christ, acting in the person of Christ,” who “has the power to consecrate wine and bread into the transsubstantiated body and blood of Christ; has the power via the Holy Spirit initiated by Christ to forgive sins.”

The pope, bishops and priests cannot change this at the whim of political polls. The priest promises to be obedient to his bishop, the bishop to the pope.

Pope Benedict wrote about God’s love and mercy in “Co-Workers for the Truth:” “We, too, should make this the pattern of our lives, to write no one off, to try to reach them again and again with the inventiveness of an open heart.”

Joanna Walsh-Ward, Lewiston