The Catholic bishops' spokesman, Father Martin Clarke, has responded forcefully to claims by the Irish Countrywomen's Association president, Mrs Eva Coyle, that they were ignoring "the immorality of poverty".
She was commenting in the context of the launch by the bishopslast Wednesday of their One Bread One Body document on the Eucharist.
"The comments by Mrs Coyle on behalf of a major national organisation are singularly ill-informed," Father Clarke said in a statement yesterday.
"Within the past 10 days alone there were significant interventions which are indicative of the church's profound concern for the marginalised in our society."
On September 25th the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, issued a powerful challenge to society and the Government concerning the scandalous level of deprivation which afflicts many in Dublin's inner city, Father Clarke said.
Two days before this, he said, the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, an agency of the Bishops' Conference, published Rewriting the Constitution, a 100-page document which contains radical proposals for the insertion of four core socio-economic rights into the Constitution.
