The European Court of Human Rights is 'Defending Traditions?'

Interior of Greek Catholic Church

Mr. Kenn Winters wrote in earnest to The Catholic Herald to assert that, contrary to what I had written, that the European Court of Human Rights does (on occasion)help defend Catholic traditions.



SIR_-_Mary O'Regan's party political attack on " distorted human rights laws" in the European Union (Comment, January 29) was somewhat ill made, and blurred the distinction between the EU's European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, serving 27 member states, and the non-EU European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, serving all 50 European countries.

Another Catholic paper, The Universe, reported on the same day the latter's recent ruling that Romania's Orthodox Church must return 5,000 churches and schools to the local Greek Catholic Church outlawed after World War II - and which has lost nearly one million members in the meantime.

Miss O' Regan's recalling the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone's counsel that the EU threatened her native Ireland's identity and traditions is in sharp contrast to the wider European Court of Human Rights' defence of Catholic identity and traditions in Romania.

Yours faithfully,
Kenn Winter
Huddersfield