Dear Editor, Serious questions now arise for the National Management Council of the Society of St Vincent de Paul following the revelation (IC 04/09/2014) that they appropriated substantial funds to an organisation (Amach! LGBT Galway) whose ethos furthers activities which are contrary to Catholic Church moral teaching. So far, the response from the SVP smacks…

Dear Editor, The legacy of the late Dr Ian Paisley has been the subject of much comment. A summing-up of the legacy from the Catholic point of view is that for 40 years, Dr Paisley assisted in stopping Catholics getting civil rights. Of course, he did so as the popular voice of deep feelings on…

Dear Editor, David Quinn’s article of August 28, “We won’t reach young people without being evangelical”, made important points about the importance of prioritising youth ministry. As a young person back in the 1980s, it was the work of young and not so young dynamic priests that influenced me most in terms of living the…

Dear Editor, I am appalled and deeply saddened by your headline in last week’s paper (04/09/2014) “Bishop demands answers from SVP on gay donation”. I feel we have stepped back into the 1950s when we had the Magdalene laundries, and the shame and disgrace heaped on the heads of the girls and families who found…

Dear Editor, In The Irish Catholic on 28/8/14, Archbishop Eamon Martin said “on matters relating to marriage and family, poverty and injustice etc, Irish Catholics must not be afraid to speak out with conviction in the public square”. I wish to say that surely Church teaching on marriage and family life includes parents loving and…

Dear Editor, I am delighted to see that the St Vincent de Paul Conference in Galway is reaching out to gay people. The charity is based on helping the most vulnerable in our society. Can any Christian person seriously argue that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community are not vulnerable, particularly given…

Dear Editor, I read with shock – but hardly surprise – your front page article ‘Bishop demands answers from SVP on gay donation’ (IC 04/09/2014). It is further evidence of a pattern in Ireland that has seen Catholic organisations drift far away from Church teaching. No-one can object to the Society of St Vincent de…

Dear Editor, Fair play to the women of the Killaloe diocese who are standing up in opposition to the permanent diaconate. (Diaconate sparks discrimination row in Killaloe’, IC 4/9/2014). The International Theological Commission in Rome under the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger left the question of female deacons open, yet the Church in Ireland – having ignored…

Dear Editor, It’s good to see Bishop Martin Drennan starting to stand up for the Catholic faith. Maybe this will catch on among members of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland. A story was told a few years ago that a chill came in to a meeting of the bishops’ conference, but had to leave because…

Dear Editor, The recent denial by Irish doctors of a suicidal woman’s request for abortion has been greeted in some quarters by indignation, as if the decision by doctors to deliver the baby alive was an affront to her mother’s rights. But I strongly suspect that it is the frustration of the woman’s request for…