Catholic Church needs to change or die

I do not know where Eric Conway (Letters Mar 13) got his figure of a 15 million increase in Catholic numbers last year and, more wonderfully, he ascribed this mythical increase to Emeritus Pope Benedict’s reign.

Across the Western world the Catholic Church has seen huge decreases in attendees at liturgical services due to the intransigence of the Vatican in relating itself to our contemporary world. Emeritus Pope Benedict’s initial way of justifying this vast decrease was to suggest that the Catholic Church is not bothered with numbers as it is the ‘Biblical remnant ‘of the People of God.

It is time for a new Pope to jettison this self-fulfilling prophetic self-justification for failure and realise that change and adaptation is a necessary feature of all life and institutions; otherwise death ensues.