Sir, - Many articles in Irish newspapers marking the 20th anniversary of the Pope's visit were either critical, negative or failed to understand why the Pope came to Ireland.
It wasn't a "thank you" for 15 years of loyalty, or a "gig" or any of the other reasons attributed to him. He came because it was the centenary year of the apparition at Knock. He said that to the people when he first spoke in the Phoenix Park and again at Knock where he said he had reached the goal of his journey to Ireland.
The Pope was a pilgrim and if he wished to give us a message surely it is to be found in his pilgrimage to Knock.
The journalist who made the humorous suggestion that the miracle at Knock was the airport may have never read the statements of the 15 people who were privileged to witness the apparition. If he had he would realise they could not have invented it, and that nobody else could either. - Yours, etc.,
Tom Joyce, Saggart, Co Dublin.