I am absolutely fuming! I read in disbelief the response to criticism of the Pope’s visit, by Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil rights.

How dare he say “no-one who ever followed the Catholic Church on sexuality ever got Aids voluntarily”?

I do not know what type of education he had, but this statement would be rejected by any right-thinking church. Is he saying that all those who have rejected the Church and its teachings, caught the disease deliberately?

Does he know that it is possible for heterosexuals to catch this disease? Does he understand that in practising safe sex, condoms can break? Does he realise that sexually transmitted diseases could be transferred by transplant and then passed onto loved ones?

They can even be transmitted in poorer countries by blood transfusion.

His reference to Catholic schools is wrong too. I went to a Catholic school and even studied for the priesthood for nearly six years. I had education beaten into me as a child. I was beaten by nuns, priests and Catholic lay-teachers. This was a common occurrence and it was ignored by the Church and parents.

“The lowering of standards during the sexual revolution,” was another statement of bigotry that cannot be tolerated. How can he make rash statements like this when the Catholic Church hides paedophiles?

In 2001, while he was still a Cardinal, Benedict issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church’s interests ahead of child safety.

It has been reported that in 2005 Cardinal Ratzinger sent out an updated version of the notorious 1962 Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis – Latin for The Crime of Solicitation – which laid down the Vatican’s strict instructions on covering up sexual scandal.

The Cardinal reinforced the strict cover-up policy by introducing a new principle: that the Vatican must have what it calls exclusive competence. In other words, he commanded that all child abuse allegations should be dealt with directly by Rome.

How can the Church preach to us sinners, when it hides its own perversions?

People sometimes ask me why I left the Church, it is because of people like Mr Donohue, who work on blind faith.

John Monaghan, Cotman Close, Abingdon