Maynooth Summer School

IN an oblique reference to a recent letter of mine in the Irish Times, Gabriel Fallon writes (Sept. 15): "One can sympathise with Mr. Sheridan's viewpoint even without sharing it." But one can neither sympathise nor disagree with a viewpoint without knowing it, and in the only clue which Gabriel gave your readers he misled them and, incidentally, misrepresented me. "if Mr. Sheridan believes that poverty has been banished from our land," he wrote, "he would do well to consult the officers of the St. Vincent de Paul Society and the Catholic Social Service Conference." But I believe nothing of the kind. nor did I ever say it: and if I ever do say it I hope my nearest and dearest well have me locked up before I do a public mischief. Besides, to say the least of it, citing the work of two great Catholic charities is scarcely an endorsement of the irresponsible statement that the Church caters merely for the "haves" and is unmindful of the needs of the poor.
Gabriel Fallon (too bad I don't know his middle name, for he gets quite an amount of fun from trotting out mine) should surely have answered me in the Irish Times; and I in my turn could answer him fully only by repeating my letter now. In the circumstances, all I can do is reveal that in it I tangled with three priest-speakers at the Maynooth Summer School.
One was Fr. Vincent McNamara, to whom Gabriel gives considerable space: another suggested that the Church should side with revolutionaries everywhere; and a third (a Maynooth Professor of Sociology). said there was a growing belief that social justice could never be attained under a capitalist system. and that while the generation which introduced socialism would endure great hardships, succeeding generations would benefit.
Gabriel, who sympathises with my views, but does not share them, says enigmatically that "The refusal to listen to prophetic voices . . . may well result in this island of saints and scholars becoming the island of saboteurs and revolutionaries." I don't know what voices he has in mind. Would it betoo much to hope that he is thinking of Pope John?
The latter, echoing his predecessors, re-stated man's inalienable right to the possession of private property, including that of productive goods. The speakers at the Maynooth Summer School, on the other hand, will have to hear some of the responsibility if, thanks to the forces of the I.eft which have exploited genuine Catholic grievances in Northern Ireland, the saints and scholars of this tormented land find themselves saddled before long with a thirtytwo county socialist republic.
John D. Sheridan Terentire. Dublin 6