Madam, - I agree with Richard Morton (June 2nd). The silence of nearly all the churches with respect to the morality of the referendum on citizenship has been deafening, for the Government's proposal raises the Christian issue of respect for the stranger.
Perhaps the churches should take inspiration on this issue from Pope John XXIII, who said in his encyclical Pacem in Terris that "when there are just reasons in favour of it" every human being "must be permitted to emigrate to other countries and take up residence there". No one is debarred from "membership of the human family, or from citizenship of that universal society, the common, worldwide fellowship of men".
In the same encyclical Pope John suggested that economic migration was a basic human right, saying that "among man's personal rights we must include his right to enter a country in which he hopes to be able to provide more fittingly for himself and his dependants". - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL BYRNE, Templemore, Co Tipperary.