Madam, - I am sure that many readers are following the correspondence on conscience and the Catholic Church with great interest. But the phrase that comes to mind is: "Have you no homes to go to?"
Why can the Church not set up a forum where this discussion, and other more up-to-date ones, could unfold in freedom and charity? Tit-for-tat exchanges in the press and on the internet are a sadly inadequate substitute for the sort of mature conversation that should be going on within the church.
Have we not yet understood that fear of open discussion, lack of transparency, and taboos of all sorts are devitalising the Church by leaving the majority of its members out of the loop and giving a free ride only to those who loudly profess an "orthodoxy" that is often immature because it is unexamined?
In the meantime, we must thank The Irish Times for giving a voice to the voiceless. - Yours, etc,
(Rev) JOSEPH S O'LEARY,
Sophia University,
Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo,
Japan.