Vatican on Pinochet

It was with a strange feeling I read that the foreign minister of the Vatican announced that it was of the opinion that former Chilean dictator Pinochet should be allowed to go home from England, based on humanitarian reasons.

This gentleman is typically applying distasteful double- standards, and if was announcing a "decision" of the infallible pope, I would think that God would disagree since Pinochet slaughtered thousands of Chileans (including foreigners, as Spain claims that scores of its citizens were among those murdered).

And where was the Vatican's foreign minister, or in this case the pope, during the active years of Pinochet? Did the Roman Catholic Church at least excommunicate Pinochet and his slaughtering troops (they must have been also mostly Catholic?).

This is now at least the second time after Hitler that the Vatican has put itself in a very opportunistic, dubious, inconsistent and unethical position; it comes of course because it clings also to its own dual-function doctrine, involving itself in worldly political (and money making banco ambrosiano ...) matters instead of keeping itself busy with religious and church affairs.

If we include the recent affair of Bosnia-Herzegovina in its track record, it is the third time.

So where is the credibility of the foreign minister, the pope and the Vatican state i.e. the Roman Catholic Church?

Was one Martin Luther not sufficient to force reality upon the Catholic church?

Y. SANTO

Jakarta