Sir, – Gerry Adams (October 30th) certainly could give embattled bishops valuable lessons in chutzpah. Faced with Fintan O'Toole's unanswerable requisitory, how does Mr Adams respond? "I see from his column that Fintan O'Toole is now an expert on me. This on top of his other accomplishments." This sounds exactly like the one-liners of Archbishop John C McQuaid. For instance, Archbishop McQuaid said of journalists covering Vatican II: "I am dismayed by the facile ignorance of the journalists who are writing about the documents that have cost us years of work, and by the more facile dictation in regard to what we bishops must now do".
Of course it suits Mr Adams very well to come across as a shifty and arrogant media-bashing bishop, since this confirms his establishment status, and throws the memory of IRA crimes still further into the shade. – Yours, etc,
JOSEPH S O’LEARY,
Sophia University,
Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo.