Letters to Priests: This Looks Like a Good Idea

This looks like a good idea:

"Catholics in New Media: Letters to Priests"
Matthew Warner (April 30, 2010)

"In these trying times for the Church, one of the resulting tragedies has been that a very small percentage of bad priests have given a bad name to so many good ones. This is most certainly tragic. It's tragic that so many great priests are going unappreciated. And it's tragic that so many of us aren't aware of so many of these wonderful priests. And all of this in this Year of the Priest.

"That's why a neat new project I recently became aware of is so appropriate: Letters to Priests - Thanking the Men of the Catholic Church. It's 'an interactive book being written to promote positive public relations of Catholic Priests.' They are asking everyone to submit letters describing how a priest has positively impacted their lives. Anyone can participate....

"...One of their challenges is trying to let the many Catholics who are not yet online know about the project. So they are encouraging us to spread the news in our parish bulletins and any way we can in order to collect more letters.

Sounds like a worthy cause to me!"

The post includes a URL: LettersToPriests.com. I've given the website a quick once-over. The letters are - not the sort of thing you see in the news, here in America.

There's a fairly straightforward online 'submit a letter' page - which I plan to use as soon as I finish writing this post. Or, for folks who prefer using snailmail, Letters to Priests has this USPS address:

Letters to Priests
c/o Teena and Anne
P.O. Box 482
Ada, MI 49301

I'm writing about Father James Statz, of the Our Lady of the Angels parish here in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. There have been a few lively moments while he's been here, like the time the Christmas tree didn't hit him - and the time a stroke did. (Sauk Centre Journal, May 29, 2004 - he's back with us, happily.)

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A tip of the hat to MatttnewWarner, on Twitter, for the heads-up on his post.