Sir, - On my visits to Pilgrim House Community I met remarkable people. The beautiful environment they have created for their residents and guests is a tribute to their combined ingenuity and skills. The community life of prayer is inspiring. Their commitment to social action inspired by the gospel is whole-hearted and practical, shown in their care for the handicapped members of the community and in the manner in which they espoused the cause of refugees. It can also be uncompromising.
They do not give up easily, a fact to which the Department of Justice can testify, following the long - and unsuccessful - campaign by the community for permission to bring a group of handicapped children from East Africa to Wexford. Perhaps their reputation as tireless campaigners had gone before them to Israel?
I have never paid a visit to them from which I did not return humbled by the example of men and women who literally sold all they had to follow the call of the gospel. They have been described as a "fringe group" within the Catholic Church, but they are a lot closer to the gospel than the comparative mediocrity of the "mainstream" Catholic who writes this letter. - Yours, etc.,
John Byrne, OSA, Augustinian Community, Orlagh, Dublin 16.