JOHN O'SHEA,
Madam, - As we prepare to celebrate the birth of a baby boy who was to grow into a prophet with the simple message that love can change the world, it is as good a time as ever to ponder on how far from that path we have strayed.
That prophet had to be born in a stable because there was no room at the inn for his poverty-stricken parents. How little we have learned in two millennia. Today a third of the world's population is in the same situation as that humble family in Bethlehem, excluded from the comforts and resources of the world because of their poverty.
A lesson we have learned in the past 2,000 years is that technology and wealth cannot change the world without the will to do so by the privileged few who control them.
I don't want a visit from Santa Claus this year. I'd prefer to see someone emerge on the world stage who is brave enough to take up the message of that poor boy from Nazareth. Someone - s/he doesn't have to be another Messiah - who could become a spokesperson for the impoverished and the vulnerable.
The icing on the Christmas cake would be if that person were Irish. - Yours, etc.,
JOHN O'SHEA, GOAL, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.