Pope John Paul II led where Fr Iggy follows
The millions slaughtered over the last 2,000 years, defending the cause of transubstantiation, in crusades, religious wars and inquisitions, confirms your conclusion that "few issues have greater potential to cause division and strife than the vexed question of religion".
Perhaps the brave Fr Iggy O'Donovan will now follow the lead of the late Pope John Paul II and publicly declare to his fellow Roman Catholics that he agrees with the recently surveyed 80% of American Catholics and the 60% of Australian seminarian professors who now believe and teach that the bread and wine remain unchanged and are still bread and wine after the consecration.
Pope John Paul II publicly admitted that he no longer believed the equally divisive Roman Catholic filioque doctrine, when (Orthodox) Patriarch Dimitrios I visited Rome in December 1987, and again during the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew I to Rome in June 1995.
Both patriarchs attended a eucharist celebrated by Pope John Paul II in St Peter's Basilica. On both occasions the Pope and Patriarch proclaimed the Creed in Greek (ie, without the filioque, which means "and the Son").
Pope John Paul II and Romanian Patriarch Teoctist did the same in Romanian at a papal Mass in Rome in October 2002.
Patrick Geaney
13 South Bank Estate
Swords
Co Dublin.
