Silly balloons

You report (26 January that 
children in St Peter’s Square in Rome released balloons as a symbol of peace.

One wonders where the children, and the Pope, imagine these balloons will end up. Do they think they’ll go to heaven?

Unfortunately, they’ll end up on land or water as pollutants and a nuisance and a menace to the “birds and other creatures of the wild” which St Francis of 
Assisi, whose name the Pope adopted, loved.

Such well-intentioned releases occur all over the world without the organisers realising the 
environmental damage they are causing. Shame on the Vatican for allowing it.

Steuart Campbell

Dovecot Loan

Edinburgh