Sir, - In your editorial (December 31st) under the heading "Things of Caesar", you offered criticism of the homily shared by Archbishop Connell in the Pro Cathedral on Holy Family Sunday. Your title was interesting, implying by your drawing on Matthew 22:21 that somehow you had the weight of Jesus behind you in your critical commentary.
In fact the weight of Biblical scholarship suggests that when Jesus said to the pharisees: "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's", it was simply a witty ad hominem comment in a contentious situation. He was not offering a theory of political obligations or of Church State relations. If there was a serious message in what he was saying, it was that they should worry less about what issue to Caesar (the State) and pay more attention to giving God his due. Judge for yourself to which of these concerns the Archbishop's, attention was focused and which was the primary focus of your editorial.
In all honesty, I must tell you that the Biblical scholarship I have consulted is largely in the Catholic tradition. Noting your advocacy of a positive discrimination against Catholic moral thought in the search for a wisdom to guide the State, I suspect you won't have much regard for its Biblical scholarship either.- Yours, etc.,
Roslea,
La Touche Rd.,
Greystones,
Co. Wicklow.