Sir, – You write: "The Catholic Church must choose. It is celibacy or a future" (Editorial, August 25th).
There are currently sufficient priests available for practising and believing Catholics. If there appears to be a problem, ie a shortage of priests, it is because the number of priests generally reflects the number of believers – a decline in the number of believers inevitably leads to a reduction in the number of priests and an increase in the number of believers leads to an increase in the number of priests. Yes, there has been a falling away or weakening of Catholic belief and practice (and not only in the Catholic Church) in Ireland in recent years, and generally in the prosperous and secular-oriented western world, and hence a reduction in the numbers of men and women entering holy orders in Ireland and elsewhere. However, celibacy is not the issue; it is a red herring and your dismissal of the last 1,000 years of Catholic celibacy is illogical and, with respect, demonstrates a certain bias. Using the secular criteria of numbers, the (Latin) Catholic Church, with its celibate clergy, is the most successful of the Christian churches; it vastly surpasses in number, more than a billion adherents and growing, all other Christian churches; so why dump celibacy which discipline, in the Latin part of the Catholic Church, has not stopped it from achieving this impressive figure? – Yours, etc,
MICHEAL O’CATHAIL,
Dún Laoghaire,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Last year you published the story of Fr Philip Gay, parish priest at St Thomas More parish, Coventry, who left the priesthood to marry a parishioner ("Priest who left ministry to marry replaced by married priest", December 22nd). He was replaced as parish priest by Fr Stephen Day, a former Anglican, who was married with three children.
What am I missing? – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL NELSON,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.