Madam, - A disinterested bystander might be forgiven for believing that all of Rev Eamonn P. Bourke's pleas concerning the call to priestly ministry (November 24th) had been answered in the documentary The Last Judgment, shown on RTÉ three days earlier. Father Bourke pleads that those who feel called to priestly ministry and the religious life should respond with courage and generosity. The documentary showed that there are many who are ready, willing and able to respond in just such a way. Problem solved, one might think.
Ah, but of course there's the obstacle: that of gender. Imagine one's very source being an obstacle to answering a call about which one is in no doubt at all! The people in power at the time put that obstacle in place several hundred years ago; those in power today are the people who can remove it.
In the many comments I have heard about the very sensitive and dignified documentary The Last Judgment, not one was adverse. And one went as follows: "Mark my words, one day the prohibition on women's ordination will vanish in a puff of smoke, just as Limbo has done". Indeed. - Yours, etc,
BETTY MAHER, Vernon Grove, Rathgar, Dublin 6.