Dear Editor, We are being lectured ad nauseam that the truly dark period of our recent history has been superseded by an enlightened and liberal era. However, the hall marks of social behaviourism in this secularised paradise making for daily media reportage presents an unpleasant and disturbing reality. Children, according to a Garda report were suspects in almost one in five sex crimes in 2018. Since then, further such crimes, including killings, were perpetrated by adolescents. Suicides, especially among teenagers, as well as cases of self-harm, range across all age groups, male and female. There are grave concerns at the levels of obesity, alcoholism and drug addiction affecting teenagers and adults. Children are being traumatised in alcoholically fuelled fear behind closed doors.
What long-term unreported anguish, some life-long and even inter-generational, is being inflicted on all the families so affected.
The aged, particularly, fear living alone in rural and in many urban areas and even adults are wary of walking alone after dark on many city streets. Now euthanasia is on the existential agenda for the seriously ill elderly and a subtle and unspoken pressure will be exercised on them ‘to do the right thing’.
Ireland has signed up for abortion and within a couple of years of this misconceived legislation the lives of 13,243 human entities were terminated at the commencement of their journeys to entitled full life.
In the broader context of its more ‘advanced’ member states the very future of European civilisation is threatened as aggressive secularism’s ‘condom culture’ has brought ‘greying’ Europe to its demographic knees as births rates fall below the required levels of 2.1 child per woman to sustain its population growth.
It will be in a radical religiously sourced realisation of the inherent familial relationship enjoyed by all humans as beings of divine stock, as children of our creator all, that the moral transformation required to create a new revelation of the universe will be sourced and sustained.
Your etc.,
Colm Ó Tórna
Artane, Dublin
Pray for the conversion of China
Dear Editor, Interesting reading Fr Rolheiser last week on the powers of prayer [The Irish Catholic – September 23, 2021].
Considering all the traumas and tribulations and lunatics currently in the world, I think the most urgent change we need is the conversion of China. Almost anything we touch today especially technology-wise, is made in China, and what an influence they are having on the world. But their record on human rights, Tibet, etc., is not exemplary. They seem to seek only world domination and over the next couple of generations, they will have huge and growing influence.
As Christians, we must pray vehemently and unceasingly for the conversion of China, and don’t expect it to happen overnight.
Yours etc.,
Sean Creaney
Blackrock, Co. Dublin
Nailing the big lie of the pro-abortion agenda
Dear Editor, Thanks to you for publishing Fr Silvester O’Flynn’s quote of the year [The Irish Catholic – September 30, 2021], which nailed the big lie of the pro-abortion agenda.
As he put it, “the so-called right to choose is a lie because it is a denial of the right to life of another human being”.
How right he is, and how wrong the ‘Yes’ voters were in the Repeal referendum, when they put their trust in the Prince of Lies, the Devil. Led astray also by their politicians, who promised abortion would be “safe, rare and legal”. Strange how their accomplices in the media are in no hurry to bring them to account for that lie, despite almost 20,000 innocent deaths since. Instead they have focused on the coronavirus where there is a much lower death rate. Explain please.
With the facts about abortion emerging more clearly, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about another referendum – to give the people who got it wrong the last time a chance to atone for their error. And, of course, to put an end to the senseless extermination of innocent life.
Yours etc.,
Sean Ryan
Dundrum, Dublin 16
Don’t believe everything you hear on the internet
Dear Editor, Bishop Paul Dempsey is absolutely right when he says Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary, would be appalled by the constant criticism of Pope Francis [The Irish Catholic – September 30, 2021]. There seems to be a small but significant number of allegedly Catholic media organisations who do not have one good word to say about the Pope and take every opportunity to question his leadership and decision making. However, in the past they would never have been critical of other popes and would have vehemently defended them. The criticism is unwarranted and frankly un-Christian.
Those behind it should take a long hard look at themselves and ask: “Who am I to question the Holy Father? What makes me see more clearly than him who has been chosen by God to lead his Church?”
The hubris behind the attacks, particularly some supposedly Catholic broadcasters, is absolutely appalling. Some, which I will leave nameless, are large organisations, not some small blog in a dark part of the internet. They can be agenda setting and are forming the minds and hearts of people badly – corrupting them. My advice is to trust our Pope and to trust in God, and not to believe everything you hear on the internet.
Yours etc.,
David McGuinness
North Strand, Dublin 3
We clergy should smile a little more
Dear Editor, Your edition of [The Irish Catholic – September 30, 2021] provided, on pages 2 and 23, reports and photographs of priestly vocations. The former was from the success of the Diocese of Wichita in Kansas in attracting candidates, and the latter of photos of professions from the Irish Dominican Province. Both were edifying. The Irish Dominicans, however, were an illustration of joy. They were smiling and exuded what a vocation should be. The Wichita seminarians, by contrast, looked rigid and fearful, hands glued together. Sadly, I have seen more photographs of the Wichita variety too often in the last few years. Unfortunately, it seems to be de rigueur among younger clergy and seminarians to affect this pose. As a priest who has now passed his silver jubilee, I have learnt that we clergy should smile a little more, not in a false or forced way, but invitingly and gently. Otherwise, even if candidate numbers can appear high in some parts of the world, it is an impenetrable ceiling. If our hands are rigidly joined and our faces taut with what is supposed to be holiness, we will not convince anyone. Those same hands must get messy on the mission. Those same jaws must relax to recount the Good News. I tried the tight jaw, and glued hands approach myself once upon a time. I can testify they don’t work.
Yours etc.,
Fr Dáithí Ó Murchú
Haslemere, England