Diocese of Waterford and Lismore's pastoral plan

The Diocese of Waterford and Lismore has published its diocesan pastoral plan 2019 - 2024, 'Go Make Disciples'.

It contains many fine aspirations.

Four themes are given priority status. Theme Four, which is about service, talks of remodelling leadership and governance structures to serve the mission of evangelising and transforming the world.

And yet in this 32-page document there is just one picture of a person and that is of the bishop dressed in all his regalia.

The document, including two pictures of empty churches, is visually most unattractive and the layout is poor. Pages of full text where church is spelt with an upper case c and the world with a lower case w. That tells its own story

Reading the document one gets the impression that the authors have taken many aspects for granted, as if the reader is expected to be familiar with much of what is being discussed.

The clerical footprint

The environment and our carbon footprint are on the lips of many people as Europe sizzles.

But why are so many people flying?

A wise Dominican was heard saying in recent days that it seems the clerical establishment is saying nothing on the environment.

It would be interesting to calculate the worldwide clerical footprint.

Next month the Dominican Order is holding a worldwide meeting in Vietnam. People from all over the world will be flying to South East Asia for the occasion.

One might ask for what but certainly it will be interesting to know the damage it will do to the environment.

Three important things in life

"Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; the third is to be kind."

- Henry James

June 28 is a busy day in history

June 28 is an interesting date in history.

In 1491 Henry VIII was born.

On this date in 1914 Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Saravejo and so begins World War I.

In 1919 the Treaty of Versailles is signed and so is formed the genesis of Adolf Hitler and World War II.

In 1922 the Irish Civil War begins with the shelling of the Four Courts in Dublin by Free State forces.

In 1926 Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merge their two companies to form Mecedes-Benz.

In 1942 Hitler gives the green light for the summer offensive against the Soviet Union.

It was a two-pronged attack, one part of it heading for the Volga. The plan was to take out the Red Army. But against all the odds it was at Stalingrad that the Soviet Union changed the course of the war. It was the beginning of the end for the Germans.

How come in the teaching of history in Irish schools were we never told of the significance of Stalingrad, now Volgograd?

'Facts always play second fiddle to a myth'

An excerpt from Michael Harding's column in The Irish Times of yesterday.

It was the last paragraph that might catch one's eye.

"Once upon a time, he said, Colmcille had a stone chalice no bigger than a child’s heart, and by drinking from it a person could be cured of anything; the gout within or the gout without, the broken head or the broken heart.

"For centuries the women of Tory Island were the keepers of this chalice, until it was robbed by fishermen from Scotland. But it only brought bad luck to people who drank from it because it had been stolen, so eventually it was returned to Tory and remained there until the 19th century when it vanished again; this time into the delicate hands of a local clergyman, who I presume didn’t trust the women of Tory with such a precious relic.

"I don’t know if the story is true, but I suppose the great thing about religion is that facts always play second fiddle to a myth."

An era of outrageous leaders

Below is a damning article by Max Hastings on Boris Johnson.

But it's clear the more outrageous the stories we hear about Boris Johnson the better his chances of being the UK's next prime minister.

Just as it is with Donald Trump. In the last days another woman has come forward making allegations of sexual abuse against the president. She is number 16.

Trump's reply 'She's not my type'. Outrageous but makes his followers more resolute in their support for him.

We seem to have the weirdest and oddest of leaders.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris-johnson-prime-minister-tory-party-britain?CMP=share_btn_link

The Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Sunday June 16 was the feast of the Blessed Trinity. Belief in the Trinity is a fundamental teaching of all Christian churches. It’s one of the most important feasts in the Christian calendar.

While there is no explicit mention of the Trinity in the New Testament, early Christians tried to understand the relationship between Jesus and God.

It has a long history behind it, a topic that has been discussed over centuries and at many church councils.

It’s part of the syllabus on every course in theology and it’s a topic that is considered extremely erudite.

I can still remember in theology class lecturers grappling with the topic and I recall priests being in horror at having to preach about the mystery in sermons at Mass.

Maybe I am a just a simple ageing man who does not understand, but over the last few years I have been enthralled with the idea of the Trinity.

The Trinity is one of the great mysteries and challenges of Christianity.

I see it as something that has to do with people striving to live in perfect relationship with one another. God is so perfect that there is a relationship of perfect equality within the Godhead.

I can only speak for myself, but the trajectory our lives take is a topsy-turvy one and part of that confusion and wonder and failure is always linked to how we form relationships with other people. 

Sometimes relationships are wonderful but they can also be disastrous. It’s a pity that when we use the word relationship today we seem to concentrate on the sexual/romantic aspect. But we have all sorts of relationships. We have them with our employers, our employees, our parents, our friends, our enemies. There are business relationships. Take a moment out and think of all the different types of relationships you have.

There are relationships of power and control.

The Trinity has to do with such a perfect relationship that it involves perfect equality – perfection at its best. In other words, God.

I experienced a wonderful example, a tiny glimmer or hint of what the Trinity is about.

Some weeks ago a man came to me and asked me if people gathered at Mass would remember in their prayers a certain person. I assured him we would. I wrote down the person’s name and then realised it was a famous name. Or more accurately, she was the wife of a famous person, who had been a taoiseach. He and I got chatting, and the curious person that I am, I asked him if he was related to the deceased couple. No, he wasn’t. He had been the taoiseach’s Garda security detail for all the time he had been in office.

It was a such a lovely story. I have no doubt the man went off about his business and would have had no idea the profound impression he had made on me.

What a hint, what a reminder of the Trinity.

To remember with such fond kindness, the person for whom you worked and his wife, is indeed something special.

In early June a German politician was murdered. The alleged perpetrator is a member of a far-right grouping. Commenting on the murder German president Frank Walter Steinmeier said that where language is vulgarised, a crime is never far off.

Mr Trump, Mr Salvini, Mr Farage please take note.

Right now our world, all of us could do with a dose of Trinitarian reality. Healthy relationships make for a better world.

Former Dominican Matthew Fox talks in Dublin

Episcopalian priest and activist for gender justice, Matthew Fox gave a lecture in Dublin's Christ Church on Saturday.

The title of his talk was 'Signs of Hope in a Time of Despair'

Matthew Fox was born Timothy. When he joined the Dominicans in the United States he was given the name Matthew and ironically he has kept that name since his dismissal from the Order.

Irish Dominican Damian Byrne was Master of the Order during this time.

Was the full story of Matthew Fox ever told?

The piece below is from Wikipedia.

In 1984 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asked the Dominican Order to investigate Fox’s writings. 

When three Dominican theologians examined his works and did not find his books heretical, Ratzinger ordered a second review, which was never undertaken.

Due to his questioning of the doctrine of original sin, in 1988 Fox was forbidden from teaching or lecturing for a year by Ratzinger. 

Fox wrote a “Pastoral Letter to Cardinal Ratzinger and the Whole Church,” calling the Catholic church a dysfunctional family. 

After a year "sabbatical" Fox resumed writing, teaching, and lecturing. In 1991 his Dominican superior ordered Fox to leave the ICCS in California and return to Chicago or face dismissal. Fox refused.

Along the banks of the Dodder

Friday was International Yoga Day and it was celebrated in Dublin at Grand Canal Square yesterday.

A group of us out for a walk came upon the Yoga celebration as we arrived at our destination.

The walk began at St Luke's Hospital in Rathgar. 

We followed the River Dodder through Milltown, Clonskeagh, down to Donnybrook, through Herbert Park, passing Marian College and then skirting along the side of the Aviva Stadium, leaving Ringsend to our right.

The spot where the Dodder flows into the Liffey is interesting as right beside it the Grand Canal also enters the great Dublin river.

After a snack we retraced our steps to St Luke's.

The round trip was 14.3 kilometres and the distance covered in two hours 50 minutes.

A walk that takes in a myriad scenes: the great red and white stacks of the now defunct generating station at the Pigeon House. There's the Aviva but most of the walk is in lush green countryside.

A fabulous facility right in the city.

There's enough for all of us

The ‘Thinking Anew’ in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Tomorrow is the feast of Corpus Christi or the Body and Blood of Christ. I can still remember being a Dominican novice in 1968 taking part in a procession in Cork city to honour the day. A large number of people took part.  

Looking at the recent peaceful demonstration in Hong Kong in opposition to the now postponed law on extradition I was reminded of that 1968 Eucharistic procession in Cork. It was that large and significant too. Politicians and clergy led the procession.

Times have changed. Ireland has changed.
Numbers attending Sunday Mass have greatly fallen off. 

And yet in the most recent census, 78.3 per cent of the population said they were Roman Catholic. That’s almost four out of five. 

If you asked Catholics about Corpus Christi it would be interesting how they would reply. The feast was introduced into the universal church calendar in the 14th century.

It is a celebration of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But it is a sacramental presence and Christ is not present in the Eucharist as I am present here at my desk writing this. The Eucharist is about communion, communion with one another and with Christ. It is also about sacrifice, the self-emptying of Christ.

Liturgy is a form of public religious worship. For it to have meaning and purpose it must be  a living and real expression of how we can communicate/pray/talk to the Divine. Liturgy cannot be static. It has to be relevant to the lives of people who acknowledge their faith in the Divine.

The Second Vatican Council attempted to place greater emphasis on the immanence of God, meaning His presence in our everyday lives. At the incarnation God decided to come into the world and be one of us.

We certainly live in a time when everything has to be immediate. We have instant communication, we have knowledge and information at our fingertips. It's not so long since we had to wait a week to have our camera films developed. All that has changed.

The Mass, the Eucharist is the people of God at prayer. Surely it has to be celebrated in a way that makes sense to people. Of course, there has to be instruction and teaching but you can't expect people of goodwill to take part in a ritual that has no meaning to them. We may be over-emphasising piety at the expense of connection, sacrificing meaning in the western world in the 21st century?

Tomorrow's Gospel is the parable of the loaves and fishes. Jesus attracts a large group of people and they discover they have not got enough food, according to St Luke. All they have to feed five thousand people are five loaves and two fishes. And yet through the work of Jesus everyone has enough to eat. Not only that, but when they had all eaten their fill, food was left over.

Perhaps we should see in tomorrow’s Gospel reading a latter-day miracle where Jesus changes the mind-set of people, whereby we all realise that there is a limited amount of food to go around so it has to be divided so that everyone in the world can be fed. Imagine if our Eucharistic celebration throughout the country was a dynamic life-giving prayerful experience where people gathered to celebrate the mystery and wonder of God, and put the message of love into practice?  

We easily say that we are all children of God. How can we say that when we know that one in seven people on the planet have not got enough to eat? How can we say that when we have such inequality and poverty in our cities and towns?

In the prayer over the gifts in tomorrow's Mass we ask God to give us peace and unity. As long as we close our eyes to inequality and injustice how can such a prayer have any meaning? We pray for unity which means we respect and care for one another. In acknowledging the presence of God in our lives, we become ever more aware that the goods of this earth are not for the few but the many.

Tomorrow’s feast is a feast about the presence of Jesus in the world. It is a powerful reminder of the saving influence of God. In placing our trust in God we can bring about a more just world, which in turn will better reflect the glory and greatness of God.

Seventy million people are displaced

Below is an excerpt from the editorial in The Irish Times yesterday.

It is a scandal. What am I doing about it, what is Ireland doing about it, what are the churches doing about it, what is the Dominican Order doing about it?

And all the time US President Donald Trump talks about making America great again.

More than 70 million people are now forcibly displaced – double the level of 20 years ago, according to new figures from the United Nationsrefugee agency, UNHCR. 

Even that number – a global record – is conservative; for instance, some four million Venezuelans are known to have left their country, making that one of the world’s biggest displacement crises, but only half a million of those individuals have to date made asylum claims. 

Overall, the total global refugee population is at the highest level on record – 25.9 million, a figure that includes the 5.5 million Palestinian refugees under the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency.

What we say and do can spread beyond those we know

Nicholas Christakis was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour on CNN yesterday.

Christakis is a physician and sociologist and lectures at Yale University.

“Most of us are already aware of the direct effect we have on our friends and family; our actions can make them happy or sad, healthy or sick, even rich or poor. But we rarely consider that everything we think, feel, do, or say can spread far beyond the people we know. 

Conversely, our friends and family serve as conduits for us to be influenced by hundreds or even thousands of other people. In a kind of social chain reaction, we can be deeply affected by events we do not witness that happen to people we do not know. It is as if we can feel the pulse of the social world around us and respond to its persistent rhythms. 

As part of a social network, we transcend ourselves, for good or ill, and become a part of something much larger. We are connected.”
― Nicholas A. Christakis, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

Former Irish Dominican Jim Roche RIP

It has come to the attention of this blog that Jim Roche has died.

It was originally reported that he died in California but a reader has co tacted this blog to say that Jim died in Germany.

He was born in Cork in 1944, joined the Dominicans in 1962 and ordained a priest in 1969.

Early  in  his priesthood he went to Argentina and lived in Parana.

Jim Roche was a great man and Jim Roche could never have had anything to do with the Ireland in which Majella Moynihan was hounded by the Garda for becoming pregnant.

Jim was an intelligent man with no time for any of the clerical capers.

There was a custom in the diocese where he was working that priests did not grow beards. Jim grew one. His prior did not approve but had neither the decency nor honesty to tell him he did not approve. On an occasion when the local bishop visited the house he told Jim that it was not the custom for priests in the diocese to grow beards.

Jim in his perfect Spanish, though with a Cork accent, replied to the bishop: "You may be my bishop but you are not my barber."

Typical Jim Roche approach.

The bishop was Adolfo Tortolo.

In July 1975 he was appointed military bishop in Argentina and was a friend of Colonel Juan Francisco Guevara and General Eduardo Senorans.

The bishop was aware in advance of the military putsch.

No doubt Jim quickly realised the type of person the bishop was. And what about the Irish Dominican prior, who is now dead?

On leaving the Irish Dominicans he moved to the United States where he studied law and worked tirelessly for migrants.

He offered support to Nicaraguans who came to Ireland during the conflict in their country.

Jim always had time for the underdog. He was always there to support the marginalised and poor.

He was a fine sportsman, football being his speciality.

He married a woman from the former German Democratic Republic.

Jim was an accomplished musician.

It is unlikely that he would or could have felt at home in the Irish Dominican province of today.

A great and good man.

May he rest in peace.

'Where language is vulgarised, a crime is never far off'

A memebr of a far-right political group has been arrested for the murder of German CDU politician Walter Luebcke.

On Monday, German president Frank Walter Steinmeier urged a quick but thorough investigation – a nod to police failure to link a decade-long series of immigrant killings to an underground neo-Nazi organisation.

He described the initial reaction to the killing as “cynical, tasteless, disgusting” and called for greater means for police and investigators to track down those behind anonymous postings.

“Where language is vulgarised, a crime is never far off,” he said. “The contempt towards a person who was victim of a violent act cannot just outrage us. It challenges us to use every means of the rule of law to pursue vilification and violence in social media.”

Tony Coote's 'Live While You Can'

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Dublin diocesan priest Tony Coote’s book ‘Live While You Can’ is a gem.

For over a year or so I have heard his name being mentioned. I knew he was parish priest in Mount Merrion and Kilmacud.

Tony is in his 50s and in 2018 he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease(MND).

Last month I was in a bookshop buying a book for a young boy making his first Holy Communion. 

While paying for the book I spotted ‘Live While You Can’ and bought it.

A few days later while travelling by rail to Galway I began to read the book. I’m a slow reader and easily distracted. By the time I was back in Dublin later that day I had 150 of the 184 pages read.

It is a captivating read.

In some ways I am ashamed I had not twigged to the man and his greatness before now.

Motor Neurone Disease attacks the nervous system and it is a cruel affliction. In 2013 the well-known RTE sports presenter Colm Murray died from MND.

‘Live While You Can’ is a book about hope, it is a book about faith, the genuine faith of a Dublin priest, who paints a lovely image of God and the life he looks forward to in communion with God and humanity after he succumbs to MND.

It’s a simple book and easy to read but does it tell a story about a man in his 50s, who has lived life to the full. That does not mean that it has been all plain-sailing. He writes about his abusive alcoholic father, about the time as a little boy that he was sexually abused in a school classroom. But he also recalls how he and his siblings were reconciled with their father. And all the time there are references to his loving relationship with his mother, who is alive and well.

After ordination to priesthood he was appointed to a parish in Ballymun. He found himself working as a school chaplain, a job he thoroughly enjoyed and it’s clear to see that he built up a great relationship with staff and students. From there he went to work as chaplain in UCD. Next he’s in Haiti, India and Nicaragua organising summer work for UCD students to help the poorest of the poor.

Again, he builds up life-long friendships with the students and the people with whom they work in the developing world.

While he is never pushing himself, it clearly comes across that this man is at his best when he is giving of himself to other people.

Close to the end of the book, on page 158 he writes: ‘If we in the church are truly Christian, followers of Jesus Christ, then we must make sure that we do not close doors to others through words of condemnation or harsh judgement. Once we close doors in such a way, those we have excluded will never open them again.’ Wise and prophetic words.

Such a simple read with an extraordinary message.

This sentence jumped off the page for me: ‘By being compassionate to others, we literally give them life and receive life ourselves.’

It is a perfect read for fifth and sixth year religious education classes.

Claire Byrne, who interviewed Tony on RTE’s ‘Claire Byrne Live’ writes in the foreword of this book: ‘I know that my life is richer as a result and I’m sure, when you turn the last page of this book, yours will be too. 

It is.

Leo Varadkar and the verb 'to do'

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar gave an extensive interview to Brendan O'Connor on RTE Radio on Saturday morning.

As per usual he was articulate and smart, one might say that he did not put a foot wrong. But it was an easy interview.

At 11.33 the taoiseach said: "...what we done....".

The poor verb.

Birthday of a great Iranian Mohammad Mosaddegh

Mohammad Mosaddegh, who was prime minister of Iran between 1951 and 1953, was born on this day in 1882. He died in 1967.

He is regarded as the leading champion of secular democracy and resistance to foreign domination in Iran.

The CIA and MI6 worked in tandem to have him removed from office.

To watch the actions and words of the United States in these days one is reminded of their behaviour and interference in the internal affairs of Iran. 

And the British too have anything but clean hands.

The holier-than-thou words of US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Britain's foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt could easily make the world forget the blood that is on the hands of the US and the UK in their underhand and criminal behaviour in Iran.

A priestly formation not fit for purpose

An excerpt from an interview Dr Tina Beattie gave to The Tablet after a talk she gave in Dublin.

Tina Beattie  is professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton.

“Since John Paul II and Benedict XVI set out to crush the spirit of Vatican II, we’ve seen a theology of priesthood which inculcates a sense of superiority and ontological difference, premised on the essential maleness of the priesthood, which makes members of the senior hierarchy and some of a younger generation behave more as our lords and masters than as our servants and pastors."

She went on to say: "The institutional church has been corrupted through and through by models of priestly formation which are not fit for purpose."

Beattie's analysis is accurate and happening right across the universal church.

Certainly not fit for purpose and many of those placed in jobs of guiding young men towards priesthood not at all fit for the job.

The church might well be creating a monster far worse than anything Tina Beattie has in mind.

Observations from John Moriarty

‘The Irish Times’ yesterday carried a piece on Kerryman John Moriarty.

The quotes below are observations from Moriarty, who was a renowned philosopher and English scholar.

William Butler Yeats

Irish poet William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin on June 13, 1865.

The Second Coming (1919)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

'A relentless obsession'

Below are the last three paragraphs of the editorial titled 'A relentless obsession' in The Irish Times of Monday, June 10.

In Tuesday's paper there was a letter from a Presbyterian minister pointing out an inaccuracy in the editorial.

The reference to an obsession with homosexuality 
is interesting.

Is there ever a discussion within Catholic priesthood, whether in religious congregations or at diocesan level,  of the numbers of priests who are closet homosexuals? 

Or is there ever a discussion why so many gay men join priesthood?

This obsession with human reproduction and sexual issues in general, but homosexuality in particular, is sundering churches at a time when wider society has moved to a more humane plane; one seemingly more in tune with a message of Christ who had little to say on these matters

The churches are entitled to apply their own rules and to minister to their flocks as they see fit. Yet it is unfortunate that this blindspot in the churches' vision continues to obscure the positive message they were founded to propagate.

Those who wonder why they are in decline and who prefer to blame secularism might find an answer - at least in part - closer to home

Is vulgarity and rudeness now the norm?

I was washing the dishes looking out the kitchen window when my attention was drawn to the radio. Sean O’Rourke was interviewing Maria Bailey. I could not believe my ears. It was beyond words, incredible arrogance. How was the woman so silly to go on the show and then talk as she did? It was another P Flynn moment. 

Readers who are too young to remember the P Flynn road crash - it was the night the European Commissioner was on The Late Late Show and Gay Byrne allowed him talk on and on making a complete clown of himself, explaining to the nation how he was finding it so difficult to keep all his properties in shape on his EU salary.

Politics sure is a strange game but as a former MEP said to me if we don’t have politics we have war. 

How true.

We seem to be living in unchartered waters, indeed dangerous times too. In the background there is enough arsenal to annihilate all of us.

Before President Trump got off Air Force One in Stansted he insulted London’s Lord Mayor Sadiq Khan and then ridiculed the mayor on grounds of his stature.

The more outrageous his comments the more plaudits he gets from his followers.

I’m reminded of the horror days of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The more gruesome and deadly the IRA atrocities were, the more support they received from their supporters.

When Trump supporters scream, ‘lock her up’ when he mentions Hilary Clinton’s name one can feel the hatred and violence in the air.

Anglican Bishop of Liverpool Paul Bayes considers Trump’s way of doing politics as ‘toxic and dangerous’.

‘He says he is a Christian but Jesus said you know people by their fruits,’ Bayes said. He doesn’t believe that Trump’s actions are Christian. The bishop is also critical of those who support Trump.

In the Philippines President Duterte in a speech he made in Tokyo at the end of May told his audience that he was gay before he cured himself.

He said: “I became a man again! So beautiful women cured me. I hated handsome men afterwards. I now prefer beautiful women.”

In 2016 Duterte in a speech called the US ambassador to the Philippines a ‘gay son of a bitch’.

Closer to home there is Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage. Can one add our own Peter Casey to that list?

What’s the genesis of all this vulgarity and rudeness, craziness too? A friend of mine who is involved in politics argues that with the fall of the Berlin Wall, world order collapsed and slowly but surely it became possible or the norm for people to say and do anything.

I’m inclined to think that the Catholic Church was ahead of politicians on this one. Under the pontificate of John Paul II a division began to appear in the church, where opposing sides saw each other as the ‘enemy’. Right now in the church the opposing sides find it ever so easy to speak in the nastiest terms about their opponents. Last month I read about two English Dominicans referring to the Pope as a heretic.

There is a palpable violence in the ether. Look at social media. The world needs to calm down.

On the scale of things, the Maria Bailey story is a bit of fun, though certainly not for her.

What about if we all made a genuine effort in respecting one another, even those with whom we disagree. Politicians take note.

'Live While You Can' - a story of God's love

Another quote from Fr Tony Coote's best-selling book, 'Live While You Can':

Jesus proclaimed that he came into the world not to condemn but to bring life. By being compassionate to others, we literally give them life and receive life ourselves. (P 160)

The June edition of the free-sheet 'Alive' tells a story written in a langauage so far removed from what Tony Coote writes on every page of his book.

In that same June issue there is questioning as to what caused the fire at Notre Dame - an insinuation that it may have been malicious.

On Page Nine there is this  sentence: "But the former pope offers the only way to true renewal of the Church and of our whole society."

Every page carries anger in some form or shape. This cannot be the Gospel of love.

At the bootom of Page One of the free-sheet the following sentence appears:

'The content of the newspaper ALIVE and the news expressed in it are those of the editor and contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Irish Dominican Province.

The inclusion of the word 'necessarily' is worrying.

Who is the editor of Alive?

'Criminal Minister of the Realm' Michael Gove

The Irish Times carried a report yesterday about comments made by Garda Comissioner Drew Harris on cocaine use.

The Commissioner said: "If you get engaged in the use if cocaine, you are supplying your money into criminal networks that extend from here to the most poor areas of the world where there is vicious violence ongoing every day."

British politician Michael Gove admits taking cocaine.

His behaviour is criminal. A middle class criminal and with all the words, pomp and actions that go with it.

Doesn't he look it and sound it.

This from yesterday's Guardian.

Michael Gove was battling to keep his campaign for the Tory leadership alive on Saturday night as he faced accusations of hypocrisy from drug experts and politicians, after admitting he had taken cocaine when working as a young journalist.

Figures from major political parties, along with former police officers and drugs charities, lined up to accuse the former justice secretary of double standards and of trivialising a debate on the harm caused by class A drugs. 

A former senior drug adviser to the government, Professor David Nutt, said Gove’s disclosure was more proof that privileged politicians felt able “to break the law, but not for others to do the same”. Nutt also warned Gove that his confession might mean him being barred from travelling to the US to represent the UK, if he won the Tory leadership contest.

Delaney turns up in Copenhagen

Delaney donned the red shirt last night in Copenhagen playing for Denmark.

Was this revenge of pure brazenness?

It seems to be impossible to keep Delaney away from Irish football.

A non-interfering Benedict

Vatican joke.

Question: Does Benedict interfere these days with the running of the church?

Answer: Are you joking? He didn't interfere when he was pope.

Closing doors on people carries a terrible price

If we in the church are truly Christian, followers of Jesus Christ, then we must make sure that we do not close doors to others through words of condemnation or harsh judgement.

Once we close doors in such a way, those we have excluded will never open them again.

- a quote from Fr Tony Coote's book ' Live While You Can'

Old enemies building bridges at Portsmouth

It was special and heartwarming to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel at D-Day commemorations in Portsmouth today.

No Russian presence? Why not? A pity.

Cardinal Pell appeals

From today's Guardian

George Pell, the most senior Catholic convicted of child sexual abuse, has been taken from prison to hear the beginning of his appeal in a Melbourne court. 

The disgraced cardinal was dressed in black and wearing his clerical collar as he listened to his lawyer argue that the prosecution’s case about when the historic offences took place were flawed and that his client should be acquitted on grounds that his conviction was unreasonable.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

In 2018 nine million tourists visited Dublin.

The rise in average weekly earnings in the year up to March 2018 was 3.9%.

There are 10,378 homeless people in the State.

Need for more transparency in Irish medicine

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.
Michael Commane

It’s generally accepted that if we do not personally have to pay for something we are not too bothered about how much it costs. Of course there are the ethical and noble people who will make it their business not to waste. 

The current discussion about climate change and the increasing popularity of the Greens is a reminder to all of us that waste and profligacy wherever and however they happen are no good for any of us. 

Never forget that old adage, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I was reminded of such matters in recent days when I had minor surgery.

I am a privileged person in that I have private medical insurance. The surgery costs were covered by my insurer. So far I have not received any details about how much it all cost.

I have been told by my insurer that as soon as they receive the bill from the hospital they will send me a breakdown of the costs. Half-jokingly, half-seriously I asked if I would be told how much the hospital charged for the tea and toast. Politely, the person at the other end of the phone told me that no, there would be no information as to how much the tea and toast cost.

I am wondering why.

Within a few days of the surgery I received a letter from my consultant confirming the date of my appointment to see him. Included in the letter was the price of the appointment. It was there on the page, clear to see how much I would have to pay. Just like when I go to buy a pair of shoes or a carton of milk, I know the price before I purchase.

And now I’m saying to myself why does the medical insurer not give its customers a breakdown of prices before they incur any costs. I think it would make us all more cost-conscience if we knew how much something was before we walked inside the door of the hospital.

And back to the price of the tea and toast. Someone has to pay for it. I doubt the hospital or the insurer picks up the tab. That means it is hidden somewhere in all those large sums of money swirling around in the billions that we are spending every year on healthcare. I can’t help wondering, what else is hidden under the bonnet.

How do the medical insurers do deals with the various hospitals? Does an appendix cost the same price in all hospitals? Do different doctors charge different fees? When I asked my insurer these questions I was told to phone the relevant hospital to find out how much they charge. Is all this information easily available in the public arena?

Guess what, I’d love to know how much the tea and toast cost and who actually paid for it.

But deep down I know of course it’s my annual subscription that pays and pays handsomely for every single item.

It goes back to that belief when we know exactly how much something costs it’s only natural that we will be more careful in how we spend our money.

Oscar Wilde has a point when he says that we know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Nevertheless, more transparency right across the medical world could prove invaluable to all of us. It might help a sense of reality prevail and allow us and the State to plan wisely for the future.

The perfect day climbing Scarr

June Bank Holiday Monday the perfect day to Climb Scarr mountain in Wicklow.

Our route took us via Lough Dan and Kanturch.

Scarr stands at 647 metres and lies south west of Roundwood.

Clear vision today. We could see over to Turlough Hill, Kippure and Vartry reservoir also in sight and of course could see out to sea.

But all the time sad that Tess is now too old for a day's hill-walking.

We covered 10.87 kilometres in four hours with stops for food and drink.

The perfect day.

Within three hours of completion it begins to rain.

Angela Merkel on walls and lies

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressing Harvard graduates last week told them to "tear down walls of ignorance and narrow-mindedness, not to call lies truth and truth lies.

"I was no dissident, I didn't run up against the wall but I didn't deny it either because I didn't want to lie to myself.

"The Berlin Wall limited my opportunities, it literally stood in the way. But in all those years it didn't manage one thing: to deny my inner borders.

"My peronality, fantasy and longings - none of that could be limited by bans and coercion."

Great words spoken by a German chancellor on Ascension Thursday in the United States of American during the presidency of Donald Trump.

A comment on Mark Levin's top-selling book

The article below is from The Washington Post. The author is Kevin Lerner.

It makes reference to Mark Levin's top-selling book.

Levin is radio host of extraordinary vulgarity and rage. He ridicules people, calls this paper The Washington Compost. He roars and screams at his opponents. A big fan of Donald Trump.

__________

Last week, conservative radio, Internet and television host Mark Levin published “Unfreedom of the Press,” an anti-media screed that debuted as Amazon’s No. 1 bestseller, knocking Howard Stern’s memoir from the top spot.

Levin’s book attempts to reinforce a common argument: that the American “media,” which he writes about as if it were a single, monolithic entity, is hopelessly liberal in its worldview, inexplicably invested in the success of the Democratic Party and therefore unworthy of the trust of Levin’s readers.

“Unfreedom of the Press” joins a centuries-old lineage of attacks on the American press, largely (but not exclusively) from the political right. Thomas Jefferson, once a vocal supporter of newspapers, wrote to a young man during his presidency, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” 

But a crucial difference exists between the press in Jefferson’s era and the press that Levin harangues today. By the 20th century, the partisan press of Jefferson’s era had given way to a media that claimed to be driven by an ideal of objectivity. That premise has been the primary source of credibility for American journalists for most of a century.

Ironically, though, it is this claim to near-scientific neutrality that has opened the American press to attacks from the right for more than 50 years. These attacks, in turn, have provoked a profound crisis of confidence in the system of reporting, one that threatens American democracy today.

Objectivity developed as a professional ideal in American journalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At the time, there was no one “correct” model for journalism. But that began to change in 1896 when Adolph Ochs, who had just acquired the New York Times, declared that the paper would “give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved.” 

Gradually over the next 50 years, the commercial benefits of not choosing sides became clear (an impartial newspaper could sell subscriptions to Republicans and Democrats alike). This spurred most mainstream outlets — large, general-circulation metropolitan daily newspapers — to embrace the New York Times as a model. Professors in the journalism schools that began popping up in the early 20th century also adopted objectivity as a guide for the new set of professional norms their schools would teach.

By the time that radio, then television news, took hold, objectivity had become the standard rallying cry, with news anchors such as Walter Cronkite delivering a 22-minute picture of the world “as it was.” Cronkite was never really the most trusted man in America, as the historian W. Joseph Campbell has pointed out, but the label stuck in a world where objectivity was the gold standard.

At the same time, the makeup of American newsrooms was changing. Before World War II, reporters were far likelier to have come from working-class families, making their way up through the newsroom ranks, though the top editors and publishers were generally college graduates. After the war, this began to change, and by the end of the 1960s, young reporters who had been in college during the social upheavals of that decade began to chafe against the strict definitions of objectivity imposed by older editors.

This frustration reflected a more general distrust of institutional authority. At the New York Times, David Halberstam challenged the statements of American generals in Vietnam and headed into the jungle to see the war for himself. A few years later, his friend J. Anthony Lukas butted heads with editors who would not let him cover the trial of the Chicago Seven — activists who had led protests at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention — as a political show trial and insisted that he treat it as a criminal trial, just like the government said it was.

The 1968 convention itself was a seminal moment that prompted a group of reporters to rethink the norm of objectivity. In a 1970 New York magazine article, the reporter and critic Edwin Diamond wrote that it “made many reflective journalists realize that they did have deep personal points of view,” something they should acknowledge.

Vice President Spiro Agnew was among the first national politicians on the right to exploit the division between the mainstream press’s pose of objectivity and the clear viewpoints that were shaping journalists’ coverage. Part of Agnew’s genius was to lump all reporters and news organizations into one vast, undifferentiated “media” that conspired to produce a twisted account of the news that little resembled the world as conservatives viewed it. This portrayal undermined confidence in the press more generally.

Books such as TV Guide writer Edith Efron’s “The News Twisters,” published in 1971, purported to analyze the leftward lean of the press with a scholarly veneer, and offered support for the administration’s move to undercut the media’s collective credibility. Dozens of books have followed in their wake.

In 1971, Lukas joined with colleagues to found (MORE), a journalism review that tried to nudge elite news organizations into a new set of practices and values for the press, ones that acknowledged, to some extent, the inherent subjectivity of news reporting. (MORE)’s goal was to leave journalism less susceptible to criticism like Agnew’s. Interestingly, the staff of (MORE) included, for a time, the young reporter Brit Hume, who has become an ideological Fox News pundit.

The financial success that newspapers and broadcast television experienced in the 1980s papered over many of the arguments about objectivity that characterized the late 1960s and 1970s. This freed mainstream news organizations to continue the outward pose of neutrality that NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen calls “the view from nowhere” (a term borrowed from philosopher Thomas Nagel).

The failure to rethink this posture proved devastating in the Internet era, as local newspapers began to fail and reporters became more concentrated in just a few American cities. This new geography of reporting revealed that the American press really does live in a sort of bubble. Follow some of the best reporters on Twitter today, and it’s easy to see how many of them know one another across institutions.

And so the cycle of the early 1970s is repeating itself. Smart but disingenuous critics like Levin — the successors of Agnew — pounce on the gap between purported objectivity and an obvious point of view to provoke a crisis of confidence in American journalism, one from which many of them profit handsomely as conservative media personalities.

But their critique is often overly simplistic. The New York Times and The Washington Post are not liberal equivalents of Fox News. They are not partisan news outlets, nor in the employ of the Democratic Party.

Yet many of their reporters do share a worldview. Most have university educations. Most live in large metropolitan areas on the East Coast, where they ride public transportation with people who aren’t like them, where there are large minority populations and LGBTQ neighborhoods and restaurants serving Ethiopian food or regional Chinese — which they can probably get delivered to their apartments at midnight, when they’re still working on a story.

In short, the best journalists in the United States are in many ways more elite and more cosmopolitan than the American public in general. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Smart people who are aware of different kinds of life experiences make the best journalists. But that does mean that they have a particular way of seeing the world. And they would be much less susceptible to attacks from the Mark Levins of the world if they abandoned the pose of objectivity that opens them to those attacks.