20 JANUARY 1967, Page 14

A Christmas Sermon SIR,—Mr Hollis (Letters, January 13) says that

In- fallibility does not necessitate personal approval of such things as the Inquisition and the Massacre of St Bartholomew. He is right. What Infallibility does necessitate, however, is the belief that an arrogant institution which has through the centuries condoned, approved, blessed and sustained innumerable tor- ments, wars, horrors, hypocrisies, superstitions, murders and miseries, was founded in the first century AD by a man called Jesus. Fortunately the great majority of mankind reject this as being complete nonsense.