Sir, - King Baudouin of the Belgians, when faced 10 years ago with an abortion Bill passed by parliament, exclaimed: "Is the King the only person in Belgium not to be allowed a conscience?" He refused to sign it, abdicated for one day, and died a few years later.
A head of state is not only a symbol of his/her people but a witness, a living witness of the traditional historical values of the people. The head of state has a conscience and cannot separate public from private morality. It is as a person committed to uphold moral and spiritual values that has his/her signature appended to any document put before him/her. All political problems and actions are moral and are spiritual as well as legal, because the human person is a spiritual and moral being with a conscience to know and to do good.
How many times in the 20th century and before (back to Pontius Pilate), has the head of state failed to follow conscience and signed what was put before him/ her, and so plunged his/her people into chaos? However, other heads refused to sign and died as witnesses to their people - martyrs to justice and morality, and thereby saved their people spiritually.
I do not think any head of state can say, "I'll sign anything put before me even abortion on demand". Such an attitude is a denial of the Irish Constitution, "under God". Faced with evil, one must, like St Thomas More, say: "No". - Yours, etc.,
From Mgr Denis Faul
Dungannon, Co. Tyrone.