Sir, - The Rev Martin Clarke (August 18th) invited submissions to the Irish bishops who will be taking part in a special assembly for Europe.
I responded, making the simple suggestion that the assembly would be more effective if all its members could converse with one another. I quoted support from a newly published book in German, Esperanto, das neue Latein der Kirche. This book reports increasing support for Esperanto within Catholic circles and emphasises the ecumenical relevance of the language.
Acknowledging my letter, Fr Clarke sent me a copy of the Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod. I would like to comment on Part I, on Europe towards the third millennium. This opens with quotations from the account in St Luke's Gospel of the two disciples whom Jesus joined as they walked to Emmaus.
This passage - Jesus's explanation of the scriptures, the disciples' recognition of him "in the breaking of bread", their instant return to the 11 in Jerusalem - is the text for the greater part of the 90-page Instrumentum Laboris.
Signs of the times, globalisation, migration, political transition, cultural change, are considered at some length. Positive observations are made. But later, reference is made to the decreasing number of vocations, the increasing pastoral workload on those who remain. In response, "the Church ought to encourage others to offer them an encouraging word . . ."
My question: How can responsible people read Luke, Chapter 24, and skip down to v.13, where the disciples set out to Emmaus, without noticing that in the preceding verses the women had come back from the tomb and given to the apostles the message that Christ had risen, "but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them".
The men on the road to Emmaus knew about this and told the stranger who had joined them on the road. His response: "O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken."
Could it be foolish to refrain from even glancing at women's involvement in "signs of the times"? - Yours, etc.,
Maire Mullarney, Whitechurch Road, Dublin 14.