The people’s church

READING the analysis column by the editor of the Irish Catholic Michael Kelly (Irish Examiner, August 14), I feel there are two fundamental errors in his thinking.

Firstly, the church is not the bishops, even if some of them still think so.

The church is the people who follow the message of Christ, be they great or humble.

Secondly, for me at least, it is the stature of the Pope and some of the bishops that has been damaged. The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, still has my utmost respect. I seem to see in this the same thinking that has sought to reverse the mighty work of Pope John XXIII.

Ever since his death the work of Vatican II has been eroded deliberately, I feel, by men with little vision of what the Catholic Church should be.

Patrick Browne

Ashleigh Park

Blackrock

Cork