POPE AND PRESIDENT

Sir, Many people in this country will recall the visit to Ireland by the Pope

Sir, Many people in this country will recall the visit to Ireland by the Pope. At one of his last functions a young girl, bejeaned and bare headed if I rightly recall, ran up to him past security and presented him with a type of bouquet, though it looked like a plant. The Pope, far from objecting to the girl's behaviour, embraced her and sent her off happily.

I can't believe that now, so many years later, that same Pope - would be offended by the fact that an attractive, highly intelligent and enormously popular President would be dressed without being covered like the unfortunate veiled women of the backward Moslem countries.

Yet this is what Father O'Hanlon seems to be suggesting. Father, remember that this is 1997, not 1897. - Yours, etc.,

Gortlee, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.