Dear Editor, Over the last few decades, the status of the Catholic Church in Ireland has changed enormously. Catholicism lost its relevancy for many teenagers, young adults, and middle-aged people when they stopped believing or thinking about God and no longer saw the need to attend Church services in a growing materialistic environment.
Faith no longer has a role in their lives. This generational divide has also hastened the demise of vocations for the priesthood which brings its own problems for local church administration.
In more recent years the major traditional and social media in Ireland adhere to a more liberal viewpoint on social matters that at times could be perceived as anti-religious in its tone. Liberal and anti-Catholic voices have demanded a more secular State and more recently they are demanding no interference by religious orders, including the Catholic Church in child sex education in schools. The Catholic Church should let them get on with it. At least it will not be blamed for any future programme deficiencies and failings.
The Catholic Church should ensure that young and middle-aged people do not see a disconnect from what the Church says and what it does on important social issues like the family, marriage, birth control, abortion, cohabitation, celibacy, sexuality, and so on.
The Church should appoint professional communicators, a panel of bright priests who can be trained to articulate and debate Church views on topical issues in the traditional and popular social media channels. A good place to start would be to address the deliberate misrepresentation of the Catholic Church by many anti-Catholic critics. It should remind people of the positive role the Catholic Church played in the past with its extensive mission work overseas spreading the word of God throughout the world. It should remind people how it served people’s needs at home with the dedicated work it carried out in Irish parishes, schools and hospitals down through the years. The Church’s mission should now be to help the young and middle-aged generations to find God again and get them back to Mass.
Yours etc.,
Eddie O ’Mahony,
Tramore, Co. Waterford
Demanding abortion from British govt in North
Dear Editor, Well done on your coverage of the findings that exonerated the victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre [IC 13/05/2021].
However, to listen to the likes of Colm Eastwood speak about how this government can never be trusted was a clear demonstration of the saying that chewed bread is soon forgotten. Let us not forget that he, along with Michelle O’Neill went over to this same government to demand British state murder via abortion in the North. To call this an exercise in full blown hypocrisy would be a disservice to right thinking hypocrites everywhere.
Yours etc.,
Fr John McCallion
Coalisland, Co. Tyrone
Continuing the fight against abortion
Dear Editor, The third anniversary of the removal of the Eight Amendment warrants an assessment of the pro-life stance taken by the 724,000 who voted to retain the equal right to life in the Constitution.
All 15 Dáil deputies who took a high visibility platform in defence of the Eight Amendment were all re-elected to the current Dáil. These true democrats continue to fight for the unborn and demand accountability from the Government’s “reassurances” given to the electorate before the referendum of May 2018. RTÉ continues with a pro-abortion agenda, evident in three mainstream RTÉ radio programmes displaying a disproportionate imbalance in favour of the abortion agenda.
This week Maltese President George Vella himself a medical doctor before entering politics, publicly stated that he will not sign any pro-abortion legislation, favouring resignation over signing “a bill that involves the authorisation of murder”.
Yours sincerely,
Frank Burke
Terenure, Dublin 6
Irish people ‘radicalised’ by NPHET and HSE
Dear Editor, Worshipping in a Catholic church with people obeying social distancing rules, afraid to offer one another the sign of peace, with no joyful singing and these constant reminders of disease on people’s faces is all wrong. It is now a dehumanising experience, in the worst possible sense.
It serves as a further testament to the power now invested in NPHET/HSE by a gutless Government.
I share the frustration of the letter writer ‘Fostering Mass going at home undermined by clergy’ [IC 06/05/2021] when she writes of the “priests who abandoned the flock at their time of greatest need”. But priests, bishops, popes are only human. Many of them, seemingly like the majority of Irish people, have in effect been radicalised by the HSE/NPHET.
In April/May last year our Government set NPHET centre stage by allowing them to address the people directly. I wonder did and does this occur in any other country and could this be one of the reasons we have endured such draconian restrictions?
Last year the HSE tried to silence some caring doctors who disagreed with the HSE policies of lockdown and mandates and these doctors were effectively denied the right to free speech.
I am no denier. I know both elderly and severely disabled who contracted Covid-19 and recovered fully but am amazed at the willingness of Irish people to go along with what amounts to denial of the right to express their faith freely.
Yours etc.,
Ann Gillanders
Ballybough, Dublin 3
Refusing the Eucharist to those who support abortion
Dear Editor, As many of us pro-lifers know, during the abortion referendum campaign, many “placating lies” from pro-abortion politicians were told to the voting public e.g., abortions would be safe, legal and rare. Now, post referendum, we of course know the reality is very different e.g., more than 6,600 abortions were carried out in Ireland last year according to the Department of Health. Late-term abortions are being carried out on unborn babies without any anaesthesia or pain-killing medication; doctors are being trained overseas in late-term abortion procedures etc…
Critical, in the pre-referendum campaign, was the Catholic Church whose bishops issued pious platitudes in Mass missalettes decrying abortion but little else! However, there is a chink of hope in the recent statement from Archbishop Salvadore Cordileone of San Francisco in response to Nancy Pelosi’s – the present speaker of the House of Representatives and one of his parishioners – assertion that pro-life Catholics should not be willing to sell the whole of democracy down the river on this one issue i.e., abortion and her belief that pro-life Catholics were instrumental in getting Donald Trump elected as America’s president in 2016.
However, what is different is Archbishop Cordileone’s assertion and belief that “he and they would have to answer to God for innocent blood!”
Hopefully, Archbishop Cordileone’s statement will engender a new sense of courage and commitment in our hierarchy and magisterium in proactively responding and reacting to pro-abortion politicians to ensure that, when they present to receive the Eucharist, they are refused.
Good news is in short supply these days. May this be a portent of a positive change in our Church in confronting this shocking societal abomination and abuse of the Eucharist.
Yours etc.,
James and Anne Maher,
Mullingar, Co. Westmeath
Truth and reconciliation in the North
Dear Editor, Maybe now is the time to set up a commission, which would include all parties involved in the Troubles in the North. This would also include victims as well who may feel forgotten at this point in time.
It could help the healing process, and even bring communities closer together.
Yours etc.,
Danny Murphy
Portmarnock, Co. Dublin.