Treating Church Teaching Like Silly Putty, by Jim Valois

As a child, I enjoyed playing with Silly Putty. When newspaper ink was petroleum-based, I liked using it to pull print or images off the pages. Now, in our current times, is it a stretch to say that some of our leading luminaries consider the immutable Teaching of the Church changeable like Silly Putty? The immutable Teaching of the Church, such as the dogmas and Ten Commandments, can be shaped into whatever we want them to be, these “lights” tell us. Times have changed. So too must the Teachings of the Church change to fit our epoch, some experts insist.

Yet this type of thinking is uncreative and lacks genuine love. Take a parent who gives warning to a young child not to touch a hot stove. If this parent were to say one day: “Today I am changing the rule—you can touch the scalding hot stove. Everyone is doing it. Therefore, it must be worthwhile.” In response, we would be upset and assert that the parent is unfit and derelict in duty. The screaming child with the burned hand is the consequence if we play out the scenario with the new rules. …