Madam, - Surely your front page headline of April 27th on the coming into office of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is disingenuous, if not actually misleading. The so-called disagreement "with Vatican over Eucharist" is a distorted description of the new Archbishop of Dublin's response, not to some core principle of Catholic belief, but simply to a question at a news conference relating to the propriety of the pro-choice US Democratic presidential candidate being allowed to receive the Eucharist.
As reported earlier in The Irish Times, Cardinal Francis Arinze, speaking at the presentation of a new Vatican document on the Eucharist, in the Vatican, initially commented that the issue of Senator John Kerry, a practising Catholic, and the Eucharist was a matter for the Catholic bishops in the United States to clarify. It was only on persistent questioning, according to The Irish Times report, that Cardinal Arinze responded "Yes" when asked if a priest should refuse the senator Communion.
Admirably expressing concern that the Eucharist should not "become a political battleground", Archbishop Martin took great care not to get into this issue of such delicacy in the American presidential campaign. Unfortunately, not a trace of nuance was injected into your paper's headline.
On such a delicate issue as this, and on the occasion of the new prelate's first news conference, surely a more appropriately headlined report was the least your readers were entitled to? - Yours, etc.,
DES CRYAN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.