Freedom to practise religion was hard fought by our forefathers

Though not an adherent of any god or religion, I take exception to the full-page piece by your journalist, Kelly O’Brien, attacking aspects of the Catholic Church.

She and her interviewees display an arrogance and smugness that perhaps equal that of the Catholic Church itself after the foundation of this State.

Their arrogance certainly equals that of the Protestant Church, and its satellites, from the Penal Laws onwards.

Do these people not know how hard our forefathers fought for the liberty to practise the religion of their choice, and do they not know of the brutality of the efforts to destroy that liberty, because it was linked to the liberty of our country?

They cannot expect that history such as ours be swept away (nor will it be) in a wave of aspiration to a phoney, middle-class intellectualism.

Your article said that some people get their children baptised just to get them into a nearby school, and thus characterised them as victims of some sort.

I suggest that they are self-serving and without principle in this matter.

Finally, humanists.

Why do they need a label?

I wonder will they be the next, new religion?

Alice Hanratty

Henrietta St.

Dublin 1