A Mass Pit and the Faith of Our Fathers
Dear Editor, I was surprised when I read Mary Kenny’s statement saying that she didn’t know when she last heard the hymn ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ played in an Irish church.
In our parish ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ is sung every year at Mass on St Patrick’s Day.
It is also sung at another annual event in our parish. We have a ‘Mass Pit’ in the parish which dates back to Penal Times when many restrictions were imposed on Catholics, including a ban on the celebration of the Mass. Catholic clergy were expelled from the country and risked being executed if found. Priests and parishioners had to find hidden areas in the Irish countryside to celebrate Mass. They were known as Mass Rocks or Mass Pits and were usually sited in a secluded place to avoid being detected by the authorities.
Many of these places are now unmarked and forgotten. However, our Mass Pit was restored in 2006 by a dedicated committee of local interested people and Mass is celebrated there every year on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption.
This Mass is always well attended and the singing of the hymn ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ reminds us of the risks our ancestors took in order to attend Mass during Penal Times.
Yours etc.,
Helen Kavanagh
Ballybrophy,Co. Laois
No alternative but to vote for Donald Trump
Dear Editor, I was disappointed in Breda O’Brien’s statement that “there is not a single reason to vote for Trump today” and especially her reference to “standards of truth” [The Irish Catholic – July 11, 2024]. Truth certainly did not appear during the 2016 election campaign when Joe Biden was hidden and not allowed to be questioned, and the media was controlled by the Democrats. While the Democrats constantly refer to democracy, it must be pointed out that the party did not accept the 2016 election result and set about immediately seeking to impeach Trump despite knowing they hadn’t the numbers to do so. Then in the last election, that party received two-thirds more in donations than the Republicans with millionaires and billionaires, ensuring that Trump was not re-elected.
The main reason to vote for Trump is to ensure that Joe Biden, the most pro-abortion president ever is not re-elected. His support for forcing abortion, not alone in the US but worldwide and especially in developing countries, and ensuring that the forthcoming election is to be fought on abortion should horrify all, so it is strange that Ms O’Brien can see no reason to vote for Trump, who is the only one with a chance to stop him. I haven’t seen anywhere that he is seeking canonisation, and pro-life people can never thank him enough for the Roe-v-Wade case. No one else could have done it. I cannot understand how President Biden is allowed to continue describing himself as a practising Catholic with devotion to Our Lady, patroness of the unborn, while seeking to overthrow the Roe-v-Wade verdict and threatening those who oppose abortion and condoning attacks on those who wish to provide assistance in the case of crisis pregnancies.
Ms O’Brien is rather generous in stating that Joe Biden is “not any prize either”. With abortion, the most important issue at this time, with no other right applying without the right to life, and the World Health Organisation confirming that deaths from abortion worldwide are approximately 73 million per year, I contend that pro-life people have no alternative but to vote for Donald Trump.
Yours etc.,
Mary Stewart
Ardeskin, Donegal Town
Nobody told the truth as he did…
Dear Editor, What Breda O’Brien writes about Trump, that there is no single reason to vote for him, I find quite astonishing [The Irish Catholic – July 11, 2024]. Try these two reasons, to start. Nobody told the truth as he did, finding the words many people waited decades to hear about the erosion of democracy by the elites.
Second, he had the courage to go with it: he took on those elites, and won, to the great consternation of a media he believed to have abandoned the people.
Ms O’Brien’s article barely mentions President Biden, though surely readers deserve to know the social and family policies Biden has been implementing, which very much reflect the programme and preferences of the Left agenda.
On the protection of innocent pre-born human life, [former] President Trump leans very much to the Catholic position. President Biden does the opposite.
It seems clear to me that [former] President Trump owes a great deal to his Scottish mother, and to that Sunday church he attended with his parents in New York. I would have expected Breda O’Brien to have given some weight to those matters.
What formed President Biden’s outlook, I leave to others to explain, except to say this, that in my view there is one Catholic candidate – and it is not Joe Biden.
Yours etc.,
Gerald O’Carroll,
Ballylongford, Co. Kerry