Reading response Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 32

Reading response - Essay Example The amazing thing is that most of the ideas extended by the original work and its critics are in the nature of fictitious blames and lack any substantial material to base them on. The article also shows how the nation has a long standing history of being scared of minorities and diversity. It was not without a reason that the book, The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk won an avid readership, not only in her days, but even today. The irony that the American masses do have a history of being afraid of the foreign and the different does ensue from this article. The writer in a way does succeed in bringing out the fact that the work The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk did intend to present the Catholic Church as a symbol of evil and it strongly intended to present the Catholic priesthood as embodiment of carnal pleasures and immorality. The author brings out the fact that Maria Monks never resided in a Catholic convent and that her mental capacities and morality were never beyond doubt. There is other side of the coin also. It is obvious that the writer Ruth Hughes is a Catholic and intends to unravel the lying and falsehood resorted to by Maria Monks and her supporters, to debase and vilify the Catholic Church. However, while doing so, Hughes did fail many times to show the kindness, compassion and forgiveness that so typically define the Catholic faith. Instead one is resorting to the kind of aggressive and base tactics that were resorted to by one’s opponents. Ruth Hughes is trying to do away with the accusation made by Maria Monks and her supporters by vilifying their character and sense of morality and ethics. It would have been much saner if Hughes had come down on this vilification of the Catholic by taking a higher ground. This would have presented one’s faith to the readers in a more favorable and benign light and would have brought out the irresponsible