Sir, – The Catholic Church is and always has been a complex organism. Its practising members today would prefer if the range of Catholic behaviours spanning the atrocious to the less negative did not occur in the past, nor continue today or into the future.
Practising Catholics know of the goodness that has characterised countless numbers of its members heretofore and will do so again. “Crumbling”, as Fintan O’Toole would term the Catholic Church today (“Crumbling of Irish Catholic Church ought to worry Britain’s royals”, Opinion, February 24th), is rather wide of the mark.
Had he researched it differently he would be aware, as are informed aspiring practitioners of the faith today, of the growing vibrant pockets of Catholic revival among younger people in many settings in the Anglo-European and American world. Many Catholics see their “side” as the “greener” one today, whose unearned graces these younger people are attracted to despite Catholics’ failings. If Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is guilty of the alleged crimes he is associated with in the public mind, there is some probability he will eventually experience a considerable remorseful, personal devastation. St Paul and St Francis underwent something similar for different reasons. Like them, Andrew could possibly find a form of personal redemption as a penitent in the Catholic Church, which his predecessors (as distinct from his ancestors) tried to crumble. This indeed would amount to what O’Toole refers to as a “lesson,” beneficial in kind, learned from the Catholic Church as a repentant organism living in positive hope. – Yours, etc,
NEIL BRAY,
READ MORE
Cappamore,
Co Limerick.
Sir, – Regardless of the subject, allegations of institutional misconduct inevitably lead to an attack by Fintan O’Toole on the Catholic Church. At surface level, his analogy between the sharp decline of the Catholic Church and the potential fall of the British monarchy is clever. At a deeper level, it betrays an implacable and, perhaps, an unconscious hatred of the former. – Yours, etc,
MARGARET LEE,
Newport,
Co Tipperary.
