Madam, – While Glenn Cahill (October 15th) is obviously appalled, as so many other readers were, by both the tone and the content of Fr Sylvester Mary Mann’s letter (October 14th) against IVF, he should not take Fr Mann’s extreme beliefs as representing the mind of God, as evidenced by his words “IVF always acts against God”. The views of Fr Mann should not be the touchstone on whether one believes in God or not as his views represent a doctrinaire rather than a doctrinal approach to true Catholic teaching.
The view of the Pontifical Academy for Life against the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Prof Robert Edwards should not be taken as an infallible statement of the church; rather it is a conclusion of a group of Catholic scientific academics which may be right or wrong, as all human conclusions may be.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing in the Catholic Church a creeping infallibility, an attempt to represent every utterance from the Vatican as absolute truth. There is no one universal catch-all theology in the Catholic church; there is room for a great diversity of views, opinions and conclusions, as the Christ of the gospel stated, “There are many mansions in my Father’s house”. – Yours, etc,