Dear Editor, In the light of current media concerns with education in the State, some elementary facts need to be outlined. 1. Most Catholic schools were built on land donated by Catholics; the capital costs of building these schools were borne by Catholics  2. The maintenance and running costs of these schools is partly met…

Dear Editor, Your front page headline of September 4 (‘Bishop demands answers from SVP on gay donation’) speaks volumes about what the Church as an institution has done to the Gospel message and personal revelation of Christ Jesus. The joy of the Gospels (constantly referred to by Pope Francis) is in fact the sheer joy…

Dear Editor, I applaud the courage of Bishop Martin Drennan for his censure of the St Augustine’s Conference of the St Vincent De Paul society in Galway, for donating money to the LGBT group Amach Ltd (IC 04/09/2014). He is taking the very type of unpopular stance that often characterises public Christian witness. Those who…

Dear Editor, I think Bishop Martin Drennan was quite in order to demand answers from the SVP (‘Bishop demands answers from SVP on gay donation’ IC 04/09/2014). I always thought the SVP looked after the poor in their different needs, paying ESB bills, school uniforms and maybe groceries, etc. The poor bishops – they are…

Dear Editor, I find the opposition to deacons hard to understand. I live in the UK and we have had married deacons for the last 40 years. Ordained deacons are usually married men with a family, so there is no chance they will take over functions presently undertaken by lay people. Even if they wanted…

Dear Editor, Regarding the question of the diaconate for women, it might be of interest to know what St Edith Stein had to say on the subject. Edith Stein was a Jewish Carmelite who was gassed at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942. She wrote: “The early Church gave outlet for the manifold activity of women…

Dear Editor, The tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in Galway Hospital in 2012 was massively misused by politicians and the media who were more concerned with using her death to force abortion legislation into Ireland, rather than find out the truth about why she died. Now, almost two years later and after a lengthy investigation,…