Sir, - Archbishop Connell is to be congratulated on his powerful and courageous statement. Pope Paul VI's Humanae Vitae may not make for comfortable reading. Yet it is one of the most important and prescient documents of our time.
The Catholic Church in this country would be failing in its duty were it to allow itself to be browbeaten into silence on this most vital topic, because there are real, if not always direct, consequences - for children in the first instance, and also for women, and for men.
As regards the flak, this is to be welcomed. It is, I would suggest, evidence of a deep-seated anxiety that Pope Paul (and Archbishop Connell) may, after all, be right; an anxiety that therefore needs to be addressed. - Yours, etc., Cllr Richard Greene,
The Palms, Roebuck Rd, Dublin 14.