Dear Editor, I would like to thank Mary Kenny for her excellent article of October 20, 2016, ‘Is Katherine Zappone fit for her government job?’ As a grandparent who minds our grandchildren weekly, I so appreciate her sensitivity. The sheer arrogance of Minister Zappone is startling. Her refusal to give young mothers the choice of…

Dear Editor, In her opinion piece of October 20, Mary Kenny asks whether Katherine Zappone is fit for the job. While it is legitimate to question her competency for the office, I think in fairness one should question the office itself as fulfilled by her and her predecessors. After all, the education of children is…

Dear Editor, I attended your splendid Conference on the subject of Faith-based Schools in a pluralist society and was struck by the high calibre of many of the contributions, especially those of Francis Campbell and Baroness Nuala O’Loan. However, I was also impressed by the letter of Julie Connolly (‘A tendency towards pantheism’ IC 20/10/2016)…

Dear Editor, It was interesting to see the Pope in Sweden this week to mark 499 years since an Augustinian monk from a small town in Germany nailed a set of heretical theses to the town bulletin board, in hope of starting a conversation about his new ideas. People with less education and training than…

Dear Editor, The Ashers Bakery case in Northern Ireland has shown a depressing number of self-proclaimed liberals in a chilling and most revealing light. As you say in your editor’s comment of October 27, the North’s equality legislation was fashioned after decades of discrimination against the minority Catholic community, and it was never intended to…

Dear Editor, I was reassured to read that both Archbishop Eamon Martin and Teresa Devlin, head of the Church’s child protection board, are adamant that abusive priests should remain barred from ministry (‘Offenders must not return to ministry – safeguarding head’ IC 20/20/2016). Mrs Devlin’s comments were especially interesting given Mick Peelo’s claims elsewhere in…

Dear Editor, While Mick Peelo is to be thanked for his belated recognition and publicising of the fact that the vast majority of Ireland’s abusers and would-be abusers are not clergy, I cannot but wonder about  the wisdom of how he talks about how this might be handled (‘Time to end zero tolerance?’ IC 20/10/2016).…

Dear Editor, In her article of October 6, ‘My alternative suggestions for saving the planet’, Mary Kenny praises fur coats, though creatures suffer misery for these coats. Pope Francis says “nowadays we must forcefully reject the notion that our being created in God’s image… justifies absolute domination over other creatures” (Laudato Si’ 67).  Male chicks…

Dear Editor, The extracts from Fr Columbus Murphy’s personal account of the 1916 Rising (‘Mercy amongst the mayhem’, IC 20/10/2016) were absolutely enthralling, and a fine counterpart to the similar piece drawn from his fellow Capuchin Fr Aloysius Travers’ somewhat later account that you published last year in your 1916 special. At this point, as…

Dear Editor, It amazes me that RTÉ has become a propaganda organ for the pro-choice lobby. For instance, on The Late Late Show (October 15, 2016), we had a Government minister telling the nation that he is in favour of abortion and euthanasia. I hope that nobody is fooled by this type of constant ‘liberal’…