AS a 76-year-old Irish pensioner I am sickened but not surprised at the blatantly anti-semitic statements by the Minister for Foreign, Micheál Martin, concerning the tragic events surrounding the shipments heading for Gaza this week.

THE Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, had the audacity to assume that role in government while refusing to publish the report into child abuse in the Cloyne diocese which he had in his possession for several months.

THE Large Hydran Collider (LHC), which lies under the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, is scheduled to go online today.

WHY is there such furore over the recent speech by Pope Benedict XV1 in which he referred to remarks from Emperor Manual II Paleologos of Byzantine.

YOUR editorial (Irish Examiner, April 20) refers to “the controversy raging following the concelebration of Easter Mass by Catholic priests and a Church of Ireland clergyman in Drogheda”.

YOUR editorial (Irish Examiner, April 20) refers to “the controversy raging following the concelebration of Easter Mass by Catholic priests and a Church of Ireland clergyman in Drogheda”.

I REFER to Patrick Geaney’s letter (‘What the Church’s oath of perpetual silence really means,’ Irish Examiner, June 20).

IN September 2001, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, caused dismay in ecclesiastical circles when he said Christianity in Britain had been all but vanquished.

JOSEPH BARRY (Irish Examiner letters, June 1) wrongly concludes that “the strictest secret” in the Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis refers to “the secrets which a Catholic priest hears from penitents in confession.”

I COULD not help crying when I read the letter from George Longhurst (Irish Examiner, May 18) who bravely faced up to his American bishop in the pursuit of justice for a 10-year-old victim of clerical abuse.

REV GERARD GARRETT (Irish Examiner letters, May 18) is wrong when he says that “Crimen Sollicitationis (is) a Vatican document dealing principally with solicitation by priests in the course of confession.”

IT IS understandable that Patrick Geaney and Mark Ryan (Irish Examiner, letters, May 11), because of the wording of its title, both jumped to the conclusion that Crimen Sollicitationis was sent to all the bishops.

IN his letter (Irish Examiner, April 27), Patrick Geaney referred to a letter written in May 2001 by the present Pope in which he reminded bishops that the Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis was “still in force”.

THE Vatican document Crimen Sollicitationis, referred to by Patrick Geaney (Irish Examiner letters, April 27 and May 11), prompted my resignation from the priesthood in 1984.

I POINTED OUT (Irish Examiner letters, April 27) that “by means of the 1962 document Crimen Sollicitationis, the Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of clerical sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the church.”

CONTRARY to Patrick Geaney’s letter (Irish Examiner, April 27), neither the document Crimen Sollicitationis of 1962 nor Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter of May 2001 give any permit to Catholic bishops to conceal criminal acts of child abuse from the civil authorities.

THE new Pope who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.