It is impossible to condone Apartheid, as your reader J. R. Oradwell attempts to do (December 28) There is nothing in Christian literature to support such massive injustice. Our Saviour did not confine His love to powerful, intelligent people, but showed especial tenderness towards downtrodden outcasts. Indeed. His rare but terrible indignation was provoked by those who dared to regaru themselves as superior to others Repeatedly He condemned the pride and injustice which leads to such chilling offences against charity as racial apartheid, social snobbery, or religious intolerance.
There is, however. a risk of hypocrisy in our smug condemnation of distant nations for racial apartheid, to which we have no inclination, while continuing social snobbery within the English Catholic communion. We eulogise the public school system which undeniably disrupts family life and promotes social apartheid. Worst of all, it creates within the Catholic community an exclusive circle of economic privilege whose interests may well conflict with those of the Catholic body as a whole.
The recently published "Life of Cardinal Manning" illustrates this point by describing some of the intrigues engineered by a privileged English Catholic minority, which that able prelate had to surmount in order to further much needed schemes to aid the poverty stricken Catholic majority.
Let us first remove the beam from our own eye..
Michael Carter, Gosforth Newcastle-on-Tyne.