Sir, - I take courage from the interview with the Very Rev Robert MacCarthy (The Irish Times, November 25th) to emerge from my cul-de-sac and say my tuppence-worth in the knowledge that facts are sacred and transcend mere conjecture.
I was in a post-graduate class at UCD in the early 1950s when leave was given by Archbishop McQuaid to admit a Dutch group to address us on the still-unsettled papal ruling on artificial birth control. I knew that the Archbishop had no personal qualms abut the Church's perennial teaching on the matter, but conviction on a grave moral issue didn't dissuade him from exposing mature adults to the blandishments of articulate propagandists.
Moreover, he returned after they had left to thank them in their absence for stating their case, which we knew was still sub judice. Hardly the attitude of an unprincipled iron-fisted ruler who prejudged a superior, papal prerogative! - Is mise,
Fr Enda MacCormack. St Macartan's Home, Clogher, Co Tyrone.