Sir, - Fr Duffy has apologised for what he said, and no doubt he will be slower to speak out in future. And with that, all our discourse moves one tiny step further towards blandness and conformity. This man, after all, has taken vows and received a salary all his life for upholding the teachings of his Church. And his Church teaches that to have children outside marriage is a sin - or, in the dainty locution of the Church of England on sodomy, that it "falls short of the ideal".
So Fr Duffy was doing his job, during Sunday Mass which, of all times, is exactly when he is supposed to be doing it. What is unpleasant about this incident is that now no priest can speak to his parishioners in their church in a small town without wondering whether some little nark or prig is lurking there, ready to run to the papers to denounce him for heresy. This compulsory intellectual hygiene is beginning to get nasty. - Yours, etc.,
Michael O'Donovan, Bargy Commons, Murrintown, Co Wexford.