WHAT makes Brian Feeney's viewpoint in 'Dogged support for Catholic dogma' (February 11) so problematic is, ironically, his own personal, public and professional background. Other problems arise within the actual opinions being presented by Dr Feeney. However, to begin with, the author of the column possesses the title 'Dr' which indicates his educational background. Here is where the whole column then becomes very interesting. The title of the column is clearly presenting a negative overview of its content. The columnist writes in a negative way on an issue which many Catholic readers will feel is a fundamentally important area of debate at the minute. Given the fact that the educational institution in which Dr Feeney works is a Catholic college for the education and training of Catholic teachers presumably seeking employment in Catholic schools, which in turn seek to live out Catholic ethos and teachings of the Catholic church, one wonders how Dr Feeney can be so hypocritical in his scathing tone while discussing aspects of Catholicism. Not that it is overtly done, however, Dr Feeney uses sarcasm and a tongue-in-cheek tone in his writing in order to be subtly disparaging of aspects of the Catholic faith such as pro-life beliefs and issues surrounding Christian conscience.
Furthermore, Dr Feeney does not present a great deal of accuracy in his column with the exception of direct quotes. He claims that the All-Party Pro-Life Group in Stormont is "not an all-party group. There's no Sinn Féin or Alliance MLA on it". He doesn't understand linguistics as the 'all-party' relates to the fact that every political party with an MLA on the Pro-Life Group does in fact have a Pro-Life stance. Dr Feeney suggests that the All-Party Pro-Life Group in Stormont "doesn't appear to be very active". This is not true as the All-Party Pro-Life Group has met at Stormont within the past year and indeed members of the group were present at the launch of the 'Every Life Counts' campaign last November at Stormont Buildings. In his opinion, the fact that there are no female politicians on the All-Party Pro-Life Group in Stormont takes away the ability of those women from many other organisations connected with the group but who aren't MLAs, to comment on the pro-life issue. So much for giving women a voice. One feels a certain sense of irony that men on the hill are being criticised for voicing an opinion on pro-life issues and yet it is OK for a man with a newspaper column to do so.
