Sir, - Nuala O'Faolain wrote (Magazine, March 10th) of "the silent masses" of lay Catholic people who are neither consulted nor heard. I add that many of these are steadfast, concerned Catholic women with considerable talent, some with training in theology, Bible studies etc. For the majority of women it is almost impossible to find a spiritual director or a priest in authority who will be receptive to their often inspired suggestions and/or their need for help.
In so saying, I do not even ask for women priests but for pastors who will listen humbly. If we cannot have women priests, surely we can have some form of diaconate for women who will do the pastoral work the men are unable to reach to.
There is, at present, no framework in which the laity - other than a few "yes" people - can set out their ideas, express their hopes and grievances and be listened to with respect and seriousness. It is easy, then, to lose interest. People today are educated to think, respond and dialogue.
Numbers of people in the forty-something age group and younger, parents of young families are often ignorant of the basics of what their religion teaches, and, understandably, find irrelevant something they do not understand. What are the schools' Religious Education programmes doing? As Breda O'Brien writes (Opinion, same issue): "if there is no absolute truth, only your truth and my truth, all moral disputes boil down to who is going to impose their truth on whom?"
How can any pastor or teacher get a group interested in truth without presenting it with conviction, colour, imagination, sensitive use of modern communication methods and readiness to listen? Who is going to handle modern evangelisation if we do not use the giftedness of the laity, women and men? - Yours, etc.,
Angela MacNamara, Lower Kilmacud Road, Dublin 14.