Madam, - On reading the letter from Wallace Thompson of the Evangelical Protestant Society (January 22nd) about the selling of rosaries in St Patrick's Cathedral, I felt both saddened and disgusted. Being a 17-year-old girl of Protestant background, I find this attitude grossly ignorant and absolutely shameful.
Why is it that Catholicism and Protestantism are so often presented as conflicting religions? This country has too long fostered the idea that Catholicism contradicts Protestantism when, if people would just rise above their pride and fear, they would see the division is primarily cultural. It is a question of different practices, not contrasting beliefs, and the Rosary is just an example of these practices.
As a young Christian living in the new Ireland, I shudder to
think that incredibly backward and narrow-minded views such as
those of the Evangelical Protestant Society still exist on this
"cosmopolitan" island. I look forward to the Ireland of the future,
my future, free from cultural and religious intolerance. - Yours,
etc,
FIONA ORR,
Clova Lordello Road,
Shankill,
Co Dublin.
Madam, - Perhaps the finest book of meditations on the Rosary in
recent years is Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy by Rev J. Neville
Ward, an English Methodist who served as a chaplain at London
University and in an ecumenical parish in Canterbury. Written in
1975, it is still in print. - Yours, etc,
PHIL MORTELL,
Ferndale,
Limerick.
Madam, - With the Belfast Agreement I thought we had consigned
views like those of like Wallace Thompson (January 22nd) to the
historical dustbin. Thankfully, Rev Marie Rowley-Brooke (January
23rd) shows the true spirit of Christianity. - Yours, etc,
DERMOT SWEENEY,
Viking Harbour,
Dublin 8.