Bill Nemitz got it right and the Editorial Board of The Press Herald got it wrong in their respective opinions of Bishop Richard Malone and the Catholic Diocese of Portland’s revoking funding for the homeless organization, Preble Street, and the Homeless Voices for Justice program.

The editorial notes that the mission of the church is “spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (“Diocese well within rights to pull funding,” March 26). As Nemitz observes, Jesus Christ never applied a litmus test to those he helped (“Samaritan didn’t need preconditions,” March 26).

It’s ironic to see the Editorial Board applying a secular idea, freedom of speech, in defense of the Catholic Church, which so vehemently fights secularism. But then again, picking and choosing what’s convenient to defend an indefensible position isn’t new.

The Editorial Board and the Catholic Church seem to share the same point of view, as well, about the moral limits to which the church is bound.

Nemitz contacted Sue Bernard, diocesan spokeswoman, and he paraphrased her response as: “The (Good Samaritan) parable is about individual people giving unconditionally to help other individual people — not organizations giving to other organizations that in turn help individual people.”

Huh? Is the Catholic Church really suggesting it is free to pick apart the Bible because it is an “organization”?

I don’t recognize this as any Christian teaching I received.