Madam, - Both Marc Coleman and Mark Daly (February 5th) rightly say that the Vatican's artistic treasures, like those in our own National Gallery and National Museums, are, and should continue to be, accessible to all.
Nonetheless, Rome and its worldwide church holds vast riches - of little or no artistic benefit to the ordinary faithful - which serve only to exalt, magnify and impose on those faithful its princes' power over morality, conscience and our fear of death. Control of men's souls - not gold, scarlet silks or wines - is the Vatican's greatest wealth.
Contrast this with Christ, whose Vicar on earth Pope Benedict claims to be: born in a stable, unschooled, a carpenter; a penniless itinerant preacher, dependent on his disciples' hospitality and his Father's providence, having "nowhere to lay his head"; reduced to total nakedness on the cross, with soldiers dicing away his cloak at his feet, his only possession a crown of thorns on his head, humbling himself completely in the most terrible and degrading death ever for the salvation of all - lepers, thieves and prostitutes included.
Could opposites ever be further apart? - Yours, etc,
MARK HUTCHESON, Glenview, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.