Death or conscience? Test fit for a saint

YOU demur (Editorial, October 29) at the beatification in Rome of the 498 martyrs of the 1936-’39 Spanish civil war.

Yet the Pope said the new Blessed “with their words and deeds of pardon towards their persecutors encourage us to work tirelessly for mercy, reconciliation and peaceful coexistence”.

I remember reading the reports from Spain in the Cork Examiner 70 years ago and we now know that about one million perished in the atrocities on both sides, among them about 7,000 nuns, monks, priests and bishops.

You write about silence and sensitivity. Perhaps you may take these ‘sensitive’ facts from nearer home on board. During the 16th/17th centuries in Britain and Ireland, the authority of the Pope was rejected in the dominions of the English monarch and a state church was established by law.

In England, it won the allegiance of the majority, but in Ireland it did not. In each country there were many men and women who came up against the sharp choice of death or conscience.

You may remember Pope John Paul II in 1987 beatifying 85 English and Welsh martyrs. Their names were added to the great roll of honour: Cardinal John Fisher and Sir Thomas More, who were canonised in 1935, the 40 English martyrs canonised in 1970 and the 155 beatified in three groups in 1886, 1895 and 1929. But there was only one Irish canonisation from that period: St Oliver Plunkett, beatified in 1921 and canonised in 1975, though two among the English martyrs were actually Irish priests.

You surely remember the 17 Irishmen and women martyrs of that same period beatified in September 1992. We have a memorial to them at a Mass rock in a beautiful glen in this parish.

Fr Tom Kelleher

Courceys

Kinsale

Co Cork