Madam, - On a recent visit to Knock with my young family, we did the usual tourist bit around the basilica and the chapel.
In one of the many shops selling souvenirs in the vicinity, I picked up a freesheet Catholic publication which seemed to me to single out your newspaper, and indeed you personally, as being profoundly "anti-life".
Criticism in particular related to The Irish Times's coverage of the recent Schiavo "right-to-die" case in America.
In one of the little souvenir shops where this freesheet was available, children's toy guns were on sale. Does a gun do anything other than extinguish life, or try to?
Toy guns are banned from my house for the very reason that I want my three young sons to respect life. I think the Catholics in Knock are a little confused. - Yours, etc,
RUTH FAY, Tipper South, Naas, Co Kildare.