Sir - What is it about the Catholic Church that she has the power to infuriate, to provoke, to be a thorn in the side, to be discussed endlessly on the airwaves, to be a contradiction, to be seen as a stumbling-block to progress, to seem always to go against current trends? Why are some of these expressions used so frequently and so virulently today in the Western world (including Ireland), which has itself been shaped over many centuries by its Christian faith and the Church and which, if it but realised it, owes much of what it now is to those very traditions?
Could it be, after all, that they show clearly that the Catholic Church does stand for something; that she has important things to say; that she does and will strongly defend the dignity of the human person; that she considers it necessary to oppose the new and nihilistic global ideologies and the uncertain future that they promise; that she will vigorously defend the basic right to life from womb to tomb; that she still encourages and supports lifelong, monogamous marriage between a man and a woman; that she continues to point out right from wrong; that she will fight against discrimination; that she will be - as she always has been - ever-ready to help the poor, the marginalised and the oppressed?
The Catholic Church does mean something and that fact cannot be simply dismissed as of little consequence in the editorial columns of The Irish Times, or any other Times for that matter.
Sorry folks, the Church will not go away - indeed, she cannot. That's the promise she received 2,000 years ago. - Yours, etc.,
Loughlinstown, Co. Dublin.