‘Bellyful of bigotry’ from young Paisley
I find this ironic, coming from a man whose father is the director of a website (www.ianpaisley.org) which seeks to "expound the Bible, expose the Papacy, and to promote, defend and maintain Bible Protestantism in Europe and further afield."
The website contains articles with titles like The Demon of Celibacy, The Perils of Popery, Rome's Rejection of Christ's One Offering, and so forth.
Anyone who reads these articles and is convinced of the "errors of Rome," as Dr Paisley's website terms them, would do well to remember that the original teachings of Jesus Christ were centred around love, understanding, tolerance, and acceptance. Jesus dined with tax-collectors and prostitutes. The DUP does not dine with republicans. There is no need to point out the obvious bigotry and contradiction here.
Mr Paisley fears that Protestants will now conclude that the Catholic Church has taken the Sinn Féin line on policing issues. By this logic, Catholics will conclude that the Free Presbyterian Church has taken the DUP line on policing issues. I wonder what happens to the argument made by some anti-Catholic members of certain fundamentalist Protestant churches in relation to the lack of separation between church and state in the Republic when that path of logic is followed. Also, if indeed Mr Paisley is correct, I see no problem with the Catholic Church taking the side of Sinn Féin on certain issues, when the father of that party's ideology Theobald Wolfe Tone sought to unite Catholic, Protestant and dissenter.
There is enough bigotry in this world without Christians adding to it by confronting one another, when they are supposed to be part of a religious philosophy which does not condemn.
It is important to bear in mind one of Christ's teachings: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
Daniel Oosthuizen (17),
7, Main Street,
Midleton,
Co Cork.
