Church needs real leaders to stand up to secularism

ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, referring to public protests against abortion in Ireland, says, “you can’t absolutise” (‘Archbishop warns against abortion protests near GPs,’ Irish Independent, January 7). A first-year philosophy student will know that this is self-contradictory.

Dr Martin is also quoted as saying: “I’m not a person personally for protest.”

It’s just as well that his prestigious precursor St Patrick wasn’t quite so mealy mouthed in making a stand for right against brutality. St Patrick made a strenuous protest against the deprecations of Coroticus against Patrick’s sons and daughters, and demanded that all Catholics were to boycott Coroticus and his underlings until “they should repent in tears and make satisfaction for their wrongs”.

Cardinal John Henry Newman writing about those in Holy Orders, including archbishops, quoting St Paul, says, “He (Christ) has appointed (clerics) – men, like you, exposed to temptations, to the same temptations, to the same warfare within and without; with the three same deadly enemies – the world, the flesh, and the devil; with the same human, the same wayward heart”; and ends the discourse by imploring that his listeners “pray for them (priests), that they may gain the great gift of perseverance, lest, perchance, after they have preached to others, they themselves become reprobate”.

The media appear to be fixated on the “flesh” aspect of temptation; I suggest more attention be given to “the world” and “the devil” aspects. Perhaps, then, Irish Catholicism can get good leadership and recover the spirit of St Patrick, and make a real stand against an aggressive and brutal secularism. Micheál O’Cathail

Dún Laoghaire, Dublin