Shame on this ‘unity’ with Pope while his church is mired in scandal and dishonours Enniskillen dead

COULD the leaders of the so-called ‘Protestant’ Churches in Ireland please enlighten me as to how the Pope coming to Northern Ireland could help reconciliation in our country, when he cannot even reconcile his own Church?

I would safely say that, if the Pope comes to Northern Ireland, there would be as many Catholics protesting against his coming as Protestants.

Child abuse within the Catholic Church (and its subsequent cover-up) would be enough to make any law-abiding Catholic want to shout: “No Pope here.”

There is nothing godly about a system that not only abuses little children, but then promotes the very priests that have committed such crimes.

Once again, we see the true aims of the Church of Ireland Archbishop Richard Clark, Presbyterian Moderator Noble McNeely and Methodist President Lawrence Graham — in alliance with Bishop John McDowell of the Irish Council of Churches — which is unity with the Mother Church.

I am convinced that the Pope coming to Northern Ireland would bring further divisions within our community.

The Catholic Church’s refusal to allow a simple memorial in Enniskillen to remember the Protestant dead of the 1987 bombing is evidence enough to prove that the Pope and his Church need to work a lot harder to reach out the hand of friendship to Protestants.

However, the Archbishop, the Moderator and the Methodist President do not seem to mind the Catholic Church offending and disregarding the Protestant dead of Enniskillen.

It is bad enough that these so-called ‘Protestant’ leaders forsake their own Articles of Faith, but to disregard their own dead, by inviting the leader of the organisation that dishonours them, I say, is shameful.

REV JOHN GRAY Free Presbytery Minister