Two Church issues that won’t go away

YOUR columnist Rónán Mullen went to bat regularly for Pope John Paul II and on various occasions he has also defended US President George W Bush. But he seems to have an aversion to tackling the really difficult issues.

For example, John Paul II insisted that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was wrong and would be a disaster. Would Rónán care to explain why he thinks the Pope was wrong.

The response of the institutional Church to clerical child and female sexual abuse is wrong and is also a disaster. Maybe Rónán would like to explain why it’s right that two cardinals, Bernard Law and Desmond Connell, could participate in the election of the new Pope in the light of their response to paedophilia among the clergy in their respective dioceses.