From Mr D. Buttigieg

I normally enjoy reading Daphne Caruana Galizia’s articles, whether I agree with her or not. However, I do expect that if she is quoting, or thinks she is quoting facts as opposed to opinions, then she should at least get them correct.

Her column in last Sunday’s Independent was misleading at best. I believe she has not understood much about the infallibility of the Pope.

A Pope is infallible when speaking ex-cathedra, for which certain specific conditions must exist. To the best of my knowledge (though I stand open to correction) a Pope has only proclaimed two things ex-cathedra – The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of

Mary.

So when Ms Caruana Galizia writes: “If he says that contraception is wrong, then he is infallible when he says it. Also, new popes cannot ‘undo’ the teachings and rules laid down by their predecessors, for the very reason of this infallibility. If a new pope comes along tomorrow and says that it’s OK to use condoms, what he is really doing is wiping out a principle tenet of Catholicism – the pope’s infallibility – by saying that previous popes were all wrong about contraception,” she is completely wrong.

I am not saying that a future Pope would or should start allowing contraception for example, but that he certainly could. Shouldn’t columnists get their facts right before putting them to print and shouldn’t the newspaper verify that such facts are correct?

David Buttigieg,

SLIEMA