Today, I was present at a seminar on the Sacraments with Fr and whilst most of the theology was orthodox, I have some concerns regarding what was said and what was unsaid, as well as the way it was presented. I believe you have every right to know, even though you have enough on your plate. 

• Fr gave the impression that Jesus did not know He was God until His Baptism. He did not say this as such but did say that as a boy of 8 years old Jesus would not have known and that Jesus knew His identity at His Baptism, (implying He did not know it before). Jesus' own baptism was discussed in reference to the role of Baptism and the point of Jesus having a Baptism was not really differentiated from the reason others had to have Baptism. According to Fr , Jesus would have asked the questions we all do: Who am I? Is there a God? What is the relationship between me and God? And so on. This point was not clarified. I thought a good point to emphasise would have been that at the age of 12 Jesus did know who His Father was. That was omitted.
• Fr spoke of the Divine nature of the Church as well as her human nature; all of which is fair enough. However, he emphasised that the Church makes mistakes and has made mistakes and can do because of this human element but did not clarify that the Church is the 'Pillar of Truth' and that it cannot err in matters of faith and morals.
• When discussing the efficacy of the Sacraments he drew a comparison between them and the Rosary. I do not feel he should have focused on the Rosary. The comparison was that whilst the Sacraments bring about what is asked for in prayer, and this is an element of the Sacraments, we don't expect that what we ask for when praying the Rosary will come about.
• Fr joked about the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In fact, his negative attitude towards it was made quite clear. He stated that it is good bed-time reading in that it makes him sleep. When referring to the definition of the Sacraments in the CCC he was ambiguous. On the one hand, the definition encompasses all that we understand Sacraments to be and is a good one. On the other hand, The people who constructed the definition are 'they' in 'The Vatican'. The exclusive language is not appropriate, especially when he had stated that the Church is 'me and you'. Is the Vatican included?
• When referring to the CCC and the book of Canon Law, he joked sarcastically, that they are both ' really important books'.
• Until Fr was corrected by a teacher in the audience, he stated that anyone can baptise; that even grandmothers baptise their grandchildren if the parents don't get their children baptised. When he was queried by the teacher concerned, he admitted that he had been 'flippant' and it was only when prodded by the teacher that he admitted that these baptisms occur 'in danger if death' and that Baptisms are normally performed by a Priest. My question is, why did it take a challenge by a teacher for Fr , to express the true Church teaching? Would he have said anything otherwise?
• Again, it wasn't until challenged by another teacher that Fr clarified, (but only to a certain extent) the Church's understanding of Limbo. Fr gave everyone the impression that the Church's 'teaching' had changed regarding Limbo. On this occasion he used the Catechism to back up his assertion. He stated that the Church caused a lot of hurt to many women because of this teaching. Of course, I knew as did the other teacher who later spoke, that Limbo has never been officially taught by the Church. When the teacher stated this, Fr agreed, but he qualified this by saying that it was a 'semi-teaching'. This qualification is still not correct. He presented St. Augustine in a very biased fashion in relation to this, and contextualised 'Original Sin' as an invention of St Augustine and didn't know how to define it when asked. I am sure that many were confused. He did not refer to the CCC for a definition and the teacher I spoke of earlier picked up on the contradiction of Fr's statements. Again, no clarification was forthcoming and the impression created was that the whole concept was not important. From Fr's explanation that 'at one point in human history' humans realised their sinfulness (or words to that effect), has led me to believe that Fr believes in the theory of Evolution as outlined by SOME scientists, without being critical of the 'theory'. He mentioned the Adam and Eve story without qualifying the story as myth in the biblical sense. Naturally, therefore, Fr cannot understand and explain Original Sin. Why did Jesus come then?

Your Grace, I am concerned that a Priest who ........... cannot teach something like 'Original Sin' but I, [a layperson] can easily find out about it from different sources.

The course continues tomorrow..........