Dear Editor: Dwayne Ayers’ letter in the July 28 “Readers’ Forum” contains several references to ideas he calls “liberal.” He uses the term five times. In each instance, this is used in a derogatory manner.

This is a common tool used by many people today. Name calling is used to isolate and suppress any ideas that are different from what the speaker deems acceptable. This balkanization of discussion is harming America, and harming the Church. Instead of polite discussion, people now engage in name calling.

The fact is that almost all Catholic social teaching is “progressive.” The right to life is one of the few teachings that is endorsed by conservatives. Witness the Church’s positions on capital punishment, immigration, racial and ethnic rights and the environment.

On April 27, Bishop Robert McElroy delivered the 2018 Cardinal Bernardin Common Cause Lecture. In it, Bishop McElroy explicitly refutes this polarization.

“Catholic teaching has been hijacked by those who break down the breadth of our social doctrine by reducing it to the warped partisan categories of our age and then selecting those teachings for acceptance which promote their partisan worldview.” (America magazine, May 14, 2018)

The Tablet does not serve our community well by publishing bigoted letters. This publication must be a forum where all people and ideas are respected. It also needs to present the full complexity of Catholic doctrine, liberal and conservative.

You let your readers down.

STEPHEN LIEBER

Howard Beach

Editor’s Note: The Readers’ Forum offers a place for all readers to share their thoughts and air grievances so we have an ongoing discussion.