Sir, - In his flattering profile of Cardinal Winning (February 26th) Alex Bell omits details of some of the Cardinal's more colourful interventions of late in Scottish politics.
In relation to the Section 28 debate the Cardinal called gays "perverts", while in a speech last year he predicted, in a flush of tribal triumphalism, that Catholicism would be Scotland's sole faith in the 21st century.
Is this the kind of message that Bell and his party leader, Alex Salmond, are endorsing as they "court" the Cardinal? Certainly, it is tempting to draw the conclusion that the Scottish National Party cares more about scoring points off Labour than the position of minorities in the increasingly multi-ethnic, multi-faith and culturally diverse society that Scotland has become. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Graham Walker, School of Politics, Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast BT7.