Madam, - Congratulations on your very positive Editorial on the Pope's visit to Turkey (December 2nd).
Nevertheless, amid all the happy talk about the impending unity of the Eastern and Western churches, we should not forget one major road block which the ecclesiocratic hair-splitters and spin-doctors will have to navigate : clerical celibacy.
The Orthodox churches sorted this out centuries ago. A man with a vocation to the priesthood can choose celibacy and become a monk, or not choose celibacy and enter the pastoral clergy - where indeed (as in Judaism and maybe Islam), matrimony is regarded as preferable, if not mandatory.
These Orthodox churches are real Churches. They are not (to use the grossly un-Christ-like discourtesy employed by the Vatican) "merely ecclesial communities", as is the case with our reformed brethren in the West.
If, as Patsy McGarry implies, the Western church is about to swallow the camel of the "filioque" clause (absolutely fundamental to the doctrine of the Trinity), why does it strain on the gnat of clerical celibacy? (And is the Irish Conference of Bishops prepared to state categorically that there are not, and never have been, any former Anglican priests ministering in their dioceses while still in a state of matrimony?).
The ordination of women in our "Roman" church is a very complex issue. Whilst one empathises with the personal agony and longing of those women who hear the call from the Holy Spirit, to propose female ordination right now as an immediate solution to the shortage of priests does not help their cause.
The role of women in the Church is altogether a different matter. A recent TV documentary informed us that the Vatican was "sensitive to the position of women in the church". Jesus was not just "sensitive to the position of women in the Church". Again and again, the Gospels show Him allowing women an open recognition which went up to and beyond the limits permitted by society in His times. Allowing for translation and possible anachronicity, the behaviour of the woman from Samaria borders on the insolent. He announced His Resurrection to the women, while the men were whimpering in an upper room.
With the greatest possible ovine respect, our Irish bishops, as a college, are still in that upper room and in clinical denial - notably about the availability of priests in the decades to come. As they hone their homilies for the Christmas season, they might meditate upon the role of Mary and Joseph in the Incarnation and the Nativity - and how Jesus listened to His sisters and did not give a hoot about the "cv" details of His disciples.
If the Bishops are too frail spiritually yet for the "briseadh amach" of a Pentecost, they, and we, might, with our Orthodox brethren, pray in Advent for an epiphany (Divine enlightenment) and a metanoia (change of heart). - Yours, etc,
MAURICE O'CONNELL, Oakpark, Tralee, Co Kerry.