Sir, – Breda O’Brien (Opinion, March 2nd) says that “partly due to the church’s failures, and to a withdrawal from reason in favour of emotivism, young people will not even know that thoughtful people such as Benedict have not only accurately analysed the modern condition but also offered a challenging and sustainable alternative.”
While Benedict may have installed solar panels on the Vatican to give it a sustainable alternative power source, it is unlikely that those who were sexually abused by clergy and religious would think of the “thoughtful” Benedict as giving them a “sustainable alternative” when church officials at the highest level were actively engaged in covering up their abuse.
It would seem that the “sustainable alternative” was offered rather to the abusing clergy and religious, moving them from parish to parish, in an effort to sustain church respectability.
Would that Benedict showed the same concern for children as he did for the environment.
His latter-day intervention on their behalf was too little too late. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Apropos of the unseemly footwear of the successors of Jesus of Nazareth: “The Choos of the Fisherman”? – Yours, etc,