The pressures of papal office

Canon Paul Oestreicher ( Letters , 10 September) calls for Pope Benedict to resign, saying: "That there is no precedent for a papal resignation would make it totally remarkable, even saintly." In 1294 Peter the Hermit was elected pope and took office as Celestine V. Five months later, overwhelmed by pressure from one Benedict Caetani, he resigned. Caetani was then elected in his place, and as Boniface VIII he took measures that were regarded by Dante as so thoroughly evil that he consigned him to the eighth circle in the inferno. Although Celestine was canonised in 1313, Dante dumped him too in hell, though only in the vestibule of the futile. I suspect it was Celestine's fate that has ensured that all his successors have died in office. Brian Riley Manchester • If the pope should resign as a gesture of reparation, why not also the chief executives of the many local authorities who ran children's homes where sexual abuse was covered up? The pope's views on sex may challenge modern assumptions, but why is liberal society so afraid of that challenge that it can respond only with personal abuse of the man? Matthew Huntbach London • Julian Glover's piece ( Report , 10 September) was meant to be about religion in Britain. Apart from some comments by a demographer, however, his only sources were the president of the National Secular Society , a member of Brighton's humanist association and an obscure 19th-century atheist. Those of us who have faith were totally ignored. Denis Lenihan London