Madam, - As a "thinking and conscientious Catholic" I want to dissociate myself from Brendan Butler's attempt to speak for me (Rite and Reason, June 20th). It seems according to Mr Butler that if a Catholic agrees with the stance the Catholic bishops have taken on Cura and the Positive Options leaflet they are not "thinking and conscientious" but "fundamentalists" and part of "right-wing organisations" determined to bring Irish Catholicism backwards.
Mr Butler says that when speaking about a complex moral issue such as abortion there must be a space between indifferentism and extremism for a discussion to take place. However, the tone of his article offers no such space for this discussion.
He presumes to speak for all "thinking" Catholics and labels all opposition to Cura's position as fundamentalism. Hardly a liberal stance! What needs to be pointed out to Mr Butler, who presumably imagines himself as a liberal, tolerant man, is that true liberalism allows a plurality of opinion and doesn't seek to silence opposing positions with the easy but nasty tag of "fundamentalist".
As a journalist, I have spent weeks trying to contact Bishop Fleming, the president of Cura, to no avail; neither was Louise Graham, its national co-ordinator available nor any member of Cura's management despite the existence of several PROs and a Catholic Communications Office in Maynooth. When four Cura volunteers disagreed publicly with Cura they were thrown out of the organisation in a hasty attempt to punish them for their conscientious objection to Cura's policy. Secrecy and fear alone have been the sole strategies of Cura in the last few weeks.
When a small group pushes forward a policy that is controversial, crushes dissent within its ranks and refuses to engage with legitimate questions from the media and turns away from all openness and transparency, even when it is funded by the taxpayer and churchgoers, what label would Mr Butler put on that group? When four of its volunteers stand up to this group and openly question it out of conviction and are thrown out because of this, what label would Mr Butler put on them?
Mr Butler should be more careful with his easy use of the terms "right wing" and "fundamentalist" because there is such a thing as a left wing fundamentalist too; those whose arguments simplify the issues, dismiss all opposition, and refuse all openness and transparency while preferring dismissive name-calling of their opposition to actually engaging with the arguments.- Yours, etc,
GARRY O'SULLIVAN, Editor, The Irish Catholic, Dublin 2.
Madam, - As a former Cura counsellor, I welcome the decision by the Irish bishops to call for an end to the distribution of the so-called "Positive Options" leaflet by Cura.
One of the main reasons crisis pregnancy counselling exits is because most people who find themselves in such a situation cannot be adequately helped with just a phone number or a piece of paper.
Regardless of the pro-life or pro-choice positions of the nine agencies represented by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, it is unprofessional in the extreme to allow a leaflet do the work of the counsellor.
Many confused women come to the doors of Cura with abortion in mind. This does not necessarily mean it is the best option for them, and Cura is perfectly entitled to believe it is not, as long as it maintains the standard of non-judgmental counselling it is famous for - a standard I can strongly testify to.
The taxpayer deserves to have Cura's ethos and tradition represented among the options available via the CPA.
To imply that every agency ought to have the same attitude to abortion is unrealistic and unfair: it is obvious that many groups represented by the CPA approve of it.
To withhold substantial funding from an agency that disagrees with the CPA's whip-crackers would represent a blatant misuse of power akin to bullying and a blow to all Irish women facing crisis pregnancies. - Yours, etc,
SEAMUS LYNCH, Portrane, Co Dublin.
Madam, - I was disappointed by Breda O'Brien's article (June 11th) on the Cura controversy. A more balanced treatment would have addressed the issue of the rights of the client, including her right to the exercise of free will.
In making humankind in His own image and likeness, God the Creator gave us free will. We creatures, even with the best of intentions, ought never seek to frustrate God's will by preventing others from exercising their free will.
In the case of Cura, having provided information, counselling and support to help the woman make an informed moral choice, is not a refusal to hand her the Positive Options leaflet an attempt to frustrate the woman's exercise of her God-given free will? Can this be justified?
This is a very complex, difficult issue and I do not pretend to know the answers. I do know that we live in an imperfect, messy world in which our choices are often limited to a few courses of action, none of which is ideal. I think Cura has got the balance about right and should be allowed to get on with the job it has been doing so well for three decades. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BURKE, Malahide.