US Tea-Party style will help nobody

This is this week's Independent News and Media Irish regional newspapers column. It appears in 13 of the 14 INM regional newspapers in Ireland.

By Michael Commane

In the run-up to Saturday’s children’s referendum the free sheet Alive! received much publicity. Indeed, one newspaper in one article referred to Alive! as being ‘A Dominican Catholic monthly’.

The free sheet strongly advocated a No vote on Saturday.

The Irish Catholic bishops said neither Nay or Yea in how people should vote in the referendum. Once the referendum was announced Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin came out in support of a Yes vote.

So how Catholic and how Dominican is Alive! And a much more pertinent question is when can a person call themselves Catholic?

Certainly there are many sides and corners to the Catholic Church, It’s important to remember that it is a universal church, which means that it is not monolithic. It is not a dictatorship, where people are forced to obey rules and regulations out of fear of some authoritarian figure at the top.

The Vatican Council placed great stress on the idea that the church is the people of God.

Anywhere there are people living in any sort of honesty with one another there will be diferences of views and opinions. It's important to realise that difference is not division.

At the bottom of the front page of Alive! there is a disclaimer. It reads: “The content of the newspaper Alive! and the views expressed in it are those of the editor and contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Irish Dominican Province.”

So that makes it quite clear that the views and opinions and how they are expressed in Alive! are not necessarily the views and opinions of the Irish Dominicans.

I find myself disagreeing with much of the content in Alive! Indeed, I have no difficulty saying that the church it portrays is certainly not a church that I would wish to be a member of. It often strikes me that a publication with trenchant liberal or 'left wing' views would never be allowed survive within the church as Alive! manages to survive.

Alive! is cleverly presented. It’s tabloid in form and content and follows the tabloid ethos in that it offers the reader short shock horror stories. It certainly can catch the reader’s attention.

On page nine of the November issue a headline runs: ‘Gilmore drops bombshell: kids’ vote is anti-church” But Diarmuid Martin supported the Yes vote and the bishops had no objections.

Right across the Catholic Church there seems to be a US-style Tea Party campaign attempting to ‘take over ‘ the church and turn it into some horrible right wing organisation that seems so far removed from anything that is gentle and kind, searching and tolerant. It would seem they want the church to be some sort of strident army in which there is no room or acceptance for any sort of freedom of thought.

In the Gospel that we read in church last Sunday Jesus goes out of his way to criticise those who prance about in long robes weighing people down with their long prayers. Instead he admires the poor widow who quietly and gently gives a penny to the treasury.

Surely the Gospel story is our mission statement. It’s a story that supports the weak and the fragile.

Anyone who has ever impressed or left a lasting mark on me has been someone who has been gentle and kind, never strident and authoritarian.

It struck me in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy how the US federal agencies were on the ground helping people. These are the same agencies that the Tea Party advocates want disbanded. They argue government should be so much smaller.

And in that context I find it difficult to understand how Alive! too is constantly attacking the Government on so many issues, yet it has no trouble telling its readers that because it is registered as a charity it can avail of the Government’s tax back scheme.

There is a growing stridency right across so many organisations, including churches, which is greatly worrying. I for one, find it difficult to take. I’d much prefer to be associated with a church and society that is on pilgrimage, all the time on a journey, walking in faith and wonder.