Sir, - Your report (October 2nd) on the death of the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Storero, makes me wonder if The Irish Times has lost its basic sense of respect for the dead.
To include, in an article breaking the news of the Archbishop's death, a reference to the Papal Nunciature being sued in connection with an abuse allegation, to my mind crossed the line of decency into the nether regions of red-top journalism. It is the office of the nuncio that is involved, rather than the person himself. Archbishop Storero was nuncio in Venezuela at the time of the alleged incidents connected with the legal hearing. Furthermore, the case in question is not due for hearing until much later in the year, so it is not a topical issue now.
The man was a guest in our country, the official representative of the Holy See, a sovereign state. I wonder if The Irish Times would have written thus in a report on the death of any other member of the Diplomatic Corps. Somehow I think not.
In any case, surely the old saying is still valid: "You don't rubbish a man on the day he dies" - not even by innuendo, I might add. A wiser head would have cut the last two paragraphs of your report. I smell a whiff of Murdoch in D'Olier Street. - Yours, etc.,
Fr Dermod McCarthy, Brackenbush Road, Killiney, Co Dublin.