Dear Editor, As stated in the Editor’s Comment on 29/01/2015, I agree that the current large majority in support of same-sex marriage may not hold to the referendum day. I think an explanation for this may lie in the fact that many of us, including practicing Catholics are moved emotionally by the simple argument that…

Dear Editor, The Government has given us the wording for the same-sex marriage referendum. To my mind this wording is very bland. Subliminally it suggests that the electorate should vote for equality among all Irish people regardless of sexual orientation. This is not a simple matter. The insights of sociology and history cannot be discounted. The…

Dear Editor, I watched with interest the interview by Gay Byrne with Stephen Fry on the RTÉ series The Meaning of Life. Whatever we think, what he shared in the interview makes it difficult for us to ignore the points he raised. Fry reserves his harshest comments about God in relation to suffering. Why should…

Dear Editor, Kindly permit me a few lines in relation to a short article in last week’s edition entitled ‘Surprise at decision not to ‘regularise’ Kilfenora status’ (IC 05/02/2015). The article was based on a tweet of mine in response to the announcement from the Vatican that the dioceses of Cashel and Emly were to…

Dear Editor, Fr Oliver Skelly says (IC Letters 29/01/2015): “It has been brought to my attention that in certain priest-less parishes in Germany and Switzerland, when a priest has turned up to celebrate Mass, he has been told ‘No, thank you Father, we have our Communion service’.” Did he ask his informant whether the priest…

Dear Editor, David Quinn writes apropos of Wolf Hall and St Thomas More that “a historian and a novelist can use history much like putty” (IC 29/01/2015). He is wrong to conflate these two very different categories of author. Novelists are entitled to some licence in fashioning the events depicted in their work.  They are…

Dear Editor, In Mary Kenny’s article ‘Greece dispensed with traditional blessing’ (IC 29/01/2015), she says “it may be noted that some of the most prosperous and stable regimes in Europe still begin their parliamentary day with prayers”. I have to say I do admire Greece’s new government and, yes, it is a pity that they…

Dear Editor, Elaine Ryan’s misgivings (IC, Life’s Little Things 29/01/2015) about trusting children with ‘other’ people are understandable, but prompt me to remember words of Mother Teresa: “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” Yours etc., Declan Rankin, Donnycarney, Dublin 9.  

Dear Editor, In answer to Fr Oliver Skelly’s letter, “Confusion between Mass and Communion” (IC 29/01/2015), I remember my first ‘experience’ of a Communion service in a hospital chapel where I had entered to attend Mass. The Communion service consisted of the Liturgy of the Word – then the Our Father was recited and Communion…

Dear Editor, Pope Francis gave an interview on an airplane again and that means one thing: several media outlets waiting in the wings, like piranha in a tank, for morsels of ambiguity or concession on moral teaching, usually relating to sexual morality, to spin into sensational headlines. The holy father gave a vigorous defence of Humanae Vitae,…