Madam, – In the interest of fairness and equality, The Irish Times will, of course, allow the priests, whose sermons have been subject to journalistic critique (Weekend Review, March 20th), to, in turn, provide their own reflections upon the work of the respective journalists? Such a critique will appear on the front of the Weekend Review? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Your journalists’ assessments and critiques of Lenten sermons (Weekend Review, March 20th) are tame compared to what novelist Kate O’Brien wrote on the same subject almost 50 years ago: “I have heard bad sermons all over the world, and I believe a good sermon to be the whitest of blackbirds; I have listened to only to two that I remember for merit. But for sheer agonising badness, flatness, inexcusable platitudinous fatuity those Christmas sermons from the various head priests of St John’s Cathedral over my years of childhood and girlhood – and I was an attentive listener – take all the cakes and every imaginable biscuit. They were agonising, that is all I can say. And some of those flinty, dead, unholy voices I can hear this minute, as I write. Well, God has forgiven the well-meaning men, if I have not.” (Presentation Parlour, 1963). – Yours, etc,