Sir, – A conclave of elderly, celibate men have met, in the world’s most ostentatious head office, and summonsed celestial inspiration from a supernatural being to assist them in choosing a new leader, namely another elderly celibate man, this time infallible, who forbids women to use contraception.
Now that this leader of an organisation mired in paedophilia, money laundering and historical support for corrupt right-wing dictatorships has been elected, would it be possible for your newspaper to move on and concentrate a little more on other issues taking place in the world? – Yours, etc,
GERARD BURKE-
KENNEDY,
Merton Drive,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.
A chara, – Patsy McGarry (Home News, March 18th) quotes Pope Francis as saying, “The church’s nature is not essentially political but spiritual: the church is the people of God . . . making its way to encounter Jesus Christ. Only from this perspective can a satisfactory account be given of the church’s life and activity”.
If the pope means what he is quoted as saying, then it follows logically that the church will now divest itself of the Vatican State with all its political pomp and temporal power, and revert to being a religion, as Christ intended when he said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.”
As the Pope himself is quoted above, " Only [my emphasis] from this perspective can a satisfactory account be given of the church's life and activity". – Is mise,
SEÁN O KIERSEY,
Kill Abbey, Deansgrange,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.