Dear Editor, This is a great time to be Catholic. We now go to Mass, not blindly because everybody else does, but because we choose to. Anyone who knows GK Chesterton and JRR Tolkien knows we live in the lands of long defeats. We are not supposed to win this side of the grave. Your…

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…

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.

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…

Dear Editor, The hope expressed by Fr Paddy Gleeson (IC Letters 18/12/2014) that the bishops will keep the pastoral care of the faithful, and especially the elderly, in mind in the area of keeping available the reception of Holy Communion in the situation where Mass is no longer available, is timely. The bishops are coming up…

Dear 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…

Dear Editor, Ireland is a wee country, led by a wobbly Government loaded with the domestic and social problems of a post austerity regime. Isn’t it strange to imagine a referendum to change the definition of marriage to permit two people of the same sex to marry one another, should already be gathering momentum among certain…

Dear Editor, I do not contradict Andrew O'Donnell's "Notebook" (IC 01/01/2015), but I do not like, in his first paragraph, that he said that Brian Farrell had "passed", when he meant ‘died’. That word is often used nowadays, with the implication that nobody ever dies, but only passes from one life to another. Of course,…