Madam, - Rev David Fraser, who from the context of his hysterical letter of May 31st is not a Roman Catholic, begins by asserting, without evidence, that "most ordinary, decent Roman Catholics are appalled at the way in which Fr Iggy O'Donovan and the other two Augustinian priests have been bullied by Rome and conservative Catholic forces over the Easter Eucharist at Drogheda."
I am a Roman Catholic who considers himself "ordinary and decent" and I heartily welcome the apology of the three Augustinian priests for the now infamous Drogheda Mass, and commend their firm resolve not to repeat their error.
Just like a golf club, the Roman Catholic church has certain rules which you have to obey if you wish to remain a member. Belief in transubstantiation is one of them, and is the defining doctrinal difference between Catholics and Protestants. The Augustinian trio made a mistake but then recanted. Well done.
As for Rev Fraser´s extraordinary statement that "morality has changed", he should perhaps expand. Is non-marital sex no longer immoral because more people do it? How about robbery and murder? Are they also no longer immoral for the same reason? Have the Ten Commandments been rewritten? The Roman Catholic church has always ruled that certain behaviours - which include the aforementioned - are intrinsically and seriously wrong. As such they are classed as mortal sins which, without repentance, guarantee a place in hell.
Moreover people in a state of mortal sin have always been barred from receiving Holy Communion because it actually is, and does not merely represent, the body of Jesus Christ.
Rev Fraser´s thinly disguised proselytising for converts from Roman Catholicism is fair game. The world needs more Christian proselytising. But the Roman Catholic Church's enforcement of well-known strictures is entirely defensible, the more so since any of us can turn our backs on the church if we so wish. It has no unwilling practitioners. - Yours, etc,
TONY ALLWRIGHT, Killiney, Co Dublin