Courtney McGrailDear Editor, The (pro-life) Eighth Amendment has received much adverse publicity in recent times from politicians and the media. Is this based on a fair or biased view of the common good? We are all familiar with the 'Disappeared' – those 18 individuals executed by mainly Republican paramilitaries and buried in secret locations. Since abortion…
Month: January 2015
Consult laity on priestless Communion services
Dear Editor, I am deeply disappointed at the approach of Frs Whelan and Mullaney to the perceived problem of priestless communion services (‘Limit priestless Communion services, bishops are urged’ IC 11/12/2014). It is so Vatican I – legalistic and top down, with little or no regard for the people most affected: daily communicants. Would it…
Let people have weekday Masses
Dear Editor, I am disappointed with Fr Whelan's attitude on Communion services (‘Limit priestless Communion services, bishops are urged’ IC 11/12/14). Priests are struggling to offer weekday Masses for the few who want them, why not let lay people get involved if they are interested. Yours etc., Patricia McKenna, Navan, Co Meath.
A voice in the wilderness on abortion
Dear Editor, I was saddened to hear that Baroness Nuala O'Loan felt compelled to resign from the Medical Ethics Committee over its support for an extension of the British abortion law to Northern Ireland (IC 18/12/2014). What a loss to this important committee to lose a person of integrity, who appears to have been prepared…
Vatican rejects appeal from laicised priest-abuser
Michael KellyThe decision was taken after a long period of deliberation on all the evidence
A mission to change
Priest-hero of the Biafran war has vivid memories writes Louise McCarthy
St Joseph missing from prayers
Dear Editor, Without doubt the two most powerful prayers of the Catholic faith are the Angelus and the Rosary. Both are of very long standing and recited all around the world, so what could possibly be missing from them? The exact same thing that had been missing from the Eucharistic prayers of the Mass, i.e.…
Stereotypical image of the family
Dear Editor, The Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference must be congratulated on their excellent pastoral statement on the ‘Meaning of Marriage’. However, it is a pity the illustrations used were of the stereotyped family so beloved of the advertising industry: a handsome guy with a beautiful wife, but not more than two children, preferably one boy…
Naivety around the occult
Dear Editor, In the autumn 1944, the Western allies had the deluded idea that the Wehrmacht was beaten and that it was only a force of old men and children. What shocked them with their defeat at Arnhem in September 1944, and the Ardennes attack two months later, was the transformation of a supposedly defeated enemy into…
Archbishop Michael Neary laid out a plan for the future
Dear Editor, It is a pity that your initial coverage (IC 13/11/2014) of Archbishop Michael Neary’s homily to the Association of Papal Knights did not make it past the first half of the sermon, else Deirdre Uí Ghoibín (Letters, IC 04/12/2014) might have been saved from her uncharitable assessment. The archbishop’s homily was remarkable for…