Sir, – The current controversy generated by ex-president Mary McAleese’s comments on her unhappiness at the attitude of “her” church towards homosexual people is being viewed and analysed from the wrong perspective (“McAleese criticises church’s stance on gays”, Front Page, January 8th).
Reasonable and rational people who wish to worship a god may very easily do so without guidance or direction from the Roman Catholic or any other established church.
So rather than expressing displeasure, disappointment or opposition to the teachings and doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, Mrs McAleese and all thinking people who disagree with it should just leave and live and worship in their own way. If enough people do this then the negative and offensive views of that church will quickly become even more irrelevant than they are already, – Yours, etc,
HUGH PIERCE,
Newtown Road,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – I was heartened to read Mary McAleese’s comments on the church’s stance on gays. We have made such strides lately on many fronts to come out of the dark ages.
Mrs McAleese was a great president and her stance on this issue is important and welcome. – Yours, etc,
PAT BURKE WALSH,
Ballymoney,
Co Wexford.
Sir, – Mary McAleese’s criticisms of the Catholic Church’s “attitude” towards gay people are misplaced. The church’s attitude towards gay people is the same as its attitude towards all people: they are children of God, blessed with an inherent dignity beyond all measure, and, if they will it, an eternal destiny abiding in God’s love. That is a remarkably affirmative attitude to have of any person (gay or straight) and one, I suggest, unparalleled by any materialist philosophy or secularist ideology.
Our former president also takes exception to the church’s teaching that gay people are “sinners”. Yet sinning is not the preserve of straight people only, the imperfect human condition is a universal reality. The real focus of debate should instead be on specific church teaching concerning sexual ethics. This teaching, only one limb of an entire corpus of ethics on human affairs, judges the morality of various actions and does not distinguish between the dignity of various persons.
Neither gay nor straight persons are predetermined to act with or against any particular aspect of the church’s moral teaching, including sexual ethics.
Whether the church’s sexual (or any other) ethics are reasonable is a distinct matter from the simple fact that it, almost uniquely, teaches as true the equal and inherent dignity of all human beings. The reasonableness or otherwise of the church’s sexual ethics is an important point of debate. But this debate is ill-served by raising extraneous issues such as the number of Catholic clergy who have a homosexual orientation, majority opinion on the matter, or, lest the debate succumb to the fallacy of naturalism, whether homosexual orientation is a matter of genetic predetermination or predisposition. – Yours, etc,
THOMAS FINEGAN,
Willowbrook Park
Celbridge, Co Kildare.