Sir, - Brendan Glacken is scraping the bottom of the barrel in his attempts at being funny in "Goodbye Churchie" (Times Square, April 10th). This piece was most unfunny, cheap and tasteless, and not worthy of the standard one expects in your pages.
By now, we are sick to death of the attacks made on the Church - the Catholic Church in Ireland, where else? - by those who have long since given up being members of it. Since the Church is made up of men and women, both with original sin, and prone to evil, it is not so strange that some, who are weak, should sometimes deviate from the paths of righteousness, just as others do in the worlds of politics, law, finance and business? While these lapses are lamentable and scandal-giving and cannot be condoned, yet they should not take from the gospel message that as Catholics we must try to follow.
Because Archbishop Brady, who has every right to do so, has come out against unseemly, over-the-top eulogies at funeral Masses, which take from the dignity of Catholic ritual, Brendan Glacken does not like "the old authority guff". Mr Glacken can opt out. He probably has. But the rest of us have the consoling assurance from Christ Himself that "the gates of Hell will not prevail" against His Church, and that He "will be with it all days, even to the end of the world".
The Catholic Church in Ireland may be ailing. But it is not down and out. - Yours, etc.
Vera Hughes, Moate, Co Westmeath.