Dear Editor, The claim by Minister Simon Coveney that every child does not have the right to a mother and father shows how far down the road to moral anarchy we have travelled. Citing the huge number of single parents (without alluding to the huge social and financial bill), he says it would be impossible…

Dear Editor, I thought your front page picture of a young provocatively dressed Nigerian woman at a carnival in the April 9 edition of The Irish Catholic was inappropriate for a Catholic newspaper. What sort of a message does an image like that send out to the young and the not so young? Yours etc.,…

Dear Editor, I was pleased to read the news that a new support group has been set up to help the children of priests (IC 09/04/2015 ‘Free counselling ‘vital’ for children of priests – expert’). Although it is impossible to know how many people are actually in this situation, I think it is more prevalent…

Dear Editor, It is good that despite the short time agreed by our Government and major political parties for debating and understanding the important marriage referendum, that the debate is largely free of bitterness and ill-tempered rhetoric. That being the case, the initial lack of clarity by the referendum commission in it’s opening statement, the…

Dear Editor, I disagree with David Quinn’s contention in your April 9 edition that the stakes in the coming marriage referendum could hardly be higher. I do not believe that it marks a “militant” development in social liberalism if we are expected to move beyond “mere tolerance” of one another’s lifestyle choices. I, as a…

Dear Editor, I believe the marriage referendum is misleading in title and wording. I have the greatest respect for all human beings, regardless of class, creed, clan, orientation or position in life. This does not mean, however, they are all equal in personality, colour, orientation or status in position held. The President of Ireland has…

Dear Editor, I very much appreciated Mary Kenny’s short discussion of the religious (and in many respects specifically Catholic) dimensions to the 1916 Easter Rising (IC 09/04/2015), and I certainly think she is ‘on the money’ when she states that these dimensions need to be part of the informed public discussion of the significance of…

Dear Editor, I agree totally with Terry Healy (IC Letters 26/03/2015) about the lack of leadership from the bishops. When Bishop Kevin Doran tried to explain the teachings of the Church, he was made to apologise – by whom I wonder? Yours etc., Helen Gately, Athlone, Co. Westmeath.  

Dear Editor, It beggars belief that schools used as polling stations are having to foot the bill if a voter falls or injures themselves on election days. So many Catholic schools are already feeling the pinch after continuous Government cuts and now I read (IC 09/04/2015) the ones that are being used as polling stations…

Dear Editor, The ideal of the Christian family is embedded in the Irish Constitution and provides a template or framework for the family. Not all families are ideal, not all families are Christian, but Irish laws within the Constitution are capable of accommodating people of different belief systems. The forthcoming referendum on same-sex marriage will…