Big Al, my use of the word "poor" seems to bother you, so be assured that I am not using the word scornfully, but in reference to poverty. That is, those millions of poor people around the world who cannot feed their children properly, who cannot read and have never been to school, yet worship Mary in your temples in the vain hope that she can help.

I remain convinced that Mary is indeed worshipped by millions of poor people, and that the Roman Catholic Church has conveniently cherry-picked the original biblical texts over the centuries to allow this to happen. Otherwise, many of the poor and uneducated in Africa, Asia and the Americas might desert the Roman Catholic church and rediscover their own female pagan dieties.

Grace, there seems no way to convince you that Catholics DO NOT WORSHIP Mary. I don't know whether you are inferring that the people of Asis, Africa and the Americas would be beter off worshipping pagan deities than they would be venerating and showing devotion to Mary. Surely not! Pagan deities don't establish schools and medical centres in those countries such as the Catholics and other Christian missionaries do, even helping to feed tham as well. The people are responding well and Christianity is growing in Africa for sure. I'm not sure about the other continents, but I think it's doing OK there too. I have a Salvation Army missionary friend in Bolivia and she says her mission helps feed and clothe and educate many poor people, and provide medical services. Don't see any pagan gods helping out there or anywhere else. Similarly with our own country. Take a look at the capital city phone books under Catholic, Anglican and Salvation Army and see how many services they provide for the poor and the sick. How many do their critics provide? Zero.

Sells, I can't see why we can't "call a spade a spade"and identify things as "good" or"evil". Also people in history. Just for argument's sake, Satan is evil. So was Nero. So was Hitler, Himmler and their cohorts in Nazism. Mussolini and Fascism were evil. Stalin, Beria,Mao and their leaders in Communism were evil. Osama bin-ladin and all terrorists are evil. On the other hand, Mother Teresa was good, Ghandi was good, and so on. I can't see what the Archbishop was trying to achieve by saying that morality is not about right and wrong, but about reality and unreality.

Big Al. I think we must take the theology of creation seriously, especially the first account in seven days. At the end of each day we have the phrase "And God saw that it was good" After the creation of human kind the phrase is intensified: And God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." To say that the monsters of history are evil is to ignore these crucial verses. How did they become evil? at what point in their lives did they turn from God's good creation to become evil? Were they not born innocent babes? We may trace their development and see how the various forces in their own lives made them the way they are but that does not mean that they were inherently evil. I repeat, we may call their deeds evil but they are still, one and all, children of God. This is central to the compassion of the church and why the death penalty is an abomination.

The thing about reality and unreality is that we see reality only through the eyes of the gospel. Without the gospel we only see through the eyes of human brokenness, we do not see the truth. The men you list saw the world through this distortion and did not see the faces of those they killed, they did not see that their deeds were evil because they were caught up with the powers of the world that opose the gospel.

SELLS, I agree that God saw everyhing He made was good. He gave Mankind Free Will. But then came the Fall, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by listeing to Satan's lying promises and ate the Forbidden Fruit, thinking they would be as knowledgable and powerful as God. That wrecked everything, they were expelled from Eden, stripped of their privileges ,Cain murdered Abel. Evil was abroad. Today Evil is still abroad.

We see it in paedophilia [made even more repugnant when done by those in positions of trust like clergy and teachers] , drug dealing, abortion, domestic violence, crime, pornography, racism , genocide, sex slavery and now terrorism.

The people responsible for this violence, [Idi Amin and Pol Pot are two I should have included with Hitler and co.] and nameless millions of others are using [or abusing] the Free Will given to all of us by God, and deserve to be called evil. I think you are being too kind to them. They are ruthless and cruel and have to be held accountable in this life and the next.

I think people often feel overwhelmed, swamped by the evil which floods our TV, cinemas and print media, whether as news or "entertainment". Christians can always "have Faith" remembering the promises of Jesus: "The gates of Hell will not prevail against us" and "Behold I am with you always, even to the end of the world"

The final victory will be God's and we have to play our part and stay loyal to Him.

ADDENDUM When say "we have to play our part" I mean to actively resist evil. It's no use just sitting there wringing our hands and grumbling. Christians are considerable in number and occupy positions where they can have a strong influence. We can write letters to the Press and politicians, TV stations etc. expressing our opinions. The Secular Humanists and other opponents certainly do this.

I remember one very wise man saying "We can't do everything, but we can do something".

Jesus also encouraged us with the words: "Let not your heart be troubled" and "Be not afraid". In fact,"Be not afraid" occurrs 366 times in the Bible, one for every day including Leap Year!