A chara, – Rev Dr Chris Hayden is right to draw our attention to Atheist Ireland's misrepresentation of the Annunciation as part of their campaign for a secular school system ("Atheist Ireland's retelling of the Annunciation story is perverse", Opinion & Analysis, November 17th). It is quite disingenuous to create a caricature of something, critique that, and then use it as the basis for condemning the original.
However, it might be best not to attach too much significance to its pronouncements. They are, after all, a very small group of people; and they speak only for themselves, despite the occasional attempt to add weight to what they say by claiming to also represent all those who indicate no religious preference on the census, Catholics whom they feel are not sufficiently committed to their faith, and indeed, on occasion, members of other minority denominations and faiths. The fact that they receive such a significant amount of media coverage relative to their actual constituency is, I think, not that surprising; after all, they share with our media a vision of a future where secularism is allowed to erase all hint of religion from the public arena.
Something very important, however, does come out of this relatively minor affair. Atheist Ireland has, by the total lack of respect it has displayed toward one of the central events of Christian salvation history, very much undermined the myth it tried to peddle that a secular school system would be a neutral one that would deal respectfully with the religious beliefs of the communities they would be expected to serve. But, then again, I suppose it is impossible to undermine something that nobody really took seriously in the first place. – Is mise,
Rev PATRICK G BURKE,
Castlecomer,
Co Kilkenny.
Sir, – I followed Rev Dr Chris Hayden’s lead and consulted the Atheist Ireland website, expecting to find some mean-spirited mishandling of the Annunciation story. Although I have long-since stepped off the religious carousel, I can still remember the discussion which took place in my family that resulted in me taking the name Gabriel for Confirmation. It was, I was told, because I was born as the Angelus bell struck at noon, the time Gabriel allegedly appeared to Mary.
When later in life, I studied these matters in more depth, I discovered that myths of virgin birth seemed to be commonplace, and associated with great religious leaders, far too many to go into here.
With respect, it is these myths that children need to be acquainted with, covering all faiths and belief systems, and not confining the young to the dubious “verities” of any one religion. This can only happen in a school that is not afraid of ideas, which will not be a faith school. – Yours, etc,
PADDY McEVOY,
Holywood,
Co Down.