Sir, - On July 14th, 1998, at 4.15 in the afternoon, I felt a sudden stab of shame deep in my soul - over being Protestant. That was when I first heard a public radio broadcast announcing the funeral of three Catholic children slain by arson.
I am an American. My father was a Protestant minister, a Baptist. I made the voluntary choice to accept Christ into my heart before I was 12 years old. Six years ago, at age 40, I formally joined the Episcopal Church. Since then, I have felt very proud of my religious heritage, especially the kinship I gained with my spiritual sisters and brothers in the British Isles. Until today.
I am only an American. I cannot tell you what you should do, or how you should feel. You can ignore me, or you can even tell me to mind my own business. My ancestors came from Ireland, though, so neither can you tell me - an American son of Ireland - how I should act or feel. But I can tell you. The blood that sings in me, that gives me a passionate love of the poetry of Yeats, and sometimes even inspires poetry of my own, is sunk deep in sorrow right now. -Yours, etc., J. Paul Shirley,
Glazner Street,
Easley,
South Carolina,
USA.