Madam, - The Taoiseach is to be commended for his sentiments regarding the separation of Church and State and his desire for a "fruitful" dialogue between the two (Opinion & Analysis, July 7th).
However, any such dialogue must rest on clear and unprejudiced analysis. What, therefore, are non-religious citizens of this republic to make of Mr Ahern's view that "In a culture and society where God is dead, humanity cannot truly live"? To the humanist this is the "big lie" of theism - that without a god of some sort humankind is lost.
In support of this view Mr Ahern speaks of genocide across the continent of Europe. Is he familiar, I wonder, with the following quotation (one among many such passages): "Imbued with the desire to secure for the German people the great religious, moral, and cultural values rooted in the two Christian Confessions, we have abolished the political organisations but strengthened the religious institutions". This was said in the Reichstag in 1934 by the leader of the Nazi party. Incidentally, this party used the slogan "Kinder, Kirche, Kueche" (Children, Church, Kitchen).
As the above illustrates, religion is no bulwark against crimes against humanity- in fact history shows religion itself to be the instigator of many such crimes. The further suggestion by Mr Ahern of a causal relationship between the decline in religious belief and the rise of the modern scientific outlook is indicative of a decidedly fundamentalist turn of mind.
As the political leader of a secular state, why does the Taoiseach feel obliged to bare his soul to the nation, to proclaim his belief in and allegiance to a particular god? If his meeting with the Pope was a political one, his article should have "talked politics". If it was a religious meeting, it should surely have remained a private matter. - Yours, etc,
CORMAC O'CONNELL, Board Member, Humanist Association of Ireland, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Last week Bertie Ahern went to Rome to visit the Pope. He duly inserted an unctuous article in The Irish Times on the moral duties placed in the hands of those charged with shaping our society for the future, both in Ireland and in Europe. It would be commendable if he applied those arguments directly to real issues facing him at home.
Straining to be at once a model of both secular and Christian leadership, the Taoiseach writes: "If we want a European Union that is based on people rather than money, if we want a Europe of communities rather than of companies we will have to listen again to old truths." Fine words.
I hope the Taoiseach's newly acquired moral lucidity will bolster his determination to halt Shell's laying of high-pressure, onshore gas pipes on the Erris Peninsula, Co Mayo.
I wonder if his meeting with the Pope will spur him to demand the release of the Rossport Five, jailed for defending the very values Bertie appears to be espousing with the newly won faith in humanity of a political pilgrim to the Holy City. - Yours, etc,
NIAMH KEEGAN, Locronan, Taghmon, Wexford.