Madam, - The Irish Times would like to think of itself as a quality newspaper, but more and more you are permitting your writers to insult people, using utter bilge. I am outraged that that you allowed Newton Emerson to ridicule Cardinal Cahal Daly and dismiss his important new book The Minding of Planet Earth (Opinion, August 26th).
Name-calling is one of the most vicious tools in the arsenal of a bully. Newton Emerson's use of the title "Cardinal Cahal Weakly" is meant to denigrate and hurt. Just ask yourself: if a respected and competent Church of Ireland, Muslim or Methodist leader had written an important book on the relationship between science and religion, on human work, social justice and ecology, would you have allowed a personal attack on him or her to appear in your newspaper?
Please don't give me the ha, ha line - that it was all meant as a joke. Satire has an important place in public life, but it shouldn't be directed at one of the most important religious books published in Ireland this year - unless you consider that religion itself is a bit of a laugh. - Yours, etc.,
Father SEAN McDONAGH, St Columban's College, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co. Meath.