I suspect it’s largely because he knows that Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism and most of Protestantism condemn the practice of homosexuality that columnist Cal Thomas had the cheek to call Episcopal Bishop Katharine Schori a heretic for denying the sinfulness of homosexuality (June 26).

I’d love to ask Thomas whether he’d be willing to go whole hog in exposing other church leaders he considers heretics. Pope Benedict XVI, for example. Being Protestant, of course, Thomas certainly regards the doctrine of the papacy as heretical; but has anyone yet heard him call the pope a heretic? No. And why not? Twouldn’t be politic! Just think of all the Catholics among his readers he’d permanently estrange!

To justify his accusation against Schori, as well as key up his fellow Christians to believe we may well be in the “end times,” Thomas cited 2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine; instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear,” etc.

And just what is sound doctrine after 20 centuries of Christianity’s doctrinal wars and myriad sectarian divisions that have resulted? Depends who you talk to! Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the many strands of Protestantism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc., all claim to know what constitutes sound doctrine, which means that each must necessarily regard the others as heretical, to use Mr. Thomas’s own term against him.

William LaRochelle, Lewiston