Human life

I SEE that Fr. Flanagan of the Catholic Priests' Association has resumed (April 10) his war of attrition on Mr Norman St. John-Stevas. As always, his weapon is the bludgeon wielded with logical ferocity in defence of papal supremacy and infallibility.
His ostensible target this time is the series of special articles by Mr. St. John-Stevas in recent months which 'explored, amongst other things, the limit and extent of infallible teaching. Mr. St. JohnStevas has, I am sure, put many of us, clerical and lay, in his debt for the calm and rational way in which he has illumined central doctrines and invited its to re-examine our notions of them in the light of the recent Council.
We do not need to be reminded too that the member for Chelmsford has been the vigilant and articulate champion, inside and outside the House of Commons. of all who treasure the sanctity of human
How ironic, then, that in his curt refutation of Mr. St. JohnStevas' reflections on the infallibility of the ordinary/extraordinary .magisterium Fr. Flanagan should isolate by name one encyclical—Humanae Vitae—claiming it to be infallible. It is hard to resist the conclusion that Mr. St. JohnStevas' querying of the infallibility of that document has been his principal "fault" in the eyes of the Catholic Priests' Association.
Abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment . . . how unutterably sad.
T. F. Roche
Horsforth, Leeds.