Madam, - Mary Stewart (December 29th) attacks two Catholic organisations on the grounds that they are "minuscule" and assumes (her own word) that the views of these groups are heard in Ireland only because they are in tune with the "liberal media". She goes on to speak of "marches for abortion", something which does not exist.
As Barack Obama has said, nobody is in favour of abortion - though I myself have participated in many marches asserting that the moral right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy lies solely with women affected by this choice, not with legislators.
Mrs Stewart has done what many people in our country do: she has avoided the real issues and instead launched rhetorical attacks on a vaguely defined enemy. I can empathise with this approach, as I am tempted to use it here myself; it is part of our culture. What stops me from doing things this way is another thing Mrs Stewart and I have in common: we both want our ethical position to be represented in your newspaper, in keeping with your commitment to open and clear debate.
So I request that Mrs Stewart or others who share her views answer these questions:
1. Do you acknowledge that it is true that the Bishop of Cloyne knowingly withheld information on clerical child abuse from the Garda, and if so, do you agree that his only appropriate course of action is to resign?
2. Do you agree that the difficult and traumatic decision of having an abortion should be in the hands of the women faced with this decision, not in the hands of the State?
These questions, in particular the latter one, have divided our society to the point where we cannot even talk clearly about public moral questions without resort to vitriol and mud-slinging. How long can we avoid having that difficult conversation, one which might at least result in a respectful acknowledgement of our differences? - Yours, etc,
Madam, - Your edition of December 29th reports that an Augustinian priest, Fr Michael Mernagh, is undertaking a nine-day "walk of atonement" from Cobh to Dublin's Pro-Cathedral for all who have suffered clerical child sex abuse.
Fr Mernagh says the Bishop of Cloyne, Most Rev John Magee, has given his blessing to the venture.
One wonders why Fr Mernagh needed to have the bishop's blessing for his walk. Why not just do it? Are we to take it that he would not have done it if the bishop had not given his blessing? Perhaps if clergy were less deferential to bishops, the church might not be in the mess that it is in. Surely it is Bishop Magee who should be doing this "walk of atonement", rather than Fr Mernagh. - Yours, etc,
Madam, - Fr Michael Mernagh is to be congratulated for the very public position he has taken against the sexual abuse of children by clerics in the Roman Catholic Church and the part bishops and other ecclesiastical officials have played in this scandal in Ireland and around the world.
He is taking a public position that few priests have taken in the United States in confronting their own bishops. If I could afford the air fare to Dublin I would be honoured to join Fr Mernagh in his march to the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin.
Godspeed! - Yours, etc,