The Bermuda Hospitals Board yesterday apologised after an inflammatory anti-Catholic booklet was found in the entrance of the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

The booklet, called "The Death Cookie", claimed the Vatican would be damned by God and alleged the Catholic Church's doctrine was that any members who did not believe the Communion wafer was transformed into the body of Christ during Mass should be killed.

The Royal Gazette reported yesterday that the comic strip booklet, printed by the evangelical Protestant group Chick Publications in California, was found in the hospital entrance by an alarmed member of the public ten days ago.

The hospital's administrative quality manager, Aldwin Savery, yesterday apologised on behalf of Bermuda Hospitals Board to anyone who was offended by the booklet, which portrayed Catholic priests as demonic figures.

He said the hospital had a policy of removing any religious literature in case it upset any denomination.

The hospital checked the lobbies and notice boards every day but Mr. Savery said this may need to be done more regularly to ensure offensive material such as "The Death Cookie" is not left lying around.

Mr. Savery told The Royal Gazette yesterday: "I was very alarmed by the article and concerned by it.

"I would like to apologise on behalf of Bermuda Hospitals Board to anyone who was upset by it.

"We have a general rule that all books that come to the hospital usually go through the front desk.

"The auxiliary volunteers usually sort out what we allow and as a general rule we don't allow any religious material in any part of the hospital because we try not to offend any denomination.

"But people walk around and leave stuff on the tables in the lobby and when we see them we remove them, but obviously we didn't see this.

"We check on a daily basis, but we don't check on an hourly basis and perhaps we need to improve the safety net to check more regularly.

"We do have a system that everything goes through the volunteers and religious material is removed, but I would like to apologise for this instance."

The Bishop of Bermuda, the Most Rev. Robert Kurtz, said in yesterday's Royal Gazette that this type of anti-Catholic literatures surfaces periodically on the Island, but he did not believe there was any general anti-Catholic bigotry here.