Photo by Tatiana Syrikova Dear Editor,
The lack of support for parents who wish to stay at home with their children has, and continues to be, something the Irish Government chooses to ignore. The omission of such supports in the Government’s programme is a glaring oversight and reflects a troubling “ideological blind spot” that fails to recognise the vital role these parents play in the fabric of our society.
Independent TD Carol Nolan rightly emphasises that parents must not be “reduced to economic units of production”. The choice to care for one’s children in the home should not be a privilege afforded only to the wealthy, but a viable option supported by public policy. It is disheartening that the Government continues to prioritise institutional childcare to the exclusion of parents who choose to raise their children at home – a choice supported by the majority of families, as evidenced by the 2022 census, which found that 78% of children are cared for by parents or family members.
As columnist Maria Steen has pointed out, voters recently affirmed the constitutional recognition of the State’s debt to women for the work they do in the home. To ignore this democratic mandate is to ignore the will of the people. The Government’s approach appears increasingly out of touch with the realities and preferences of Irish families.
Supporting stay-at-home parents is not about undermining working parents or childcare providers. It is about fairness, balance, and recognising the diverse ways families contribute to the common good. These parents are building the foundation of society, and they deserve to feel valued and supported.
Yours etc.,
Clara O’Connell
Dublin 3
Commit to a State commemoration of Catholic emancipation
Dear Editor,
It is astonishing that the Government’s programme for commemoration neglects to mention the bicentenary of Catholic emancipation in 2029 [The Irish Catholic – January 23, 2025]. This landmark civil rights achievement, which ended centuries of religious discrimination and allowed Catholics to fully participate in public life, deserves explicit recognition. While Daniel O’Connell’s 250th anniversary is rightly celebrated, Catholic emancipation is a pivotal event in its own right—impacting not only Irish Catholics but the broader history of civil rights.
Failing to acknowledge this milestone risks diminishing its significance. I urge the Government to commit to a State commemoration that educates and unites us around this transformative chapter in Irish history.
Yours etc.,
John Delaney
Cork City
An urgent issue for priests
Dear Editor,
I’m sure that I am among thousands who agree with Garry O’Sullivan’s ‘Urgent Priest Issues’ [The Irish Catholic – January 23, 2025].
Their situations remind me of frontline war participants who endure horribly while their military and political bosses dictate in comfortable rooms, athletes who self-punish during the best weeks of their young lives while promoters, spectators, audiences, commentators and investors look on in comfort, and STEM teachers and students who don’t also keep the ‘big picture’ in mind.
Regardless of age, location, and weather, everyone may now attend Mass in comfort in virtually all Irish parishes. Without travelling, celebrants could present daily via online Masses, and parishioners could attend via computers in homes, churches, schools and universities, pastoral/social centres, and workplaces.
Like-minded local people could assemble on Sundays in churches with large screens near Tabernacles. Senior celebrants could transmit Masses for all parishioners in their dioceses. Their homilies could, in addition, helpfully refer to particular beliefs and current issues.
The inexpensive American Magnificat daily Mass missal, distributed by The Irish Catholic, is now a superb Mass aid for Mass attenders, especially for online ones. Perusal of it the evening before sets attenders up to profit immensely. The apposite rephrasing of Scripture readings makes their sense clear for lay people. The Missal also has most informative short homilies and reflections composed during the past 2,000 years. Its short biographical accounts are most enlightening and motivating.
In short, it was never easier to attend Mass and revive Mass attending everywhere, despite the decline in Celebrant numbers. That decline is, I think, a blessing in disguise. It evokes helpful ‘outside the box’ thinking.
Yours etc.,
Joe F. Foyle
Ranelagh. Dublin
Tensions in faith and science
Dear Editor,
After reading the articles by Bishop Doran and Fr Swan on the tensions between science and faith, I decided to send you some of my ideas as a fervent Catholic and as a scientist, now almost 89 years of age, who taught and did research in chemistry at QUB.
After reading Teilhard de Chardin’s publications on evolution in the early 1960s, I thought quite a lot about Original Sin. It suddenly dawned on me one morning in 1960, that his difficulties would disappear if ‘Original Sin’ had not happened in finite space-time on Earth as Genesis states, but in the transcendental and infinite realm of God.
When tempted by Satan, who is also transcendental (Genesis), Creation rebelled against God, and brought evil natural first and then moral, when rational humanity emerged via evolution. The whole of creation, except the idea of Jesus, the Alpha Christ, and the idea of his mother Mary, committed Original Sin and was actualised in space-time, our finite world.
The whole idea was generated in the Alpha Christ. However, the Alpha Christ freely accepted to be actualised with us. Mary, also as the Immaculate Concept, actualised as the Immaculate Conception, freely accepted God’s will, so one can understand why she is named as Co-Redemptoristine.
In very recent years, on the basis of mathematical equations called ‘The Bell Inequalities’, developed by J.S. Bell, experiments have been developed to test the possibility of molecular instantaneous interactions of tiny particles.
Einstein liked Bell’s mathematics, but not the molecular interactions, which he called “spooky action at a distance.” This is the first scientific evidence that matter-energy (E=mc2) is indeed a spiritual substance (e.g. ‘Spook’).
Karl Rahner SJ named matter as ‘frozen spirits’. In transubstantiation, a profound change, invisible to scientific tests occurs, from blemished by Original Sin to immaculate. So, the consecrated bread and wine are immediately the body and blood of Christ.
The idea of Mary also refused Satan’s temptations (Eden), so she also is always totally immaculate from Alpha to Omega. This is not emphasised in the teaching of the Church.
Yours etc.,
Prof. John Rooney
Belfast, Co. Antrim
Satan is the prince of lies
Dear Editor,
Fr Rolheiser’s article ‘Lies and the sin against the Spirit’ [The Irish Catholic – January 16, 2025] was a powerful encouragement to truthfulness, sincerity, personal integrity and facing challenging realities: “Satan is the prince of lies. That’s why the biggest danger in our world is the amount of lies, disinformation, misinformation and flat-out denial of reality that’s present almost most everywhere today – wherever, it seems, we don’t find the truth to our liking.”
He gives some examples of this denial of reality: the Holocaust, history of slavery and the Sandy Hook school shootings.
Disappointingly the article never mentioned the greatest disaster-denial in history: abortion, our silent holocaust. One estimate of the total death toll since the 1960s is 1.5 billion, equivalent to wiping out the entire US population 4.3 times over or all Catholics worldwide.
St Mother Teresa saw the full reality of abortion. She said: “The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is war against the child.” This recognises the secondary victims of abortion – the parents, often wounded by a tragically misguided and irreversible decision that is completely opposed to their nature and calling.
Yours etc.
Fr Morty O’Shea, SOLT
Queens, New York