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Dear Mr. Matt,
You and The Wanderer have contributed mightily - even heroically - over the course of the last four decades in the effort to staunch the hemorrhaging of the sacred from within the Church. I have benefited greatly from your work, as well as from many of your writers and columnists. I have not always agreed with you, sometimes I've been angered by you, but I have never considered you an adversary.
Your recent attack on The Latin Mass Magazine, and me, has not made for one of my better weekends. I honestly don't understand it. You've known the publisher of The Latin Mass as a man who has supported your work for many years. Our Managing Editor sits on the Board of Directors of the Wanderer Forum Foundation. If you had serious objections to something we published, wouldn't it have been better to contact them for a frank discussion? If you were offended by something that I had written, I would have very much enjoyed a telephone conversation where we might have agreed to disagree - but we would have had the opportunity to get to know one another as fellow Catholics involved in a very serious struggle.
The Irish in me would love a brawl to relieve some of the aggravation that one naturally feels when he's been sucker punched (if you will excuse a traditional expression). I could choose to defend myself, with all the indignation I could muster, against your accusations. Of course that means that you will respond to my response and, inevitably, there will be mutual recriminations. Eventually things will deteriorate into a battle of egos. Neither of us will have benefited spiritually (just the opposite), and the evil one ("cunning genius" that he is) will have further divided and embittered souls. This scenario is a well-worn path that I choose not to travel. I have no need to offer a point-by-point defense against your charges. I trust that what I have written and published will be judged fairly by anyone who reads the material that you have found offensive. In fact, anyone who wants the issue of The Latin Mass that contains my apologia for publishing Mr. Galvin's article, as well as the counter-responses of Dr. Janet Smith and Dr. Ronald McArthur, may contact us and we will send it free of charge (or they may read it on our web site). The same applies to the promotional literature that you have cited in your editorial.
We, however, have an opportunity. Let us decide to discuss our differing points of view like Catholic gentlemen. Let us set an example of an elevated tone in our discourse. We will be the better for it and, more importantly, the Church that we both love so much will be protected from further acrimony. Who knows? We may both discover that virtue is more fun than a brawl.
Sincerely,
Father James McLucas
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