Weigel on Vatican II

* George Weigel’s column, “Time Proves Religious Basis for Tolerance” (Nov. 19), is a classic example of the blind leading the blind while living in the fantasy that Vatican II was a success. If established churches in Western Europe were dying, Vatican II finished them off.

Since Vatican II, a great informal schism has taken place in Catholicism. Millions of Catholics worldwide have voted with their feet. Sunday Mass attendance in America has dropped from 71% to 24%; in France it’s less than 10%; in Rome, the Pope’s hometown, it’s 8%.

The Catholic hierarchy today is little more than a cadre of zealots drowning in political correctness while pushing a socialist political agenda under the cover of their fuzzy concept of Christian love.

GERARDE F. IMHOFF

Seal Beach

* Weigel makes a pathetic attempt to align the Catholic Church with the cause of church/state separation.

The recent elections in Poland were, in large measure, a backlash against the Catholic Church’s attempt to use force of law to implement its religious teachings. The church’s manipulation of government power in Poland, since the fall of communism, enables us to pierce the veil of deception that Weigel uses to try to shield the true motives of the Catholic hierarchy.

EDWARD TABASH

Beverly Hills