Sir, - Michael MacCoisdealbh (November 18th) would have me throttle my own conscience and submit completely to the Magisterium. "It is all or nothing," he says. If so, I would have to choose nothing. So would the majority of modern Catholics for whom the ban on contraception is daft and dangerous. So, I suspect, would Mr MacCoisdealbh.
Any history of the popes, such as my Vicars of Christ, shows that for century after century the Magisterium authoritatively taught catastrophic errors. John Paul agrees, though not daring to conclude that he, too, might on occasion be slightly mistaken.
A few instances from papal letters and encyclicals: After the Fall, every act of sex, even in marriage, is sinful. Slavery is indispensable. All the un-baptised are tortured forever in hell, including babies. Since all Jews are god-killers, they must wear distinct clothes, be locked up in ghettoes at night and be deprived of all civil rights. Heretics and old women called witches are to be investigated by the Inquisition, tortured without pity and burned. Whoever charges interest on a loan, however small, cannot have a Christian burial. Tolerance of un-Catholic beliefs is always a grave sin. Freedom of the press, assembly and education is a filthy sewer full of "heretical vomit".
Mr MacCoisdealbh criticises me for calling myself a practising non-church-going Catholic. But most Catholics today fall into this category because of the Magisterium's insistence on only celibate males offering Mass. I also remember what a loyal but hungry Jew once said, when he was accused of violating the Jewish law by plucking wheat on the Sabbath: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." - Yours, etc.,
Peter De Rosa Ashford, Co Wicklow.