A chara, - Point at the moon, and your dog will look at your fingers, not at the moon.
Those who took part in the concelebrated Easter Mass in Drogheda were pointing something out to us. The real issue is the awful scandal of divided Christianity. However inappropriate the gesture, we must not make the mistake of looking only at the gesture, thereby missing the reality.
To use another analogy, the events in Dublin at Easter 1916 could be seen as a scream of frustration at the failures of the powers that be. Easter 2006 in Drogheda seems to me a similar act, carried out in frustration at the perceived lack of urgency in dealing with the awful scandal of divided Christianity. May it shake us, and especially our church leaders, into a new realisation of what we are about.
Christian unity has to be among the very top priorities of all Christian communions. If we let the urgent prevent us from responding to the important, we are contributing to the decline of the church(es).
Many of our congregations next Sunday will hear how Peter responded to the fact that the Holy Spirit had clearly been given (horror of horrors) to Cornelius and other pagans (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 10). He said: "How can anyone refuse the water of Baptism to these people, now that they have received the Holy Spirit just as much as we have?" In Chapter 11, we read of his being called to account for it. - Yours, etc,
PÁDRAIG McCARTHY, The Presbytery, Arklow, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - So Christopher McCamley is looking forward to the three Augustinian priests receiving their punishment (May 18th). What a wonderful, Christian sentiment.
Thank God I'm an atheist. - Yours, etc,
MARTIN LOUGHNAN, Skerries, Co Dublin.
Madam, - What fine entertainment! Your Letters page has seldom seen such hyperbole. References to Torquemada, coerced apologies, brow-beating and forced recanting abound.
Even I, a relatively unschooled Catholic, knew that what Fr O'Donovan and his fellow priests had done was contrary to church teachings. They weren't brow-beaten: on the contrary, Archbishop Brady's response was measured, restrained, and correct.
Even after these errors have been explained, some of your readers persist in pursuing their own brand of Protestantism, where they reject the church's teaching and try to present their own brand of truth. And yet none of them has managed to refute the Church's position.
The Mass can only be celebrated by a validly ordained priest. If a member of the Anglican Communion can do it, what's to stop any Tom, Dick or Harry from doing it? - Yours, etc,
LEO TALBOT, Griffeen Glen Park, Lucan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - The leopard does not change his spots. The church magisterium has extracted abject apologies from three faithful Augustinian priests. The joint response of the two Armagh archbishops is disconnected from a developing reality: many Church of Ireland ministers operate an "open table" communion practice. Increasingly, Catholic priests offer Communion to non-Catholics who attend Mass. - Yours, etc,
DENIS CAHALANE, Elm Park, Blackrock, Co Louth.