A chara, – Ireland is now broadly considered to be a secular, diverse, multicultural and multi-faith country. The Angelus, however, is Catholic in its origins and a call to prayer to Catholics and continues to be broadcast at noon and 6 pm on RTÉ Radio 1 and at 6pm on RTÉ 1 television, despite the fact that huge numbers of people either no longer consider themselves as Catholics and have lapsed (I am in this category), or are people of different faiths, or no faith at all.
While I object to the playing of the Angelus on national radio and television, I am infuriated by the current title of the Angelus running on RTÉ 1 television, which is “The People’s Angelus”. This sets the Angelus up as being an anthem or call to prayer for all of the people of Ireland, which it clearly is not.
I would like to see RTÉ remove the Angelus completely from all national television and radio programming, and I will campaign to see this come to pass, but at the very least RTÉ should remove the claim that the Angelus is “The People’s Angelus”.
This is not intended in any way to be disrespectful to Catholics, rather it is intended to be respectful to, and inclusive of, the very many non-Catholic people – Irish and non-Irish – living in Ireland today. – Yours, etc,
GARY DOYLE,
Straffan, Co Kildare.