Sir, – Brendan Butler’s caricature of Fr Brendan Hoban as making it a “litmus test” for Catholics that they “close ranks against the evil media” (August 8th) is a shoot-the-messenger tactic. Fr Hoban was perfectly right to deplore the witchhunt thinking of many bloggers and some newspaper columnists. Their declared hostility to the church is every bit as fanatical as the Jansenism of the past.
I ministered at one time to residents of a “Magdalene” institution, whose health and cheerfulness in old age hardly substantiated Mr Butler’s picture of them as systematically abused and dehumanised.
The solidarity among women and the reconciliation between the sisters and their former charges that Mr Butler calls for is not being helped by the fanaticism of the witch-hunters. – Yours, etc,
Rev JOSEPH S O’LEARY,
DD, Department of English
Literature,
Sophia University,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan.