Madam, - On your Letters page two years ago, I sincerely questioned the wherabouts of God, specifically when the twin towers in New York were attacked, and generally at times of world catastrophes.
More recently, I heard a priest on the radio struggling to explain that such human horrors have their origin in the misuse of free will by mankind, or sections of it. He cited famine and disease in Third World countries, which he said were the result of corrupt local governments or widespread inaction by the "haves" on our planet.
God would not interfere with the gift of choice, however awful the consequences for innocent people and children.
He omitted the question of natural disasters, where there is no human agency. I wonder could the clever Father David O'Hanlon suspend his obsession with defending Roman Catholic orthodoxy for long enough to explain why a just God allowed a recent convulsion of the earth's surface to leave 35,000 Iranians dead and further 40,000 homeless?
And please would he not pass it off as a divine mystery! - Yours, etc.,
OLIVER McGRANE, Marley Avenue, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.