ANOTHER SIDE TO THE CHURCH

I was surprised that Caddis Robinette’s mean-spirited diatribe against the Catholic Church (Letters, Feb. 7) in response to “Ireland’s Other Troubles” (by Kate O’Callaghan, Jan. 3) was published. Most of us are aware of the church’s blemishes, but as a convert to Catholicism, I offer a different view.

It was the bad old Catholic Church that nurtured learning and founded Europe’s universities. And it was through the church’s influence that Western art, music and science flourished. Moreover, the church has few rivals in its other contributions to human-ity: hospitals, orphanages, schools, missions, leper colonies, asylums for the mentally disturbed and homes for the destitute. And from the church’s ranks have emerged heroic men and women whose holy examples have inspired generations of people of goodwill.

The church will survive long after our present society and its moral decay have passed into oblivion.

KEVIN TIGHE

Los Angeles