Madam, - I wonder what Christ would think about Breda O'Brien's column of April 23rd and how we as Christians should respond. I suggest that Benedict XVI does not need Ms O'Brien to defend him. I would hope that others who rejoice in the election of Pope Benedict will have the generosity to try not to alienate further those who are not overjoyed at this time.
Perhaps we can hope that Benedict will be interested in offering a way towards reconciliation, in the name of Christ, than in seeking to rub people's noses in the fact that for the foreseeable future half the Catholic population will be excluded from church leadership on the basis of gender. Will theologians, religious and clergy who raise questions about this be censured as usual?
Perhaps Pope Benedict will be inspired to explain to a generation of women why they are to be excluded in the name of Christ although their sisters are not excluded from medicine, law, business, and journalism. Why is gender the deciding point? Do men submit better in a hierarchy than women? Would women expect that discussion and joint decisions should take place, whereas men are more comfortable with electing someone to absolute authority?
Woe to women who hear the invitation, "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep". Previous generations might be conditioned not to think and act in their vocation as equals with their brothers and might defer to the decisions of the opposite gender in all significant matters pertaining to their field of work.
Woe to men of goodwill who are sensitive to the predicament of women.
Woe to the Church of Christ if she rejoices in the defeat of the weak and the maintenance of the status quo for its own sake. - Yours, etc,
CAITRIONA McCLEAN, Weston Avenue, Lucan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Some recent letter-writers seem to suggest that those who are not prepared to operate within the Roman Catholic Church have no business criticising the new Pope.
What a strange idea - as though only Catholics can be offended by misogyny or homophobia! - Yours, etc,
BARRY PURCELL, O'Connell Street, Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - My missionary colleague and friend Fr Sean McDonagh is perhaps a little premature in his appraisal of our new Pope (April 21st). I too shared his dismay when I heard that Joseph Ratzinger had been elected Pope. But on reflection I concluded that the wisdom of 115 cardinals meeting in conclave could not be casually brushed aside. We should remember that the wheels of the Vatican grind slowly, but they grind.
Pope Benedict may yet surprise us all. A Pope who plays the piano and likes Mozart and Beethoven cannot be all that bad! - Yours, etc,
Fr MICHAEL O'NEILL, St Columban's, Navan, Co Meath.
Madam, - Prof Finbar McAuley (April 26th) takes Gina Menzies to task for asserting that the "last century was the first time the church. . .condemned the death penalty". Prof McAuley says that Pope Innocent III, during the Fourth Lateran Council, "roundly condemned" the death penalty, "effectively bringing to an end the centuries-old practice of trial by fire and water". Since this Council was convened in 1215, perhaps Prof McAuley can explain how, in 1415, at the Council of Constance, Jan Hus, the Bohemian ecclesiastical reformer, was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake, and how again, in 1600, Giordano Bruno's unorthodox thinking was rewarded with the same punishment by the Inquisition - later to be renamed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. - Yours, etc,
TONY FAHEY, Broadford Close, Ballinteer, Dublin 16.
Madam, - Joe Foyle (April 27th) proposes a new idol for Catholics in the era of Pope Benedict XVI as an antidote to growing secularism - the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church. He asserts that "for Catholics that document replaces the Bible and the Vatican II documents".
The 1992 catechism is a man-made document and to assert that it replaces the Word of God and the infallible teachings of an Ecumenical Council as the ultimate truth is nothing short of a perversion of Christianity. - Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER, Pennock Hill, Swords, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Congratulations to John Waters for doing what some other Irish Times columnists appear to hate doing: studying their subject matter properly and presenting the facts. Readers are bored with the trite cant of the 1980s, and John Waters is to be commended for eschewing the bumph that makes easy copy and tackling hard ideas instead. - Yours, etc,
Dr ORLA HALPENNY, Glenard University Residence, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14.
Madam, - History sometimes judges former popes harshly. Let us not judge Pope Benedict harshly before history has the chance. - Yours, etc,
HUGH O'CONNOR, Greenfield Road, Mount Merrion, Co Dublin.