In last week-end's issue (March 15, 2009), the tabloid, and its chief teller of sensational tales, Jim Gallagher, reacted with fury to recent forthright criticism of the paper's insulting and disgraceful year-long vendetta against Our Lady's House of Prayer in Achill, and aimed in the main against Christina Gallagher, her spiritual director and all those favourably disposed towards the House of Prayer. As the man the paper proclaims as one of its main "sources" declared once publicly about the newspaper," You don't need facts, you just need a story"

The critical writings about the Sunday World-led campaign of insult, denigration and of bottom -of- the- barrel journalism appeared in the February and March 2009 editions of "Ireland's Eye" magazine; clearly caused upset to the Sunday tabloid and Mr. Gallagher, So much so, in fact that on Thursday, March 12th, after 62 weeks of campaigning against the House of Prayer, Mr. Gallagher finally found the courage to ring Majella Meade, the person known for years by all who go to the House of Prayer, as the main co-ordinator of all the projects undertaken for the benefit of the work of Our Lady Queen of Peace, including fundraising work. This is a position she agreed to, many years ago, when nominated by the pilgrims. With wonderful investigative ingenuity, a year and a quarter after his "exclusives" began, he finally "discovered" Majella, and it seems, didn't like what he found. Not once mentioned since January 6, 2008, Ms. Meade, we are told "was given the chance" to speak this week. How gallant of Mr. Gallagher to do so, but was it not a little bit much for him to accuse her of "arrogance" - simply because she thought it a little late for him to be phoning her now?

Conveniently, as so often before, the Sunday World's big man suffered a memory lapse regarding the conversation with Ms. Meade. He quotes her only as saying, "It's too late now. I have nothing to say to you. Goodbye". He "forgot" again, to explain what actually transpired. When his call was answered by her and after she was told he was "Jim Gallagher, Sunday World" the caller said she had accused him of not making contact with her and "I thought I would give you a ring."
Her actual response was: "It's a bit late now. You have your damage done, Mr. Gallagher" Was she not correct, and if so, who is guilty of "arrogance"? Speaking of which, to give another instance of the Sunday World's idea of "fair minded journalism" and of offering people a chance to have their say, Mr. Gallagher also attempts to "show" that he did seek to speak to Fr. McGinnity and Christina Gallagher last year. Again however, he suffered from one of those memory lapses.

Firstly, he says Christina Gallagher has never given a press interview for a decade. Not true, of course. She has spoken regularly to journalists prepared to print precisely what she stated to them, rather than what they wanted to "say" for her, or wanted to misconstrue for their own purposes. Several dozen times, she has given interviews to "Ireland's Eye", amongst other publications, in that period. Does the Sunday World think people who have been attacked in their newspaper should be willing to undergo confrontation, knowing that anything they say will inevitably be twisted into something else, and things they never said included? Like in Sunday's edition, when the newspaper accused Mrs. Gallagher of saying Our Lady's work was" only beginning." Does the Sunday World not remember that it was already attacking Christina Gallagher in a major way eighteen years ago, when the work for Our Lady was already a few years in progress, but a House of Prayer was not even a reality? The tabloid leopards have not changed their spots, Mr. Gallagher.


Another example of Sunday World "truths". Majella Meade, they claimed, recently told pilgrims in Achill that a writ was served on the Sunday World. Either Mr. Gallagher's 'prayerful' informants are hard of hearing, or he is relapsing into further untruths, as no mention was ever made of the Sunday World, regarding writs being served. Neither did Mrs. Gallagher ever "get her cult members to launch a savage attack on the Sunday World." She has ever only offered prayers for her detractors and asked the Lord to forgive them. Those who have "dared to criticise" the Sunday tabloid sensation sheet are doing so at the behest of the hundreds of people who have grown tired of religious discrimination, insults, lies and gross untruths in the newspaper, and are now doing something about redressing the balance. Obviously, Mr. Gallagher and his publication don't believe in any such balancing, and their 'cult' accusations are just more of the same action replay tactics they depend on.

It is interesting that such a defensive attitude has been adopted by the Sunday World in this latest diatribe. Clearly, they indirectly admit that no attempt was made to offer balance or fair play to either Fr. McGinnity or Mrs. Gallagher, for instance. Did the newspaper actually expect a priest, who had for weeks, been slandered and ridiculed and accused of wrongdoing in their paper, and who was emerging after offering Mass, to smile and make small talk with a hostile "gentleman" jumping from a four-wheel drive vehicle and coming towards him, while another had a secret camera "planted" to ensure the Sunday World got its photograph? Journalism, or intimidation, Mr. Gallagher? Especially, when the priest was fully aware that anything he might say would have little bearing of what appeared in print, as Majella Meade discovered last week, when she was 'favoured' with a phone call from "on high" by the said Mr. Gallagher. And as for Dick Hogan refusing to reply, he well knew, as a long-time journalist, the reasons why to ignore the 'invitations' which Mr. Gallagher offered, and the wisdom of his actions are evident, seeing that the Sunday World, even without speaking to him has had him, twice 'resigning' in its "exclusives" by Mr. Gallagher, and also 'abandoning' the House of Prayer, but at the same time, being a devotee, and now, surprise, surprise, attacking the Sunday World and accusing them of "gutter writing". How dreadful! Which do you believe? Where does the credibility lie? With those who have tried for two decades and more to propagate an important message to the people of Ireland and the world from Our Lady, a message which has been consistently upheld and proven true by world events, medically attested healings, and conversions to the Sacraments and practice of the faith? Or the people who each week print fairy tales and dress them up as facts and exposes, and claim to be journalists, while repeating time after time, the same untruths, fabrications and falsehoods, and the same photographs, as they have done once again this week (March 15, 2009)? Fair minded people won't have much difficulty making up their minds, we feel.

Furthermore, what credibility can any decent minded person attribute to articles by Mr Gallagher or anyone else in a Sunday newspaper which sets out to make money each week from the 'sexploitation' of its more gullible readers? Even to the extent of blatantly printing pages of explicit advertisements with lurid catch lines promoting phone sex and sex shops with the exploitation of teenagers included? Exploitation it would seem, is the operative word in this weekly tabloid, and why anyone would spend money on such rubbish is hard to fathom. Mr. Gallagher names the same few people in this latest article, who have already been named as people central in this campaign for the last twelve months, but where are the others? Did Mr Gallagher not state a year ago in his campaign that the Sunday World "was inundated" with support? Why then are these people not standing up and being counted? We know who the same few are; they are quite obvious, but why are the others hiding? Another fairy story?

I write to you as co-ordinator of the Fraternity of Our Lady Queen of Peace House of Prayer, Achill, to express serious exception, on my own behalf and speaking for those I represent, to the tone and content of an article which appeared (Page 8) in your issue of April 30, 2009. Any newspaper or its writers can of course, adopt a sceptical approach or otherwise, to a place of prayer or to apparitions, but surely standards, fairness and balance are to be expected, especially in an allegedly Catholic newspaper? I cannot accept that such has prevailed here. This latest article and it is not acceptable that people can distort facts, or use space in a publication in order to denigrate and pour scorn on any particular group with whom they may disagree, or whose beliefs they reject. I am confining myself here to the piece with a Michael Kelly by-line, where he is drawing from material on a website, and my basic objection is to the overall image Mr. Kelly’s article presents of Mrs. Christina Gallagher and her work. To firstly point out, The Holy Father has not taken any action to silence Mrs. Gallagher; in fact a Vatican official denied that any such document was in preparation in relation to any person claiming spiritual experiences. CR register interviewed a spokesperson who clarified the facts that this was a mischievous rumour, no doubt to cause harm, in fact relating to Mrs Gallagher, Our Lady Queen of Peace, House of Prayer there are been so many accusations, I would no longer be surprised at what appears in the biased one sided Irish tabloid media.


As I’m sure you will be aware as an editor, the meaning of words is important, and if ordinary people, without any special knowledge, are led to make false assumptions, on the basis of what is written and how it is written and presented, then what is written, if it imputes wrongdoing or presents a false picture of a situation, is not acceptable and can easily be actionable. The basic import of Mr. Kelly’s piece suggests to your readers that Mrs. Christina Gallagher has deliberately disobeyed a ‘plea’ by Pope Benedict to remain silent re any messages she has received. In fact, he twice repeats this claim in his article. He goes on to wrongly portray Mrs. Gallagher as acting totally outside the Catholic Church. This comes rather strange from the same writer who told Irish people recently, in a sceptical newspaper article about visions and apparitions of Our Lady, jibing about alleged apparitions: “It is noteworthy that apparitions always happen with women and children. This could be because they feel disempowered”...and informs us also, “Generally the approach of the Church to shrines and miracles is to close them down or take them over.” There has not been communications, I understand, between the Archbishop and his office and Mrs. Gallagher and the House of Prayer since 1998, eleven years ago. The Archbishop did re-issue a statement more than 12 months ago, reiterating his original statement of December 16, 1997 in response to media enquiries, prompted by the Sunday tabloid campaign. "..while Archbishop Neary stated that at that time, no evidence had been presented proving beyond reasonable doubt anything supernatural, he also stated that Mrs. Gallagher and her associates have the right to believe and to state their belief that such have indeed occurred and continue to occur..." For Mr. Kelly to imply, as he does, that the Archbishop had acted recently, as if in keeping with what his article falsely alleged the Pope had sought, appears mischievous. Mrs Christina Gallagher is fully entitled to, and is acting entirely within rights granted her by Church Law, in speaking about her spiritual experiences of apparitions ( see decree of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, A.A.S.58, 1186 { approved by Pope Paul VI on 14th October 1966})

Not content thus far, Mr. Kelly goes on to rehash claims made in a Sunday tabloid last year about alleged investigations last year by Gardai, Revenue Commissioners and CAB “over alleged fraudulent activity”, even to the extent of alleging an involvement. This suggests fraud and wrongdoing occurred, while your paper chooses to ignore that the DPP found no evidence of any wrongdoing nor did any of the others mentioned. Has Mr. Kelly an agenda? If he hasn’t, it seems rather odd that he chose to distort and be very selective with the final portion of the message from which he quotes. He alleges: “The only way for people to be saved, Ms. Gallagher insists, is to take refuge in her controversial movement”. Mrs. Gallagher has never insisted any such thing, nor does the message do so, and in fact, she also makes it clear that it is “heartbreaking for her to give this message” and yet she feels she has no option, in response to Our Blessed Lady “despite knowing that she will be mocked and ridiculed for doing so.” If Mr. Kelly wished to display any goodwill, he would have at least averred to this point, but he ignored and omitted it, selecting his lines carefully, I feel, in order to present an image of some kind of false Christian cult, acting totally outside the Church, and disobeying pleas by the Pope to be silent. I am challenging your newspaper to produce any shred of evidence that the Pope has issued any request or plea to alleged visionaries to keep quiet re any alleged messages. This was contradicted days after it first appeared, but not averred to by Mr. Kelly. Interestingly, when your newspaper, issue of January 15 last, had a previous “go” at Mrs. Gallagher, it did so in an article claiming that “new guidelines, approved by Pope Benedict XVI” would force those claiming to have visions to remain silent, in order to “stamp out false claims of miracles” - whatever that may mean. The bulk of that article was directed at Mrs. Gallagher and the House of Prayer, saying she would be adversely affected and had “consistently refused to integrate her work into the local church” - repeated in Mr Kelly’s words of April 30 - and goes on to make claims about an “ongoing” investigation into Christina Gallagher’s claims and to repeat the piece about Archbishop Neary.


I am asking why, when the story about “new guidelines” with Papal approval was rejected and contradicted subsequently, the Irish Catholic conveniently ignored this correction, and yet your newspaper and Mr. Kelly can come back this week, and seek to misrepresent the situation? Is this acceptable journalism? I say that it is not, and I am asking for an explanation and a retraction of what you have wrongly presented, and failing that, I intend to take the matter further. Your newspaper has, with one issue excepted, been used over the past year and a half to amplify a campaign of calamity, libel and disparagement of Mrs. Gallagher and all associated with her and her work, and it greatly disappoints me. Alleged visions and visionaries are hardly ‘flavour of the month’ in today’s Ireland, but surely your newspaper could show some level of balance and fair play in their beliefs, in whatever coverage it chooses to give, rather than distorting and denigrating all concerned? I would appreciate a reply please, as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully,
Majella Meade