Madam, - Conor Brady, in an excerpt from his book Up With The Times (Weekend Review, October 8th), states that the steep decline in vocations to the religious life "can be said to have begun with the fall of Bishop Casey". In fact the decline began more than 20 years earlier.
The statistics for those entering seminaries in the years 1968-1970 show a noticeable drop from previous years. By the time Bishop Casey left Ireland in 1992, the trend noted since 1968/69 was already well established. - Yours, etc,
TOM MURPHY, St Columbans, Dalgan Park, Navan, Co Meath.