Letter: Miners show the strength of faith

THE rescue of the 33 miners from the San Jose copper mine in Chile has demonstrated the resilience of men who labour in difficult conditions to provide for their families. Their religious faith gave them courage and hope that their plight would have meaning.

This has not been reported in depth by the western media, who have been focused more on the technical challenge and the miners' long wait. Their daily rosary, readings from the bible and their shrine to St Vincent, the patron saint of miners, constructed by the trapped miners are a testimony to faith in adversity.

The psychological strength the men display is, I think, a testimony to the strength that faith engenders in contrast with the fragility that atheism and religious indifference brings, with the belief that we are alone, subject to caprice and the blind forces of nature.

The "reality show" of the miners' two-month wait for rescue has been a welcome relief from the empty materialism coupled with hedonism that the media usually foist upon us in other contexts. These workers are true heroes who endured and overcame with understated pride and mutual support in horrendous conditions of almost unimaginable stress.

We are witnesses to the dignity of human beings who are ennobled by their faith in God and fortified to overcome.

Andrew Gray, Edinburgh