Sir, - It is fortunate that Liz O'Donnell is only Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, rather than actual Minister, in view of her undiplomatic capacity to escalate an issue in which most parties were acting with considerable restraint and discretion (The Irish Times, May 17th).
Neither Cardinal Connell nor the Catholic Church made any pronouncement on the specific private lives of the Taoiseach or Ms Larkin. Yet Liz O'Donnell sees the reality of scandals within the Church as grounds for the Church to not exercise one of its primary objectives, that of teaching - and, yes, teaching on private morality. Her triumphialist delight that most Catholics pay little attention to the Church on matters of private morality suggests a deeper agenda: that of wanting to immunise Irish society from the influence of the Church, other than perhaps giving its sanction to fashionable politically correct agendas. - Yours, etc.,
John P. McCarthy, Professor of History, Director, Institute of Irish Studies, Fordham University, New York, USA.