Patrick O'Donovan on Dave Allen jokes or jibes?

I have the greatest regard for Mr Patrick O'Donovan's judgment as a rule, but I was amazed and shocked at his attempted defence of the Irish comedian, Mr Dave Allen.
What Mr O'Donovan writes might have covered Mr Allen's earlier programmes because he had learnt in Ireland, before overwhelmingly Catholic audiences, what would be acceptable and what not.
Appearing here before overwhelmingly non-Catholic audiences he has lost his old restraint. The Holy Father falling out of his Sedia Gestatoria, the Holy Father performing a striptease dance before a bevy of cardinals, Mr Allen saying the Catholic Church offers women only the choice of perpetual chastity or perpetual pregnancy; these things are of a wholly different order to the priestly jokes inside the family in Ireland.
It is true that Jewish comedians make fun of Jews, as Scottish comedians make fun of Scots, but always for their reputed business proclivities. I have never heard a Jewish comedian guy the Jewish religion. or a Scottish comedian deride the Kirk.
I am sure the BBC, under its Catholic Director-General, would never allow the Mohammedan religion or its institutions to be treated in this way, any more than it would allow a comedian to treat Her Majesty the Queen with the gross disrespect shown to His Holiness the Pope. Douglas Woodruff Marcham Priory,
Near Abingdon, Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire.
I am amazed that a responsible journalist like Patrick O'Donovan should make use (March 12) of adjectives such as "soppy" and "lugubrious" to describe that lovely old hymn "Hail Glorious St Patrick." I have detected an anti-Irish bias in some of his recent writings, and if, as he says, his parish has stopped using it, theirs is the shame.
I would love to hear Mr O'Donovan sing it in waltz time. What rubbish! How many people have ever heard of the supposedly Irish hymns "Lord Of All Happiness" and "High King of Heaven." and what is the "marvellous Irish air" to which the former is set? Perhaps Mr O'Donovan would oblige with a few bars.
As a junior officer in the Royal Navy I was privileged on many occasions to take church parties of Catholics ashore to Mass. and I will always remember an occasion in March. 1942, in a little Church in Bathurst. West Africa. where, unlike Mr O'Donovan's experience,
this hymn was sung with great fervour by my sailors, assisted by the coloured congregation. St Patrick himself would have been delighted!
His defence of that alleged comedian. Dave Allen. really astonishes me, as does his assertion that Allen's jokes are the sort that "educated Irishmen" have told among themselves for years professional types exchanging dirty stories at annual seminars!
Mr O'Donovan must know that Allen's sly, snide, innuendo-laden, corner-boy humour, has given great offence to many people, and that its visual quality makes it doubly offensive.
Vincent Mulligan ien. ,
6 Daylesford Avenue, Putney, London, SW15. 6 Daylesford Avenue, Putney, London, SW15.
Sister's thanks to donors
Thank you for printing my letter of March 5 in which I suggested that each Catholic should send 20p to the Westminster Cathedral Appeal Fund.
Since it was published 1 have received a number of donations, which I have forwarded to Mgr F. Miles. who is involved in the collection of donations.
I have written to those who gave their addresses to thank them for their generosity. But there have been some anonymous donors and I would he grateful if you could print this letter to thank them, and assure them that their donations have been forwarded.
(Sister) Kathleen Bulley, SND Convent of Notrc Dame.
118 St George's Road, Southwark.
London. SEI
Israel bias
From Lady Richmond
Your long-standing campaign for diplomatic recognition of the State or Israel by the Holy See can not he advanced by eager acceptance of reports from Israel of a change in Vatican views on the status of Jerusalem. (March 12).
Should not a Catholic paper check with Catholic sources before giving currency to Israeli reports which have drawn an immediate denial from Rome?
Diana Richmond 20 The Avenue, Durham City.