Dear Editor, Your front page story in last week’s The Irish Catholic (08/10/2015) focused on a possible papal visit to Ireland in 2018 and the places that may be included in his itinerary. If he were to come he should also visit the Shrine of Matt Talbot. This was actually included in John Paul II’s…

Dear Editor, The other day I saw one of the first Christmas ads on television, and I thought, “Christmas is here already!” Well, actually this may be closer to the truth than we may think.  Celebrating Christmas on December 25 and citing the true date of Yeshua’s (Jesus’) birth in the Jewish /Hebrew calendar are…

Dear Editor, Are the people who marched for abortion in Dublin recently saying that they had no right to life when they were in their mother’s wombs? Yours etc., Noel Mc Keown OP, Newry, Co. Down.  

Dear Editor, An article in The Irish Catholic (01/10/2015) titled “The optimistic conservatism of Pope Francis,” outlined the positive effect Pope Francis is having on the world. We have been through a period of such shame in the Church that we all rejoice in his present popularity. However, it is distressing when praise of Pope…

Dear Editor, Am I alone in wondering what is the point of the Synod on the Family? The media sells it as a guise of finding pastoral solutions to the question of Holy Communion and divorced and remarried persons. The ability to receive Holy Communion is determined by being in a state of grace. One…

Dear Editor, Mary Kenny suggests that Archbishop Welby’s proposal to institute a looser structure for Anglicanism will be “an interesting experiment” (IC 24/09/2015). In fact the experiment has already been shown to be a failure. The Anglican communion – essentially a development of the late 18th and 19th Centuries when Anglicanism began to spread across the…

Dear Editor, I particularly liked the piece by Gavan Kerrr on discernment and vocation in The Irish Catholic on September 24. It reminded me of the book Priestly Vocation by John Blowick, co-founder with Bishop Galvin, of the Society of St Columbanus (now based at Dalgan Park Navan.) Fr Blowick’s book was essentially based on…

Dear Editor, As the homelessness crisis intensifies with another unnecessary death on the streets of Dublin I suggest, following Pope Francis’ suggestion regarding the current refugee crisis, that every Christian parish in Ireland would either house a homeless person or adopt such a person by providing decent accommodation for them. The professionals in all the…