Sir, – No doubt you receive many, many letters on the Catholic Church, and perhaps the letters you actually publish faithfully reflect the content of the letters you are sent – hostile and critical for the most part, or proposing "reforms" which would overturn centuries of Catholic tradition, and in some cases would be in direct contradiction of the Gospel. Your recent editorial (April 13th) on the Catholic priesthood, to be fair, was friendly and sympathetic in tone, but I am sure that I am not the only Catholic who also found it unduly negative, and who wrote in to say so.
Even unbelievers, tuning in to the daily 10.30am Mass broadcast on the RTÉ News channel, would surely be impressed by the quality and sincerity of the various priests, and the intrinsic beauty of the service itself, and experience hope in difficult times. In normal times, this wonderful sacrament is still available in nearly every parish, two or three times a week if not every day. I think most Catholics will thank God that this is so for the present, and will leave the future in His hands. But you did not publish any letters along these lines. The only published response so far (Letters, April 15th) featured the old chestnut about women priests. – Yours, etc,
JIM STACK,
Lismore,
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Co Waterford.