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Contact Rosario Fernandes - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Glenda Viegas, Ana Maria Fernandes and several others critical of the functioning of the Catholic Church in Goa make valid points and raise commonsense concerns even if their manner and style is abrasive. Their combative attitude could be excused on grounds of frustration. What cannot be excused is the silence on the part of the diocesan authorities on a forum that is so popular that it has a readership running into the thousands, most of whom are educated, thinking people and among those thousands, a large part professing (if not practising) Catholics. Are there no answers to Glenda and Ana Maria or are the Church authorities so distant from their followers that they consider it beneath their station to reply. I have never understood why the celebration of the Sunday Mass does not include a question period where publicly expressed concerns of faith or morals can be addressed either immediately or if answers have to be carefully considered, on the next Sunday. It can be managed so that this question period does not degenerate into chaos. Questioners names could be put into a draw and one or two could be pulled every Sunday to make it fair and time constrained. There could be a strict rule that interaction would be only between the questioner and the person representing the local parish, preferably the vicar or pastor. Such interaction was prevalent during the times of the early Church when the itinerant apostles both admonished, counselled and helped the local Christians with their concerns of faith and daily life. As it prevails today, the celebration of the mass is an opportunity for the clergy to ask the congregation for money for which no meaningful account is given in the future. What they don't realize is that with public accountabilty of their finances and social deeds will automatically come the loosening of the parishioners' purse-strings. Roland.