Sir, – Hats off high to Joe Humphreys for his customary elixir of candour and cogency ("How the left can rise again", Opinion & Analysis, July 18th).
Perhaps the most challenging element lies in his exhortation to “build bridges with people of faith”.
Sadly, for a myriad of reasons, some valid and many not, there is a tendency to reject and demonise most of what emanates from a religious perspective.
Rather than distil the social conscience of what many religions espouse, so much is discarded as damaged goods when it could well be recycled to underpin comprehensive humane decencies and wide-ranging moral ethical templates of which to be proud.
Without necessarily signing on the full religious dotted line, one and all can aspire to key tenets and themes of empathetic social communality.
As your columnist writes: “In the past century, some of the most progressive causes – promoting civil rights, international solidarity, environmental responsibility and nuclear disarmament – have been led, or heavily influenced, by a people of religious background”.
How patently true. Strange then that we would rush to throw the precious baby out with the sullied bathwater. – Yours, etc,
JIM COSGROVE,
Lismore,
Co Waterford.