Dear Editor, I rejoice with Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that “things are improving within the Church” (IC 30/07/2015), but I haven’t the benefit of his statistics. I agree the Church needs a “new generation of strong and articulate lay men and women”, if less certain where this will come from, and what initiatives will bring it…

Dear Editor, Speakers at our summer schools are traditionally given considerable latitude in matters of ideology and historical interpretation. Even so, the Minister for Health, Dr Leo Varadaker TD, was pushing it a bit in his address to the MacGill Summer School. Near the start of a long speech, he cites the question: “how did…

Dear Editor, In an article of IC 23/7/2015 Fr Peter McVerry is quoted as saying that the young people telling the Church there is “something fundamentally wrong” with its message, need to be listened to. I can’t help but agree that yes, we must listen to those who are leaving the Church, but at the…

Dear Editor, I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I read that some seminarians at Maynooth were censured because they were “too conservative” (IC 02/07/2015). I wonder should this have read “too truthful” because they were proclaiming the truth of the Faith? I saw a documentary on Maynooth, long before the scandals broke there,…

Dear Editor, Has Amnesty International Ireland lost its way? This is the question I asked myself when I recently looked into their campaign for Asia Bibi the Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy. There is no mention of her case more recently than November of last year when they made one mention of…

Dear Editor, Mary Kenny is wrong about Church weddings (‘Churches should advertise for weddings’ IC 23/07/2015). Marriage is a sacrament which the spouses confer upon each other by expressing their consent before the Church. If the spouses themselves do not believe in the Church’s understanding of marriage, or even in God, but go along with…

Dear Editor, I don’t find myself in agreement with Fr Rolheiser in his article of July 2 ‘The God of our desires’. I would make the following comments: God may not be the focus of human desires; virtue does not envy sin; prayer, meditation and true religion are not a disruption to life but an…

Dear Editor, Dr Martin Mansergh’s opinion piece (IC 09/07/2015) was a relatively balanced analysis of issues connected with the recent royal visit to Mullaghmore. Dr Mansergh also provided some useful and insightful commentary around the calibre of person that Lord Mountbatton was. Our organisation abhors terrorism and violence whether carried out by republican or loyalist…

Dear Editor, I wish to remind the faithful that we are coming to the second anniversary of the Consecration of Ireland to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Church in Ireland has had its struggles in recent times but we can take heart from the fact that the Irish bishops consecrated Ireland to the Immaculate…

Dear Editor, I wish to congratulate Bishop Kevin Doran and Bishop Phoncie Cullinan on their recent statements on political church gate collections. I spent 50 years of my life in Australia and such collections would not be tolerated. The political parties were very fast to close the Vatican embassy and have no shame in holding…