SEAN O'NEILL,
Madam, - The interpretation of Section 65 of the Broadcasting Act 2001 by both RTÉ and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI), which led to the rejection of an advertisement submitted to RTÉ by the Irish Catholic, is disturbing.
Mr John Bruton TD believes that both bodies were "wrong in law" and that they were "engaging in a form of secular puritanism which should have no place in a liberal society" (The Irish Times, December 4th).
Breda O'Brien, in an excellent column (Opinion, December 7th), also believes that the ad does not breach the guidelines on religious broadcasting and certainly not "just because it wanted to report good news".
David Quinn, editor of the Irish Catholic (December 5th), also makes a good case against the rejection of the ad.
Our association, in monitoring RTÉ current affairs programmes over the years, have frequently found a certain anti-Catholic bias when religious matters arise.
At one of our conferences some years ago, Prof Joe Lee said: "I don't want to say that the media are anti-Catholic. But there certainly is in them a streak of anti-Catholicism, and not just anti-clericalism. I will go further; there is a streak of anti-religion in the media." Have things changed? - Yours, etc.,
SEAN O'NEILL, Hon. Secretary, Family and Media Association,
Blackrock, Co Dublin.
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Madam, - Miribile dictu, in two successive issues of your paper impartial articles by Breda O'Brien (December 7th ) and Catherine McCann (December 9th) were like a breath of fresh air in giving an incisive, truthful and factual analysis of the unbalanced and bigoted anti-Catholic attitude of RTÉ and some other media - which include, it must be said, your own newspaper at times.
It is a sad reflection on our modern, secular society's so-called standards that the Irish Catholic advertisement was banned from RTÉ simply because it wished to report, in this season of Advent, the factual good news of how charitable Catholic organisations such as Crosscare, Focus Ireland, and St Vincent de Paul were benefiting the poor and thereby putting Christ back into Christmas.
RTÉ shamefully banned the advertisement, abetted in this travesty of justice by the spurious interpretation of the law by some lawyers and, of course, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.
Is there not something intrinsically evil in this further example of the oxymoron of liberal intolerance, so often displayed in the media where Catholic matters are concerned? However, as one of the many, many practising Catholics in this country (we haven't gone away you know!) perhaps it would be more charitable if I regarded the offending media as simply "misguided" and followed the more Christian response of "praying for those who persecute and calumniate you". For we know that Christ, after all, reserved his anger for hypocrites. - Yours, etc.,
TONY CAULDWELL, Knocknashee, Dublin 14.