Montreal Orphans

Your Feb. 10 article (“Mental Illness by Mandate”) illuminates the appalling arrogance of Catholic Church officials in Montreal. That orphanages were overnight converted into insane asylums by the church in order to receive more generous government subsidies, and that hundreds of normal children were declared by church officials to be mentally ill or retarded--for money--is surely, by the Catholic Church’s own definition, a mortal sin.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte and Msgr. Pierre Morissette, who declare that the orphans who suffered through years of this torture do not deserve an apology, display an almost unbelievable arrogance and deliberate cruelty. These men claim to be earthly representatives of Jesus Christ? Spare me, and spare the people of Quebec from these wolves.

DON HOWARD

Oak Hills