Madam, - President Bush professes himself to be a convinced Christian who is a strong believer in the power of prayer, yet he is also a firm believer in the power of capital punishment.
I find it difficult to reconcile these contradictory positions and would expect from a second-generation president of the most advanced country in the world a degree of enlightenment at least equal to that of a government official who lived almost a century-and-a-half ago and had the eloquence, the vision and the compassion to be able to describe capital punishment as follows: "an act which is irrevocable and may be erroneous - which has sometimes stricken down the innocent, designing to reach the guilty - which involves the earthly annihilation of a creature bearing the image of God, however distorted by passion or deformed by sin, deprives him of all opportunity of compensation to those who have suffered through his crime, and shortens the period of his preparations to meet his Eternal Judge."
That man was Thomas O' Hagan, Attorney General for Ireland in 1861.
Victorian cant, the cynic may say; but what does the sincere Christian say? - Yours, etc.,
DENIS O'DONOGHUE,
Countess Grove,
Killarney,
Co Kerry.