Dear Editor, having read Fr John Harris’ article ‘the world at war and the Beatitudes’ (The Irish Catholic, August 21) I note the omission of the main cause of global violence and destruction of life – abortion. As St Mother Teresa of Calcutta stated “there can be no peace in the world while we support and promote abortion”, the deliberate killing of the baby in the womb.
Fr Harris referred to Ireland and the dreadful attacks on immigrants which he rightly condemned, but how can we expect to escape the descent into violence when we have the publicly funded killing of the most vulnerable of all, the helpless unborn child.
We now have over 10,000 abortions annually and over 50,000 since abortion was legalised here. We have thousands demonstrating and protesting against the slaughter in Gaza, including babies, but enforced silence on this issue. Those who attempt to speak out are forced to stand 100 metres from any abortion facility on penalty of being fined or jailed.
Blessed indeed are the peacemakers and those who make strenuous efforts to ensure that silence does not prevail and to expose the hypocrisy involved by so many who are selective in their sympathy and support for the voiceless.
Yours etc,
Mary Stewart
Ardeskin, Donegal Town
The EU countries have innocent blood on their hands
Dear Editor, it is clear that the Israeli government is not concerned with the death and destruction intended in their Final Assault on Gaza. It is clear that those in power have stood idly by as this nightmare unfolded.
Can the governments and media really say that there existed no range of goods including arms that could have paralysed the Israeli economy of which the sole purpose is to save lives. Instead, this convoluted legal charade was carried out in the West. While the great unwashed masses protested on the streets thinking they would make a difference.
As Bob Dylan would say the media went along for the ride. The EU countries supplying Israel arms have innocent blood on their hands and other ex-colonial countries have no moral compass. We have joined them.
Yours etc,
Derek F. Toner
Balbriggan, Co. Dublin
Blessed are the peacemakers
Dear Editor, “They charged Jesus with sedition”, said Malcolm X. This is what we have to keep in mind when we address the issue of Palestine Action. We have morality and justice turned on its head.
We now have a government which functions more in tandem with groups like Labour Friends of Israel and Jewish Labour Movement than with any adherence to Biblical ethics, or even with any reference to traditional labour values, in fact.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). But the Labour government have criminalised peaceful protest and labelled the peacemakers as ‘terrorists’.
As TV producer, journalist, and author, Richard Sanders said, “The Palestinian cause was delegitimised and indeed demonised for four years during the Corbyn years… that played a crucial role in creating the sort of emotional framework once the genocide began… it helps to explain the extraordinary mystery of how the British political and journalistic establishment is able to sit and watch the daily slaughter of Palestinian children day after day” (at a Double Down News podcast).
Palestine Action were actually attempting to stop the slaughter. Some day we’ll understand that arms factories are producing arms which fuel present and future wars; and that wars are not benefitting people in any way, shape, or form; and that Palestine Action was at the heart of the campaign to stop arms to Israel, to stop the slaughter, to stop the ethnic cleansing, to stop the genocide, and therefore, as follows from the former, to stop terrorism. Yes, you heard it right – to stop terrorism!
Yours etc,
Louis Shawcross
Royal Hillsborough, Co. Down
UCD founder to become ‘Doctor of the Church’
Dear Editor, Pope Leo XIV has paved the way for St John Henry Newman to be formally declared a ‘Doctor of the Church’. The founder and first Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, the precursor of University College Dublin (UCD), was first made a cardinal in 1879 by Pope Leo XIII, a position he tenured for 11 years before his death.
After the Vatican attributed two miracles to the former cardinal, Henry Newman was canonised by Pope Francis in 2019 making the prelate, the first English saint since the Forty Martyrs, executed under Reformation laws during the 16th and 17th Centuries. From an Anglican priest to a Catholic Cardinal, Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal in 1879. Upon hearing the news, Newman wept with joy: “The cloud is lifted forever.” Newman studied at Trinity College, Oxford, before becoming an Anglican priest there.
During the 1840s he resided at Littlemore College and there on October 9, 1845, he was received into full communion to the Catholic Church by Blessed Dominic Barberi. Maintained by devoted nuns, it remains untouched since the Victorian era. Pope Benedict XVI beatified the prelate in 2010, honouring a man of deep prayer who, in the Pope’s words: “lived out that profoundly human vision of priestly ministry in his devoted care “visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison”.
Annually, devotees of St John Henry Newman from the International Centre of Newman Friends wander through cobblestone alleys and bustling piazzas of Rome, visiting nine locations linked to the saint’s life. The Vatican has not yet announced when the official ceremony will take place. Today UCD is one of the country’s most influential universities with a student population of 38,000 and 334,000 alumni across 184 countries.
Yours etc,
Gerry Coughlan
Kilnamanagh, Dublin 24
Essential elements of authentic Christianity
Dear Editor, Peter Boucher’s letter (The Irish Catholic, August 14) has a list of suggestions to “take the Church off life support.” After careful consideration of these suggestions, I feel that they would only add to the current / lamentable decline.
To look at his suggestions in order of ascending importance:
The Council of Trent required Catholics to receive Communion under one species – the Sacred Host. This was to express our belief that the totality of Jesus’ Real Presence and our communion with him are available under any one of the species. This was contested by Martin Luther and other reformers.
Mr Boucher refers to the Eucharist as “the bread and the wine.” If Catholics really knew and appreciated that the Eucharist is the true Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus, we’d have a 95%+ Mass attendance rate!
The most problematic of the suggestions is that we replace regular Confession with General Absolution. Definitive Catholic teaching states that such absolution is only proper in sinking-ship emergencies. Even then, validity requires the intention to confess serious sins whenever possible.
Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of Mark are “Repent [change your ways] and believe the good news” (1:15). Naming our sins as we do in regular Confession helps with contrition, purpose of amendment and seeing the need to make restitution, especially for serious sin. If we try to bypass real repentance, it will only add to the superficiality of one’s Christianity.
Ongoing conversion, the cross of dying-to-self and the humility thus required are essential elements of authentic Christianity.
Yours etc,
A.P. Breen
New York, US
The remarkable mark of Fr Andy Farrell in Navan
Dear Editor, I applaud Brendan O’Regan’s cool and critical assessment of RTÉ One’s ‘Pray for Our Sinners’ (The Irish Catholic, August 7). The documentary acknowledges that Fr Andy Farrell helped to develop the community in Navan by setting up a credit union, a school for children with special needs and a workers co-op. But there were many other projects which he facilitated. His service in Navan and in the other parishes in which he served was truly remarkable.
I do not write as a neutral observer. Andy was a charismatic and flamboyant figure. He was both a friend and a classmate of mine – ordination class 1957 – whom I greatly admired.
Yours etc
Anthony Gaughan
Blackrock, Co. Dublin
