Dear Editor: In the Oct. 14 letters, Edward Dorney makes the insultingly absurd claim that George Weigel “implied” that “anything other than what Weigel believes is heretical” and that he aligned himself with a “take back my Church” sentiment which Weigel expressly condemned as misguided.

Where did Weigel say disagreeing with him was heretical? Nowhere. Weigel observed the indisputable fact that self-absorbed Catholic revolutionaries were stunned when progress toward a Catholic restoration under the pontificates of JPII and Benedict was advanced.

Prior to their guidance, there were many capitulations to secular culture during the dreary “spirit of Vatican II” years that most emphatically did seek to undermine Catholic truth, liturgically and morally. Is the lasting damage less than obvious? Did not clown liturgies, self-worshiping “centering prayers,” the idiocy of parish Enneagram workshops, openly pro-abortion personalities within the Church, slovenly dress as Mass and every day desecrations of the Eucharist not undermine the faith of generations?

Dorney says that he knows of no assaults on all the fundamental Catholic dogmas that he lists. He seems completely unaware of the ecclesial history of the ’70s when all these dogmas were not only questioned, but also denigrated and even ridiculed by prideful self-promoting Catholic theologians in almost all Catholic institutions, with attempts to explain them away so Catholics would no longer have to be “embarrassed” before secularists.

KENNETH FARLEY

Boerum Hill