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E-mailTime after time on RTé programmes analysing the Catholic church, it s representatives are accused of not engaging sufficiently with the media. All would be fine, we are told, if the church's representatives subjected themselves more readily to the station's liberal inquisitionists.
The reality of course is that when a church person does try to engage, they are subjected to a tirade of intemperate abuse, based on one of the station's narrow-minded hobby horses. Usually a prurient obsession with matters sexual.
This was clearly illustrated in Archbishop Martin's Holy Thursday discussion (monologue, being more appropriate) with Joe Little on RTé radio.
True to form, rather than giving us an unbiased opportunity to hear what the archbishop had to say, Mr Little launched into an offensive and ill-informed commentary on the church's teaching on homosexuality.
Without wishing to cause offence, it's estimated that those of such an inclination represent a tiny percentage of the population; totally out of balance with RTé's obsession with the subject.
One fails to understand the station's attitude.
Even if we give RTé and Mr Little the benefit of the doubt, and assume their motives are altruistic, why not berate other institutions/organisations which discriminate against homosexuals – the Blood Transfusion Board being a classic example.
Strangely, I have yet to hear a spokesperson from the board subjected to the kind of self-righteous indignation one usually hears directed against the Catholic church on this subject. Perhaps I'm being unduly cynical?
Eric Conway,
Balreask Village,
Navan,
Co Meath.
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As one who has frequently written to the Letters Columns of the National media on the issue of homosexuality, it is surprising that Mr Conway declines to give an approximate percantage for the proportion of the population that is gay. The figure is somewhere between 5% and say 8%, depending on the source you use.
A particular difficulty for the Church is that there is good reason to believe that the proportion of those in religous life who are Gay is higher than in the General popualtion and the reasons why that should be so are not too difficult to understand.
The real challenge for the Church is to absorb the growing evidence that homosexuality is part of nature or Gods Design, call it what you will.
A of lot of us in the non gay community have, so what is the difficulty ?