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He dismisses (The Clash of the Icons, 24 January) the Pope's message of freedom in Cuba with a word that was once unprintable. It aptly describes his own view that contemporary Catholicism is not about freedom: "Dignity, yes. Freedom, no," he claims.
At the II Vatican Council (1964-66), for instance, the Pope and bishops had much to teach us Catholics about freedom. Religious liberty for every human being had a document to itself. Their teaching on the Church in the modern world puts human dignity and freedom together: "Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward towards his goal by freely choosing what is good ..."
Individual Catholics and their institutions may not always succeed in living up to our teachings, but that has always been the history of the human race and of the Church, however inexcusable it may seem, especially to those who come later.
HUGH LINDSAY
Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle (1974-92)
Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria
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Grace Dent: I’m not sure how these people can avoid being called ‘bigots’. And the more ‘civilised’, the worse they are
Grace Dent -
The Daily Cartoon
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Woolwich murder: They killed, then they performed - these men should be starved of our attention
Frank Furedi -
Stop laying into GPs. We don't deserve it
Dr Clare Gerada -
Woolwich attack: The EDL will seek to exploit this evil crime for their own evil ends
Jamie Lewis
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Woolwich murder: They killed, then they performed - these men should be starved of our attention
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Embrace the e-book, Stephen King. It is not for an author to tell his readers how to read
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Debate: Is it right to call the murder in Woolwich a ‘terrorist attack’?
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Woolwich is only the latest act of barbarism: Muslims, we must take on this cancer in our midst
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Woolwich: The EDL were camped outside my house
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