From Mr Ronald J MacDonald
Sir, As is widely known north of the border, Fr John H Fitzsimmons' stock-in-trade is to vent his wrath upon the Roman Curia rather than upon the supreme authority of the Christ appointed Petrine Office which lies at the heart of his tiresome diatribe (Jan. 21).
One of Fr Fitzsimmons' more revealing media interventions came last September when, writing of Pope Pius XII in The Herald (Glasgow), he stated:
"Anyone who knows me would readily recognise that my own vision of the Catholic Church is very far removed from his high papalism...I am not a fan of that kind of 'Infallible–one-manbandism' ."
Fr Fitzsimmons thus contemptuously dismissed a fundamental dogma of the faith, and he is more than worthy of the criticisms which you so rightly directed at the erstwhile Sister, Lavinia Byrne, It is to be hoped that you will cease to provide a platform for his bilious offerings.
Yours faithfully, RONALD J MACDONALD Bishopsbridge, Glasgow