Wade St. Onge has published a letter he wrote to Cardinal Rigali concerning Christopher West.
What interests me most about this are the footnotes, in which St. Onge displays, quite disturbingly, what West's most ardent followers believe and practise.
For example:
... one family “who teaches ‘God’s plan’ [West’s DVD series] shared with us their graphic description of their love making which they share each morning with their 6 year old at breakfast.” The other family “who teaches it, has recently taken it upon themselves to walk around the house naked and they have children 7 and under.”
Other Westians St. Onge profiles believe quite whole-heartedly in the things I am arguing are implicit in West's teachings, such as the moral neutrality of public nudity, the ability to look at others with arousal but not lust, and the carte blanche to indulge an appetite they feel has now been "redeemed".
Is it possible such ardent followers (some of whom have heard over one hundred of West's talks) are mis-interpreting him? Certainly. But if this is so, then it is incumbent upon West to clear up these misapplications of his teaching and to distance himself from defenders who publicly make the case for the exact errors I've been warning about in these past several posts.
Comments
But the full quote from Wade's footnote is:
"A poster on the blog of Fr. Angelo Geiger named “Monica” mentioned two couples who are “pro-life, pro-traditional marriage Catholics who are considered to be leaders in 2 good dioceses.” .....
So, why repeat something that is the equivalent of a "hearsay" comment that is unsubstantiated in any way???
Wouldn't it be kinda like someone saying that Christopher West is bad because someone on Kevin O'Brien's blog site who goes by the name of "Anonymous" is aware of a Deacon named Jim Russell who is a "heretic" and defends West and his "trashing" of a priest???
I think the conversation and discussion has been good and respectful and genuinely focused on content, which is great. There's much to be learned, but not from uncorroborated blog comments....
Deacon Jim Russell
Wade St. Onge, do you have corroboration for the source of this comment? Do we know who Monica is and can we confirm what she is saying?
These anecdotes were tacked onto the end of the attachment, which demonstrated how these kinds of understandings could easily be reached by followers of West.
Nonetheless, I'll set to work on trying to find "Monica" ...
I have to add here that part of the problem is that West seems to have a very narrow view of what lust is. To West, lust is the desire to use another person for selfish gratification. It is true that this is a species of lust (and perhaps one to which married folks are most susceptible), but it is not the only one.
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