I am appalled at Rod Bower’s latest attention-seeking demonstration in which he draws an analogy between the treatment of asylum-seekers on Manus and Nauru and life in a Nazi concentration camp (“Outspoken priest raises ire of Jewish groups”, 2/1).
In this self-promotional act he has demonstrated gross ignorance, insensitivity and so cruelly diminished all those who were forced to endure the worst horrors of life and death in those camps.
I suggest Bower immediately organise a visit to Auschwitz and other such camps and gain some insight and factual information, then return and post a sign of apology to the Jewish people.
Rebecca Wright, Potts Point, NSW
Rod Bower is right up there with those who would welcome people who hate us. No other explanation makes sense as to why the worst crime in modern history can be equated to the benign conditions on a Pacific island. But trashing the memory of those who were victims of a real Holocaust is clearly insufficient reason for Bower to miss a grandstanding opportunity to demonstrate his sick hubris.
Terry Davis, Lindfield, NSW
Just as it is inappropriate for bureaucrats or politicians to become publicly involved in religious disputes, the church has no legitimate business putting its oar into matters of state. If Rod Bower wishes to leap from priestly to political duties that is fine, but using his pulpit as a springboard is a cynically opportunistic tactic that serves nobody’s interests but his own.
J. R. Francis, Lauderdale, Tas
Read the letters in The Australian.