Madam, - With reference to Dr Rik Van Nieuwenhove's splendid article on children (Rite and Reason, December 11th) and also to whatever social and legal engineering is now afoot, surely those who run this State must proclaim loud and clear that all children for a long part of their lives need a father and mother committed to one another in marriage.
That is such a basic and elementary principle of human nature and social cohesion that it should be ring-fenced from invasion by all those social and legal planners whose objectives are not children's but adult "rights" and the reduction of marriage to a mere legal fiction. - Yours, etc,
Fr TOM KELLEHER, Courceys, Kinsale, Co Cork.