SATURDAY’S front page (Echo, Jan 15) carried a report of a Roman Catholic priest being jailed for child pornography offences.
This, sadly, has been all too familiar a tale for many years now and in many parts of the world. It is surely symptomatic of an organisation with a serious problem.
On Page 9 of the same edition there was a report of a fast track promotion of the late Pope John Paul II to sainthood.
From 1978 to 2005, he was the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. It was during his watch that so much of the aforementioned problem came to light.
If John Paul II really was a saintly person, he would have carried out a root and branch reform which would have given no hiding place to any such corrupt cleric, instead of trying to pretend it was a minor problem best hidden.
I leave it to the faithful of the Catholic Church and the other Christian denominations to draw their own conclusions.
Martin Forester, Spennymoor.
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