Madam, - Fr Myles Reardon's defence of the recent Vatican statement on ecumenism (Opinion & Analysis, July 13th) avoids the issue. This is, quite simply, that the Vatican, irrespective of what any commentator, official or unofficial, may say, has chosen to restate publicly its view that churches of the Reformation cannot be called churches "in the proper sense".
This wording comes after the most serious global, ecumenical situation arose in the wake of Dominus Iesus (2000), which said the same thing. That experience should have led to greater sensitivity in the Vatican.
How could the Vatican have been more sensitive? The President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper, was quoted by Ecumenical News International as saying that the new Vatican document "does not say that Protestant churches are not churches but that they are not churches in the proper sense, ie they are not churches in the sense in which the Catholic Church understands itself as church".
That is indeed a bit of a conundrum; but following Cardinal Kasper's logic, surely instead of using the word "proper", the Vatican could simply have said that the churches of the Reformation are not churches in the sense in which the Roman Catholic Church understands itself as "church".
To say that the churches of the Reformation - which nonetheless trace their origins to the apostolic period - are not, in the Vatican's view, churches "in the proper sense", is quite simply a slur. May it not be repeated, again. - Yours, etc,
Canon IAN M ELLIS, King Street, Newcastle, Co Down.
Madam, - I found Patsy McGarry's commentary on the recent Vatican document on doctrine seriously lacking in many respects (The Irish Times, July 11th). There was no real attempt to consider the validity of any of the document's arguments.
Instead it seemed to serve just to trigger an up-in-arms response to another perceived excess from Rome. The scathing tone ("what is important is to repeat the assertion that you are 'simply the best'") and satirical language ("And now, from the people who brought us Limbo. . ."), while perhaps gratifying the prejudiced reader, only alienated the fair-minded one. - Yours, etc,
DONAL McMAHON, Westbrook, Saggart, Co Dublin.