Gerald O’Collins (Letters, 21 June) seems to strive to make the point that had John Paul I survived, his papacy may have overturned or formalised the dissent to Humanae Vitae based on the Book of Prayer for the dioceses of Triveneto in 1977 while he was patriarch of Venice. Well, that may be true, but the same Albino Luciani before his election at the conclave was unnecessarily vocally supportive of the process which brought about the first so-called “test tube baby” in 1978 in Oldham General Hospital. No doubt now that we know that countless millions of our embryonic brothers and sisters lie frozen or discarded in IVF facilities the world over, the same generous pastoral spirit of the “Smiling Pope” would have been extended to them too, had he survived. Fr O