Irish Catholic bishops have decreed that several much loved passages from the New Testament epistles are no longer to be read aloud as part of the liturgy of the Catholic Church. Capitulation to the shrill demands of the feminist movement has unnerved them.
Is the inspired word of God to be compromised by the demands of political correctness? Are those passages of the Bible which reflect a different view - the true Judeo-Christian view - of the equality of the sexes to be excised from popular liturgy because of a passing spasm of embarrassment? Just contemplate how our civilisation would be impoverished if the following extracts from the Bible were to be removed.
The Lord said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites: `A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period . . . Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.' " (Leviticus 12: 2-5)
When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean . . . Whoever touches anything she sits on must wash his clothes and bathe with water, and he will be unclean till evening. Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, he will be unclean till evening. If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days. (Leviticus 15: 19-24)
Chapter 5 of the book of Numbers gives counsel on the correct procedure for dealing with the suspicion of a jealous husband who thinks his wife may have been unfaithful. It reads:
The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. Then he shall take some holy water in an earthen jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall dishevel her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, "If no other man has slept with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have defiled yourself by sleeping with a man other than your husband" - here the priest is to put the woman under this curse of the oath - "may the Lord cause your people to curse and denounce you when he causes your thigh to waste away and your abdomen to swell. May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells and your thigh wastes away."
Then the woman is to say, "Amen. So be it." The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. He shall have the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water will enter her and cause bitter suffering. The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it be- fore the Lord and bring it to the altar.
The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. If she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, then when she is made to drink the water that brings a curse, it will go into her and cause bitter suffering; her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop and the woman shall become an execration among her people. If, however, the woman has not defiled herself and is free from impurity, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children". (Numbers 5: 1828)
We have all been inspired to goodness by the story of the destruction of the city of Sodom and Gomorrah but perhaps some of us may have missed the prelude to that.
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."
But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof." (Genesis 19: 1-8)
Hugh O'Flaherty contacted me following last week's column to clarify (a) that at no time did he ask the registrar of the Dublin Criminal Court, Michael Quinlan, to list the Sheedy case, and (b) that he had checked the tape of his radio interview with Today FM and, contrary to what I had written last week, he did not say in that interview that he had asked Michael Quinlan to list the case.