Sir, There are no doubt heavenly ironies and worldly ironies or I have learnt absolutely nothing from Fintan O'Toole's column on the Education Bill in The Irish Times (April 4th). The Church has no authority but Christ's and the authority which we, the faithful, invest in it through our belief in Christ. When Mr O'Toole defines the Church as an institution, he lapses to a dangerous reductionism which deprives it of meaning.
The Church exists to transmit the Sacraments and to preach the truth common to all Christians. "Ah!", says Mr O'Toole, "the missing data in this case is the infinite complexity of values and beliefs that lies behind mere membership of a particular church."
I don't wish to deprive Mr O'Toole of a job, but I would remind him that the "infinite complexity" that he refers to with such relish is the complexity of creation in its distance from its creator. For us human creatures, this distance is radical and defining.
It is called by the philosopher our "subjectivity" - being the "subjects" of creation. The Church ameliorates this lonely subjectivity with a common teaching and a natural law applicable to all men. The "infinite complexity" draws men to the fragmentation of individualities: the common teaching reminds men of their creaturliness and the distance they have to raise their eyes for true sight.
The worldly journalist can be expected to put the boot into flesh in that weak region of.its "infinite complexity", but the fact remains that the Church is still our best teacher by her nature. You cannot teach from what you do not have. The demos never has, of itself, an epistomology. The State, as the executive of the demos, can be no better off. In the terrifying freedom that God has bequeathed to us, I recommend the truth that is not ours but the Church's. At least I cannot boast it is my own! - Yours, etc.,
Piperstown,
Tallaght,
Dublin 24.