Sir, - Elaine Lafferty's report "A case of Mormon versus Mammon" (News Features, January 23rd) started out as an attempt to throw light on the allegations of corruption and donation of lavish gifts to Olympic committee officials, but proceeded to cast aspersions on the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Because one missionary was physically handicapped, she was described "as tethered to a portable oxygen tank which she lugs behind her". Hardly language that would please those people who have a handicap.
Ms Lafferty gives the membership of the church as 2.8 million when in fact it is 10 million. She states that apart from a change of the law of polygamy things have changed little since the 1820s. Considering the Mormons arrived in wagons and built a city and a civilisation in the desert that endorses work, honesty, family values and freedom of religion for all people, her argument is decidedly weak. Perhaps one thing that hasn't changed that much is old-fashioned prejudice, a subject that the author might consider the next time she puts on her investigative hat. - Yours, etc., Joseph G. Peters,
Ovens, Co. Cork.