Sir, – How interesting to read Hugh O’Shaughnessy’s “World View” (March 16th) right next to Breda O’Brien’s opinion on the newly named Pope. According to O’Brien, when Pope Francis was Jorge Bergoglio he lived “according to gospel values by maintaining a modest lifestyle among his laypeople” in Buenos Aires.
O’Shaughnessy’s piece reveals that those values are more akin to Uriah Heep – a very ’umble person – than any gospel. Argentinian journalism has revealed that Bergoglio was a “yes man” regarding some of the most gruesome crimes of modern Latin American history. He notes these crimes included the transfer of prisoners from city torture centres to the nearby island El Silencio to avoid international investigators. The island was a retreat area for church bishops.
O’Shaughnessy writes that Bergoglio’s appointment means the failings of the Argentinian church “will by implication be forgiven”. “Will be”? Surely O’Brien’s naive, starry-eyed profile shows no need for future tense. – Yours, etc,
EDITH SHILLU,
Kew Gardens, Belfast.
Sir, – Would it be too much to hope for that Pope Francis would temporarily put aside the “loaves and fishes” and instead pray for an altogether more different and difficult miracle, ie that the Vatican would pay up all the taxes that it owes, and also clean up all its reputed associations with money-laundering, so that the ATMs would once again work in Vatican City. – Yours, etc,
NOEL BYRNE,
Downside,
Skerries,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – With reference to Fintan O’Toole’s article (Opinion, March 19th) on Pope Francis’s failure to speak out against the former junta, may one ask a more radical and slightly philosophical question: “What is the good of evil?” If we accept the argument that the Pope was culpably silent and that this constituted evil of some kind, may one ask is such an evil essentially a “blot” on God’s plan? Or, may it be construed as being somehow “transitional”?
The question is, is past evil always considered to be carved in stone? Is it irremediably embedded in the past? Or, as is hinted at by O’Toole, may the value of a past evil to be reversed, so to speak, by a future context? That is, in terms of eternity, does evil become an element in “good”?
Given the above consideration, may we hope Pope Francis can redeem himself and atone for his failure in the past. That is, if we accept the argument that he did indeed fail. Such a hope, as O’Toole seems to have, and such an answer may not entirely resolve the paradox and enigma at the heart of the new papacy, but it may partly answer the challenge facing Pope Francis today. – Yours, etc,
THOMAS P WALSH,
Faussagh Road,
Cabra, Dublin 7.