Sir, - With regard to Rory O'Hanlon's intervention in the debate concerning the Taoiseach and Ms Larkin, mea culpa for misleading the readers of The Irish Times by suggesting that Mr O'Hanlon's removal as President of the Law Reform Commission was because of his membership of Opus Dei (Opinion, January 6th). Mr O'Hanlon clearly believes (Letters, January 11th) that the reason for his dismissal was that he publicly stated his opposition to abortion in the run-up to the Maastricht Treaty.
Around the same time as Mr O'Hanlon made that public declaration, President Robinson made a speech in Waterford which was published in the national press, indicating how the Irish people might deal with the abortion issue. Mr O'Hanlon's and the then President's views on abortion were diametrically opposed to each other. But Mr O'Hanlon was dismissed from his position for publicly articulating his views, while President Robinson remained in hers, sustained by the overwhelming odour of what was deemed a "politically correct" perspective on that issue.
That is why Mr O'Hanlon's membership of Opus Dei struck me as having something to do with his dismissal from the Law Reform Commission, because belonging to that organisation was, and remains, outside the Pale of political correctness. Ever since, I have been fascinated at how a consensus is arrived at concerning viewpoints or personal lives. This finds its way into the press and the national airwaves and into attempts to bully people into thinking "politically correct" things only.
A current example of an issue about which we are supposed to think along "politically correct" lines concerns the Taoiseach and Ms Celia Larkin. But in my view Mr O'Hanlon is wrong in his assessment of the Hierarchy's silence on that relationship. One can, with a clear conscience, remain silent out of respect for another, rather than subject that person to the humiliation of a public condemnation. Silence does not always mean cowardice or dereliction of duty. - Yours, etc., Dr Noreen O'Carroll,
The Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin 6.