Ignoring all the good which the Catholic Church did
Dear Editor,
Much of your paper’s content in the issue of the 29 th of May made sad reading. Your “Opinion – our view” article painted the Catholic Church in the worst possible light. Well, we Catholics whom you insulted are the Church and our mission is to leave the world a better place, to build up rather than destroy. The compassionate community is moulded by those active in it and Catholics are amongst the most involved in charitable work to help their communities be places of peace and justice.
In other articles, those against the teaching of the Church homed in on the few examples of wrong doing that took place while ignoring all the good the Church has bestowed on Ireland through the hard unpaid work of countless nuns and priests down through the many years in the fields of health, education and community life.
Anyhow, what did the Catholic Church do in the referendum but stand up for human rights? And we were castigated for so doing.
The Catholic Church was not alone in standing up for the right to life in recent debates and demonstrations. People of all religions and none saw that we all have a right to life. It’s the most basic of rights. Take it away and you take away all other rights. So why bash the Catholic Church for upholding this right? It appears that the Sligo Champion is no longer the champion of the vulnerable.
One of the roles of religion is to build a just and caring socie- ty. The “Yes” people talk about the introduction of abortion being for a “fairer and more caring society” but such action that treats babies as disposable can only make people less caring, more inhumane, and teach them to think that other people do not count. The Jews in Nazi Germany were seen as such – they could be disposed of.
To enter a wrong action onto our statute books as a legal right is to deny what is right and true and contrary to justice.
If our laws have no ethical basis they will have no validity. How can we as citizens have any respect for our laws if they incorporate such a contradiction?
The choice the voters made was a matter of life or death for the unborn. And it grieves me to think that about two thirds of those who voted chose death. I hope that they did not fully realise the impact of their vote. I would not want to think that we Irish really voted for death! The recent Darkness into Light walk showed thousands of us marching for life.
On Black Friday 25 th May, the Irish people in the twenty six counties dealt a blow to the long proud history that Ireland has had in support of human rights.
We can no longer boast of our national stance for freedom and life. Like many Americans we have abandoned the ideals we Irish held as regards the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Regards,
Páraic Mac Lochlainn 15 Knocknarea Villas, Sligo