Sir, - I am a Roman Catholic, and I was saddened to read the statement by a lay Catholic group calling on the Government to abandon plans to erect the "Spike" in O'Connell Street and asking that a statue of Christ the King or St Patrick be erected instead (The Irish Times, January 4th).
The elegant, beautiful spire will be, for me, a symbol of hope and joy for the third millennium: a beacon of light shining forth over our city. Liturgy speaks frequently of light. "The light of Christ." "Lighten our darkness." "Lead, kindly light." Can this Catholic group not see the significance and potential of this symbol? Were not the great cathedral spires of medieval times a symbolic reaching upwards to the transcendental?
To those who see not beauty but a spike, I would say: "Lift up your hearts." A statue, however fine, compared with this beacon of light, is as prose is to poetry.
I do, however, agree with one view expressed in the statement by this group. There has been an odd omission from the various celebrations of the "millennium". I would like to see at the base of the spire a quiet reference to what we are celebrating and an invitation to people of all denominations and none to raise their hearts and minds and see this beacon of light as a call to peace and harmony. - Yours, etc.,
Noel Masterson, Riverside Drive, Churchtown, Dublin 14.