YOUR front page report on apparitions in Galway (June 22) reinforces a prejudice I have always held against these alleged manifestations of the Virgin Mary. The two "seers", SallyAnne and Judy Considine seem to see Our Lady wherever they go. You report that they have seen her not only in Galway but in Wexford, Grangetown and Mayfield. The Virgin is cropping up more often than the Queen Mother.
When will the church realise that the individual hallucinations of no doubt wellmeaning people like these sisters
are of no importance whatsoever in our struggle to live out Christ's gospel. Be it Medjugorje, Lourdes, F' :ima or wherever, what those who troop there in great numbers are seeking is proof. and that is the one thing that Christianity cannot in any form provide. It is a question of faith. Obsession with apparitions undermines the whole basis of Christianity and leads to the current ludicrous situation in Galway.
It is no good the church authorities picking and choosing which apparition they wish to endorse. They should either give fre rein to whoever thinks they have seen Our Lady and to pilgrims who want to go there, or they should issue a once and for all authorative statement saying that "signs and wonders" are an irrelevance to contemporary Christianity.
As it is now we are falling between two stools and Christian witness in a challenging and complex modern world is left open to question when for many believers the sum total of their faith is to go in search of a
proof. Steven Wright Redruth, Cornwall