Sir, - Last Saturday I attended a rally outside the Department of Justice in support of fair treatment for refugees. The rally was addressed by refugees, a civil liberties spokesman and some leftwing politicians. Among the crowd were some progressive priests and nuns whom I know personally and who have a longstanding commitment to the issue. There was, however, no address from any representative of the established churches. Once again, our supposed spiritual advisers lost the opportunity to make an authoritative statement about how we Irish should behave towards our fellow human beings.
In a year when the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church is finally apologising to the Jewish community for its silence during the second World War, it is essential that the same mistakes should not be repeated. Men, women and children were hounded into extinction during that war; today, brutal regimes all over the world continue their genocidal persecution. The church has no excuse of ignorance because it is present in all the countries where this is happening. And it is present here also, where refugees and other racial minorities are subject to systematic abuse by the media, the Government, the Department of Justice, the police and courts, and by the increasing section of the public that is influenced by the scapegoating hysteria that has been whipped up. Is it too much to expect the bishops to make a definitive statement on racism, now that the problem is with us? - Yours, etc? Gordon MacKenzie,
Oxmantown Road, Dublin 7.