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, Thank you for publishing Fr Brendan Purcell’s reply to Stephen Fry. (IC 05/02/15) I am a practising Catholic. But I often struggle with the questions that Mr Fry so passionately articulated. And many other practising Catholics do too. The questions deserve attempts at answers whether or not they come from atheists, and this…

Dear Editor, Well done on your coverage of the recent installation of Archbishop Kieran O’Reilly as Archbishop of Cashel and Emily. As usual the photographs were excellent except for one major eyesore, i.e. the photo of Micheál Martin cosying up to the archbishop. This is a man who voted for introducing abortion into Ireland and…

Dear Editor, Part of our preparation for the reception of the Sacraments of Initiation included learning the names of the sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Blessed Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction (Sacrament of the Sick), Holy Orders and Matrimony (Mater/Matris/Mother). Why not return to this beautiful title and thereby throw some light on the forthcoming debate on same-sex…

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…