Well-known and award-winning Catholic author and theologian Richard R. Gaillardetz has responded to attacks circulating on a blog about his having been invited by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to give two major presentations on the priesthood at the October 2009 meeting of the CCCB Plenary Assembly. The blog questions whether Professor Gaillardetz is faithful to the doctrine of the Church.

In a letter addressed to CCCB President Archbishop V. James Weisgerber, Professor Gaillardetz affirms his standing as a Catholic theologian who “fully embraces the teaching office of pope and bishops.”

Professor Gaillardetz is on staff at the University of Toledo, Ohio. A past member of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Theological Society of America, he holds a mandatum from Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza to teach at the University of St. Thomas School of Theology at St. Mary’s Seminary, Houston, Texas. According to the norms of the United States Conference for Catholic Bishops for the implementation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, a mandatum in the USA is “portable” unless explicitly revoked.

As agreed by the CCCB Permanent Council, the themes of his two Plenary presentations will be ” The impact of the Second Vatican Council on the priesthood and its reality today,” and “Reflections on the Relationship between the Ministerial Priesthood and the Priesthood of the Baptized.”