Rev Paul Morton, St Bride's RC Church, replies:

in the Herald.

A Cardinal should uphold a basic tenet of the Catholic faith?A Roman Catholic Cardinal insists that his fellow Roman Catholics hold to one of the basic tenets of their faith - the sanctity of life. Why is that so shocking? Was Cardinal Keith O'Brien threatening people of other faiths or none?

Was he demanding that they should do what he wants? No, he was reiterating the Catholic position and yet he is lambasted by the elite in the political sphere and the media as though he were some kind of undemocratic fascist. Cardinal O'Brien's remarks were no more "judgmental" than your own editorial criticising him.

What the reaction to the Cardinal's perfectly reasonable and consistent remarks indicates is just how non-pluralistic and intolerant our secular society has become. If the Cardinal had been suggesting that Catholics who advocated racism should consider not taking communion, not an eyelid would have been batted. However, because he challenges one of the shibboleths of the modern "liberal" elite he is labelled as "undemocratic and unacceptable". The last thing our elite want is for abortion to be honestly debated.

advertisementThe argument is always reduced to "abortion is necessary and anyone who thinks otherwise is an illiberal bigot who wants a return to backstreet abortions". The intelligent discussion you call for will only happen when the assumptions of our liberal elite are allowed to be challenged. Thank God for a Cardinal who is actually prepared to do that.
David A Robertson,
St Peter's Free Church of Scotland,
Dundee.

Most readers will remember a programme called Late Call that gave ministers and priests a three-minute slot to present God in daily life.

As a programme it was much caricatured, especially by Rikki Fulton. The "God-slot" quietly disappeared from our TV screens. We could never have imagined that in time it would be replaced by an "anti-God slot" by columnists such as Ian Bell. He never misses an opportunity to use the pulpit of his column to denounce, condemn and caricature people's religious views. The irony of his recent comments about the Cardinal is that he is happy to see him condemn the extermination of human life through Trident's replacement and yet not happy to see him condemn the extermination of human life through abortion. This article and others, although written with some flourish, betray the same anti-religious bias and his inability to write on this topic with a clear head and a fair pen.

Rev Paul Morton, St Bride's RC Church,
21 Greenlees Rd, Cambuslang.