Madam, - It would, I think, be hard to dispute Dr Garret FitzGerald's assertion, reported in your edition of October 20th that if Catholic bishops had families of their own "they would surely have reacted differently" to the clerical sex abuse scandals.
But the argument must be pushed back further, I believe. Bishops don't just appear out of nowhere; they come from a pool of, on the whole, very committed Christians, who have been ordained by the church to full ministry. Therefore, of course, they are of one gender only. And this, I believe, is where the root of the dreadful imbalance lies - the imbalance which has so often led to the making of quite inexplicable decisions by church authorities in many matters, especially those concerning women and children.
Patriarchy thrives worldwide, and nowhere more surely than within the institutional Catholic church, often to the detriment of its members.
The Benedictine theologian Joan Chittister puts it succinctly. She contends that because of patriarchy, "humanity walks on one leg, sees with one eye, thinks with half its brain - and it shows". - Yours, etc,
BETTY MAHER, Vernon Grove, Dublin 6.