Godless Ireland?

Sir, - Ian Hughes's article on the death of the Enlightenment's rational God (Rite and Reason, October 29th) was excellent

Sir, - Ian Hughes's article on the death of the Enlightenment's rational God (Rite and Reason, October 29th) was excellent. Unlike most scientists, who see themselves as the high priests of the age, he was willing to consider the possibility that God reveals himself not to those who wish to prove Him within their ken, and therefore finite, but to those who seek Him in grief and humility. That is where He was to be found two millennia ago, and that is where He is to be found today - in the inexplicable lives of service given by people so humble they will never feature in the mass media. They are people of all faiths and none, lay and clerical. Many are women whose greatest talent - compassion - was described recently by the governor of Mountjoy prison as sadly lacking in mainstream Irish society.

It is certainly lacking in our attitude to Mountjoy itself: we send our uncontrollables there to be controlled in appalling circumstances. If there was a genuine desire among Ireland's most powerful and wealthy people to bring the light of Christ to Ireland's darkest corner, they would begin by using a little of Ireland's new-found wealth to urgently rehabilitate our prison service. Instead they lament the decline of Ireland's moral standards while riding the gravy train to perdition.

God is contradictory, not "rational" - because He loves particularly those who suffer, not those who exercise power with complete selfishness. If Ireland is to deserve the continued presence of God it must become a contradictory society - by proving that affluence is an opportunity for greater generosity rather than greater self-indulgence. - Yours, etc.,

Sean O'Conaill,

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