Wrong singer

CRITICISM of the Catholic Church’s response to child abuse in Ireland by Rev Ian Paisley rings very hollow.

I have no problem with the message ... just with the messenger.

That the Catholic Church has lost much credibility over the way it dealt with paedophile priests is perhaps an understatement, but when Paisley moralises, the words pot, kettle and black emerge.

More than any other individual, he stoked the fires of sectarian hatred in the North, inciting the outbreak of communal violence in the 1960s and decades of sectarian violence since. This is the man who in 1969 said of Catholics: “They breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin”.

Paisley has poisoned generations in Northern Ireland and polluted the name of Protestantism. What moral authority has this unrepentant bigot to criticise anyone in this state? He should be shunned like the political pygmy and religious hypocrite he is.

Tom Cooper

Delaford Lawn

Knocklyon

Dublin 16