Freedom of the press to carry religious opinion

In his latest militant atheist diatribe (May 24), William Flynn lambasts The Times for daring to print opinion emanating from a clergyman's pen. He then absurdly claims that no other reputable newspaper in the Western world would do such a thing.

I suggest he looks at the London Times (regular faith columns) and George Pitcher and Damian Thompson's frequent contributions to The Daily Telegraph (Rev. Pitcher is an Anglican clergyman). I am sure plenty of other papers with a worldwide readership do the same.

Such ill-informed and angry intolerance seems to pervade most, if not all, of Mr Flynn's contributions to Maltese newspapers. Why on earth shouldn't a newspaper print religious opinion? Whatever happened to freedom of the press to print whatever it feels it should be allowed to? Why shouldn't as wide a spectrum of opinion as possible be allowed to be expressed? Mr Flynn seems to believe that, just because he does not believe in the teachings of the Catholic Church, then the rest of us should be denied access to its writings. On the other hand, atheistic writing should be given free rein. What breathtaking arrogance!

Mr Flynn also makes the classic mistake typical of atheist philosophy in attempting to deny God's existence through lack of scientific proof. Well, the concept of the existence of the Almighty is a metaphysical one, so is not able to be proved or, for that matter, disproved, by scientific theory. We all find out the truth when we complete our natural stay on our planet.

There are around one billion Catholics in the world. The support given to Malta's Archbishop on his enthronement and to Pope Benedict on his recent visit suggests that Catholicism is alive and well on the island. Mr Flynn is entitled to his opinion and to the freedom to express it, but he should learn to do so calmly and not in such vitriolic terms. And he should be prepared to listen politely to those of us who disagree with him. His voice may then become a tad more credible.