Open Letter to OCP

Dear OCP,

It’s okay to be wrong. It’s okay to apologize. It’s okay to try to fix it. Really, it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you human.

What is annoying is when people or groups get called out for making honest mistakes and they double down and try to act like it’s not a big deal. You’re not too big to admit a mistake. The public likes honest apologies, not dishonest cover-ups.

I like an idea that one person had on Facebook, to paraphrase since you are hiding the comments on your statement again:

Admit you messed up. I realize it’s too late and too expensive to recall all of those books. Just send stickers to cover up the cover if parishes so choose.

The world is full of all sorts of problems right now. The last thing we need is an image causing scandal on our hymnals that I hope we’ll be able to use sometime this year. I’m sure a lot of parishes are iffy about their orders this year since they don’t want to put books in the pews that might spread COVID-19. This is a terrible year for everyone and you as a company is probably hurting as much as the rest of us.

Just apologize, try to fix it, and move on.

And in the future, stick with people like Jen Norton. I love her stuff and when you had her on the cover a couple of years ago, it made me happy to see the missal every Sunday.

Sincerely,

Bethanie Ryan

A Moderate Catholic Writer