Austrians give their vote to a nationalist party

In the not-to0-distant past in Ireland there was the general belief that our politics went back to the civil war and how Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael came into existence. Both parties stood for more less the same world view. Labour had some left wing policies but there was no great left wing divide.

Across Europe the major political parties  were clearly distinguishable. On the one side the socialist, communist parties and on the other side the conservative and liberal groupings.

In Ireland we felt we were missing out on a clearer political division.

Interesting what’s happening across Europe now. In Austria yesterday those divides fell apart and the populist far-right has surged becoming the biggest political grouping.

It’s similar in the former East Germany, the far-right AfD is surging. Left and right are being thrown aside in favour of populist nationalist parties. People are voting for extremes.

And the irony of that is that’s what has happened in Northern Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement. Sinn Féin took most of the SDLP vote and the DUP moved in on the UUP. Voters moving to the populist nationalist parties.

What’s happening is extremely dangerous. The leader of the now largest political party in Austrian  speaks words that are a reminder of another Austrian, who always blamed the scapegoat for all the woes of Reich.

Is the killing of anyone ever a ‘measure of justice’?

How can US President Joe Biden say the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah 'is a measure of justice’? What does he say about the civilians who are killed every day and night? What does he say to the parents of little children who are killed and maimed for life?

In a civilised world everyone has a right to a fair trial

All this revenge killing is wrong.

This non-stop killing is creating generations of Arabs who will never forget these days. The children of today will most likely cause more mayhem and pain in 20, 30 years ahead.

Where is the United Nations? Where are world leaders?

––––––––––––––

Dominican priest Fergal O’Connor died on this day in 2005, 19 years ago, the feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, archangels.

Tempus fugit.

But God doesn’t think?

Dominican priest Tom McCarthy makes an interesting comment on yesterday’s blogpost, which was an article written by The Irish Times columnist Joe Humphreys.

What actually does it mean to say I believe in God? Scroll through religious comments on X, read many Catholic newspapers, are they representation of what it means to believe in God?

Read many parish newsletters and it’s easy to ask what is all this about. Visit parishes and see for oneself how parish councils work and the relationship between priests and people. Every parish will be different. What happens when a parish priest behaves in a dictatorial fashion? What happens when bishops and religious superiors act as tyrants? Where actually is the church, the people of God? Why all the taboo subjects? And then there’s God. It’s a great jump, most times.

Some days ago American Jesuit priest Fr James Martin replied on X to a comment made by former bishop of Tyler in Texas. This is what he wrote: 

"I don’t normally respond to @BishStrickland, but his recent inaccurate screed against the Jesuits ignores one key thing: When Servant of God Pedro Arrupe, SJ, had a stroke and St  John Paul II intervened by naming his own choice to run the Jesuits, until a successor could be named, Fr Arrupe was completely obedient, even though he disagreed with the Pope's decision.  Fr Arrupe then instructed every Jesuit to show obedience to the Holy Father. To make his point, Fr Arrupe sent this photo around to every Jesuit community in the world.  It hung in the entrance to my novitiate. Curious if Bishop Strickland feels the same about obedience to a Pope with whom he disagrees....”

The former bishop of Tyler posts regularly on X. I have no problem saying that what he writes on matters of God and faith have little or no meaning for me. 

Surely that does not suggest I don’t believe in God? X and other similar outlets at present seem to attract a ‘special type’ of Catholic that makes me ask, what must God think of this material. Then again, wouldn’t the theologian say that God doesn’t think?

There is an upsurge within the Christian churches at present that seems to say it’s our way or no way. 

Is the American Catholic Church having a negative influence on church life in Ireland?

Worrying.

'I am an atheist but I still enjoy going to Mass'

This appeared in The Irish Times on Monday. I was looking forward to the read and then having read it, was not sure what I had read. Is prayer not about talking with and to God?

What does it mean to say I believe in God? What does it mean to say I don’t believe in God? What can we say about God? Jesus? The Holy Spirit? The Father/Mother?

It is written by Joe Humphreys, who writes weekly thought-provoking pieces in the paper. 

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There are few places where you can be in the company of strangers for a while without someone glancing at a smartphone. Fewer still where you can sit – or stand or kneel – together to reflect on life’s deepest questions.

This explains why I enjoy going to Mass occasionally – an embarrassing admission for an atheist. Strictly speaking, I’m there for two things: scripture and prayer. Neither requires a belief in God, although I’m sure practising Catholics will say it helps.

There is a long tradition of atheists engaging with the text of the Bible. In his latest book, Christian Atheism, Slovenian philosopher and self-proclaimed communist Slavoj Zizek argues: “To become a true dialectical materialist, one should go through the Christian experience.”

Christian teaching is a way of understanding moral ideals that underpin secular institutions and progressive causes. Or, as author and “lapsed Catholic” Sally Rooney put it in a recent Irish Times interview, Christianity “is a really beautiful, rich and worthwhile spiritual and intellectual tradition of thinking about ethics, about our relations with other people”.

The other reason to go to church – for prayer – is more to do with the spirit than society. Lighting candles for my late parents makes me feel closer to them, even if my internal monologue praising their names goes nowhere. Beyond a connection to our ancestors, prayer can allow us to vocalise – internally or otherwise – suppressed emotions or fears.

‘Depression and anxiety’

Several studies indicate a health benefit, with one 2009 psychiatry trial recording that participants who prayed for just six weeks “showed significant improvement of depression and anxiety” compared to a control group. A follow-up study found “subjects maintained significant improvements for a duration of at least one year after the final prayer session”.Other research is less conclusive, with a 2022 study finding “prayer efficacy” varies depending on prayer type. One form of devotional prayer – “asking God for forgiveness” – correlates with higher anxiety, while another form – “praising God” – is associated with lower anxiety, researchers found. “The psychological literature is clear on this subject. Prayer can reduce stress,” says Stephen J Costello, director of the Viktor Frankl Institute of Ireland.

“All the scientific studies point to greater resilience and meaning and happiness among those who have a religious sense and sensibility.” In Christianity, there are numerous different types of prayer. Perhaps the best known is “intercessory” or “petitionary” prayer, what Immanuel Kant called “wheedling with God”, says Costello. There is also “contemplative” prayer – which is more like a spiritual exercise independent of faith.

“[The French philosopher] Simone Weil says pure attention is prayer. As such, the act can be carried out by the atheist . . . Just sitting still and directing one’s attention outwards, as Iris Murdoch recommends, on to a leaf or pond or duck wherein the ego is emptied is crucial. Imagine, she says, a boy brooding and bored in his study. Suddenly a kestrel hovers outside. He turns to look. At that moment, all is kestrel. “This turning, which Plato mentions, is a turning from the world of becoming with all its comings and goings and changes to the world of pure being – silent stasis. In meditation, we get glimmers of such profound peace.”

Costello, a philosopher and “logotherapist” – or practitioner of Frankl’s branch of psychoanalysis – takes prayer to another level in a new book, Ignatian Mysticism. This explores how St Ignatius of Loyola formulated a set of reflective practices known as the Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius “commends a form of imaginative prayer. So, through the ‘application of the senses’ and the ‘composition of place’, the person places himself into the Gospel scenes and imagines what the people present are saying or doing,” Costello explains.

“It’s a way of deploying the imagination in prayer to make the Gospels come alive and become vivid. There are many existential exercises throughout but they culminate in the Contemplatio – ‘the Contemplation to Attain Love’ – where the retreatant, who usually spends a month away doing the ‘four weeks’ of the exercises, is asked to consider how the divine dwells in all things giving them life.”

If that sounds like a big commitment, Costello says: “Ignatius also suggests a method whereby we use the breath and repeat one word like a mantra. This connects us to the practice of the Desert Fathers [a group of early Christian hermits].”

Secularising prayer could be taken too far. Manifesting – a Californian trend of “thinking your aspirations into reality” – has become a licence for more consumerism. If prayer means anything, with or without God, then surely it’s about focusing on what really matters, deep in the human core.

“Prayer leads inexorably to loving service,” Costello adds.

“Gratitude is an attitude. It is also a practice, one enjoined by the Stoics and Ignatius too. I would encourage everybody to meditate, to just sit still and ‘do nothing’, which is a way of doing everything. This action by non-action is transformative. It is also useless. That’s why it’s so important.”

A culture of denial with respect to sexual abuse

Below is a comment sent to this blog in reply to the post of Wednesday, September 11. The title of the blogpost was: Toxic silence, anonymity, obsessive secrecy.

It is a pity the comment is anonymous.

It is appearing here as today’s post because it might easily be missed by readers. It also appears as a comment under the post of September 11.

"Archbishop Farrell spoke on this topic recently and said, amongst other things, "It is possible to go further, and speak even of a ‘culture of denial’ with respect to sexual abuse”. 

The bishops are part of that ongoing culture of denial. There has been zero acknowledgement of how the seminary system, the lack of psychological formation, and the systematic negativity about human sexuality (all of which still persist today) have played a role, with the bishops as the cheer leaders and enabler, front and centre.

 
There has been no acknowledgement of how dehumanizing enforced celibacy has been for many clergy, with mental health issues, psycho-sexual issues, alcoholism, gambling and other addictions a common experience for many. The bishops seem to have been far more interested in having sacrament provision via ordained men than in furthering the gospel.

The consistent erasure of women, particularly lay women, form the face of the church, still reinforced today by most bishops, has been the model and exemplar for how many of the clergy treated women, as objects of little use and no worth.

There has been no apology from the bishops collectively about how they have treated gay Catholics over the years.

 
There has been no apology from the bishops collectively about how they have treated gay seminarians and clergy over the years, often dismissing them in the dead of night with no future prospects, no dignity, and no rights, without provision for income or education (so much respect for the provisions of canon law). 

There has been no apology from the bishops collectively about how they have treated married couples, burdening them morally, economically, and mentally by saying that recourse to contraception was seriously sinful.

Perhaps the bishops should seek to become reacquainted with Matthew 7:3-5. 

Perhaps a collective apology for their overbearing haughtiness, abuse of power, and utter callousness in the face of so much suffering might be a good place to start.

Perhaps they might just admit that they have been the true progenitors of the culture of denial, not just about child abuse, but also about the considerable damage they have done to good women, men, and children across the church. When that acknowledgement has been made, then perhaps society might heed the call to follow suit. 

What are the chances? "

'Putin regime will collapse without warning'

Interesting opinion from a man who has suffered greatly at the hands of the Putin regime.

The article below is form the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/22/putin-regime-will-collapse-without-warning-says-freed-gulag-dissident?CMP=share_btn_url

A man with one leg will never know how he inspired me

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

Five or six minutes before the train departed a man in a wheelchair boarded with the assistance of an Irish Rail personnel. He manoeuvred the man into position in the place reserved for wheelchairs. It so happened there was another wheelchair-bound passenger on the other side of the aisle.

I’m always impressed how Irish Rail staff give such care and attention to people with disabilities.

I got chatting to the man and he told me that he had lost his leg in March as the result of an accident with a bull. He had gone into the shed to feed  the bull, something he had done every day but on this particular day his life was changed forever. 

He was lying there for some considerable time before he could manage to get his phone out of his pocket and call the emergency services. He said the gardaí were there within minutes, followed by the ambulance, which arrived within 20 minutes. He was all praise for how quickly they arrived and the care and professionalism he received.

It is a shocking and traumatic experience for him. He explained how difficult it was for him to get his phone out of his pocket and then use it. I was impressed how well he is dealing with his situation.

The day I met him was the third successive day he had made the return rail trip from Dublin to his home. 

He told me he had made the journey Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then when he arrived at Heuston he travelled by taxi to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. 

The round trip is close to eight hours. He has managed to get himself a Travel Pass but the taxi journey from Heuston to Dún Laoghaire is approximately €150, which he has to pay out of his own pocket. He explained he could have stayed as a patient in the Rehabilitation Hospital but decided not to as he wants to sleep in his own bed and wants to keep active. 

He spoke how he is learning to crawl to get from A to B at home. I admired his tenacity.

It is only seven months since he lost leg and it’s simply remarkable how he is dealing with his situation. 

He is at present being measured for a prosthesis and his focus is to get back walking as soon as possible. I told him of someone I know who lost a leg in an accident and is now walking about with a prosthesis and living a normal life.

One moment we are getting on with our lives with a sense of invincibility. That invincibility can change at the blink of an eye.

None of us ever knows what is ahead of us. We can do all the planning and preparation we like but we have no guarantee what’s going to happen tomorrow. 

I was in conversation with the rail passenger for less than an hour. The insight that was afforded me in that encounter was extraordinary. That man exemplifies everything about the resilience of the human spirit, and he is doing it in spades.

Germany’s Social Democrats do the job but just

A tiny glimmer of hope in Germany. The far-right AfD party did not make the 30 per cent bar they were expected to reach in the elections in Brandenburg, though it was very close, reaching 29.6 per cent with the SPD at 30.7 per ent

The Social Democrats SPD are the winners but just. At time of writing it is not certain if the Green Party will be in the new parliament in Potsdam. The Christian Democrats CDU are disappointed with their result and the Free Democrats FDP will not be represented in the new parliament as they did not make the five per cent hurdle. The newly formed BSW has taken 13 per cent of the vote, which is  a sensational result for them.

Anyone who knows anything about German politics, indeed, anyone who is familiar with Germany will know how vital it is that the AfD must never come to power anywhere on German soil. They represent too much of the darkness that was unleashed in Germany. Nothing is simple, but there are too many similarities between the Germany of the Weimar Republic and the Germany of 2024.

Now is the time to stop the AfD. It might be too late  next year, in five or 10 years time.

Democratic politicians can stop the AfD march in Germany

Elections today in the German State of Brandenburg, which is the State that surrounds Berlin. It is part of the former German Democratic Republic.

Had the main political parties, including the SPD and Communist Party, formed a working coalition  some years before 1933 they could easily have stopped the Nazis from coming to power.

It’s now time in Germany for the main political parties, including the SPD, CDU, CSU, The Greens, the  Liberal Democrats, BSW to make it their business to stop the advance of the far-right AfD.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference warned that the AfD opposes “fundamental values of human coexistence and democracy”.

It’s time for us all to speak out against name calling

Two men in conversation yesterday evening in a Co Kildare pub. One man said to another: ‘These scumbags coming to our country are taking all our women’.

A shocking, dangerous and worrying comment.

In Düsseldorf in 1944 the Gestapo had arrested an opponent to the system, who was a soldier in the Wehrmacht. The authorities discovered he had protected a Jew. His SS jailer said to him while questioning him in the Gestapo interrogation building in Ulmen Straße: “And all this for a filthy Jew”.

- From The Good Germans by Catrine Clay

We are living in extremely dangerous times.

There are elections tomorrow in the German State of Brandenburg, where it is forecast the far right AfD could get more than 30 per cent of the vote.

We all need to speak up to stop what is happening.

It’s such an easy slide from words like ‘scumbags’ and ‘filthy Jews’ to Auschwitz and the gulags.

‘I don’t think this war is going to end any time soon’

This is a most interesting read by medical student Oran McInerney, who worked during the summer in Ukraine. You can picture the young man in the story at work and meeting people.

A Clare medical student, who spent the summer dodging Russian drones, cluster munitions and glide bombs on the frontline in eastern Ukraine, has received death threats after his personal information was leaked on pro-Russian Telegram channels.

Doonbeg student, Oran McInerney, has just returned to Ireland after a summer working as an unarmed, medical volunteer with Front Line Medics, a group that stabilises and evacuates injured Ukrainian soldiers from the frontline.

While in Ukraine, McInerney befriended 20-year-old Dubliner, Alex Ryzhuk, who was serving as a volunteer with the Ukrainian military. He last met Mr Ryzhuk just four days before the Ryzhuk was reported missing, presumed dead.

“Alex was fighting, so his situation was very different from mine. He was 20 years old, his mother and father are both from Ukraine. Alex went over there when he was 18 years old and he has been fighting there for the past two years or so, flying drones and doing a lot of crazy stuff. His stories would leave you speechless,” McInerney says.

“I met him for coffee, we took some pictures and he asked me for some medical supplies. We instantly got on. Some of the Americans who were with me were wondering why we got on so well, were we friends before this. And I was like, no, we’re Irish. If you meet another Irish person abroad, he is your friend.

“But he [Alex] had asked me for medical supplies, so I met up with him again with the supplies on a Wednesday or a Thursday. He went out on a mission a few days later and unfortunately he was killed on that mission.

“He is officially down as missing but I have heard from his friends that he was killed. He paid the ultimate price for European freedom. He was an amazing person, a great guy. It is so unfortunate but the reality is that a lot of people are dying out there,” McInerney says.

After his death, Ryzhuk was mocked by pro-Russian elements on a number of Telegram channels which list the names and identities of foreigners in Ukraine.

McInerney’s personal details, including pictures of him and his home address in Ireland, were also published on these channels, many of which have more than 45,000 members.

Killed

“It was surreal. There are a lot of pro-Russian people out there, as well as a lot of bots and people who the Russian government are essentially paying to put out a lot of pro-Russian stuff,” he says.

“The idea is that they share your information and they hope that you get killed in Ukraine. If you get killed, they put up another post mocking you. They say, ‘look at Oran, he came to Ukraine and he is dead now’.

“The whole point of that is to stop other people from coming to Ukraine and helping. Basically, ‘don’t come over here or you will die’. Unfortunately it is working, you see a lot of pro-Russian stuff in Ireland on Twitter pages that are fake. You can’t believe anything you read on it.

“But it was pretty scary. It doesn’t matter where you are from or what you are doing in Ukraine, you could be put up on that page.

“I can shrug it off, but you do wonder will these people show up at your house, will they show up to your family? Will it come back to haunt you.”

This summer was McInerney’s third visit to Ukraine over the past two years. Living in a bunker just 15km from the frontline, he was constantly in danger during his three month medical mission.

Death

His closest brush with death took place on a previous visit to Ukraine, however. He narrowly avoided being killed when a cluster munition detonated just behind his position while he was working with the Stop the War organisation.

“The cluster fell nearly on my head. Cluster munitions shoot forward, and this bomb missed our group by maybe 200m. The only reason that he [the Russian pilot] didn’t hit us was that he pushed the button a fraction of a second too late,” he says.

“We didn’t see the fighter plane, it was travelling too fast. We were on a firing range at the time so we were used to all of these explosions around us. We all just ran. I remember just running through a forest and then being evacuated. It was insane.

“The unit we were training at the time, unfortunately, I got word that a lot of them have been killed and wounded. The casualty rate is horrific at the moment, and you just don’t hear about it over here [in Ireland].”

According to McInerney, the Ukrainian people are tired of this conflict, but they have no choice but to continue.

“I remember talking to one of our medics and asking her what she wanted to do when the war is finished. She said that the first thing that she wants to do is to go to the graveyard and visit her friends. That really put it all into perspective for me,” he says.

“The people over there are absolutely resolute that Ukraine should be independent, they have their own democracy, their own culture and freedom. There is no real explanation for what Russia is doing.

“The Ukrainians are tired of the war, but more than that, they don’t want to be taken over by Russia. I don’t think this war is going to end any time soon.”

Kant’s message on morality of war has lessons for today

This is a gem. It appears in The Irish Times yesterday. Written by Joe Humphreys.

German philosopher’s belief that we have a duty to hope has rarely been more relevant

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You rarely hear the term “Judeo-Christian values” these days, but in the decades immediately after the second World War it was widely used as shorthand for the best of western civilisation.

George Orwell is credited with first using the term in print as a way of emphasising the shared moral traditions of Jews and Christians. While some zealous members of each faith objected to being lumped together, the joint-identity encapsulated a common commitment to defending equality and the dignity of human life. Christianity is today a much weakened force after years of church scandals, while Judaism is increasingly politicised by the Israel-Palestine conflict. “The centre cannot hold,” said WB Yeats. Sure enough, the threads of a once dominant Judeo-Christian consensus have come apart.

Moral principles once universally accepted are now up for debate. And some of the loudest voices in Christianity and Judaism are hardliners – from evangelical Christians seeking to restrict the freedom of women and minorities, to fundamentalist defenders of Israel who cry “anti-Semitism” over any criticism of that country’s military activities.

What ever happened to the credo of Leopold Bloom? “Force, hatred, history, all that. That’s not life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it’s the very opposite of that that is really life . . . Love.” So declared James Joyce’s “everyman”.

Golden rule of ethics

What ever happened to the golden rule of ethics? Consider others as yourself. Or, rephrased in Jewish scripture: “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow.” What ever happened to the prohibition on treating people as dispensable units in political calculations? “Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means but always at the same time as an end,” said the philosopher Immanuel Kant.

The latter principle is worth added attention as we approach the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas terrorist atrocity that has led to an unfathomable degree of killing by the Israeli military.

Kant believed freedom “is central to what makes us a person,” says Trinity College Dublin academic Lilian Alweiss, an expert on the German thinker.

“This leads Kant to articulate the formula of humanity: we do not only have a duty to respect our own agency, but we also have a corresponding duty not to undermine the agency of others. When we use others simply as means to our own ends, we do precisely that: we undermine their agency.”

Crucially, according to Kant, who was born 300 years ago last April and died at the dawn of the 19th century, “the dignity of the person is a supreme principle that has no borders as it concerns not some but all, ie, humanity at large”.

Kant’s formula is a challenge to anyone at war. “He thinks just war theorists are mistaken,” says Alweiss, an assistant professor in philosophy. Rather, “wars are essentially barbaric. This is why we have a duty to understand war in terms of its opposite: perpetual peace”.

Collateral damage

Kant says we should not ask: what amount of collateral damage is morally justifiable? Rather, “the question should be instead: is the effect on civilians and the civilian infrastructure excessive to its military purpose to stop the aggression and create the conditions for a lasting peace for all?”

Alweiss continues: “It is important to note that Kant’s ‘morality’ of war – which is based on the principle of peace – does not depend on the conduct of the other party, but purely on the question whether the conduct is consistent with the aim of ending the conflict in such a way that co-operation is possible to achieve perpetual peace for both parties.”

It is tempting to write off Kant as a dreamer. Or as weak-willed in the face of threats from murderous aggressors. But he asks us to reflect on whether the ultimate answer to war is more war.

When did we stop thinking of “peace on earth” as a realistic goal?

“Kant shows us that we face an existential choice: we can either seek to end hostilities by force and create ‘a vast graveyard of the human race’ or we can uphold our belief in the humanity of the enemy. The message is: we have a duty to hope as without hope all is lost,” says Alweiss.

“I don’t think this makes Kant old-fashioned, if anything, it turns him into a thinker who refuses to get old – precisely because he refuses to make do with the status quo by telling us that we have a duty not to give up on hope, even in times of utter hopelessness.”

Why do our tribal instincts come alive at England games?

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

I’m no football follower. Yes, I watch the big games in Croke Park and in the Aviva. I much prefer to call it Lansdowne Road but I don’t think that’s allowed these days.

On the Saturday of the Ireland England game in Dublin I made it my business to get home on time to watch it on television. I was late for the analysis and interviews before the game, something I like watching. 

I turned on the television just as President Michael D Higgins was shaking hands with the two teams. It seemed as if he were having a friendly and pleasant chat with each of the players and with some of the young people too.  It was a lovely cordial moment.

The moment the English anthem began the crowd booed from beginning to end. It was awful, outrageous. I could not believe my ears. It was followed by the playing of the Irish anthem, which received the respect it deserved. 

The RTÉ commentators resumed their work. I was again dumbfounded. Not a word from them about what had happened. At least that’s my memory of it. 

Maybe I missed it but I don’t think so. That they did not criticise what had happened was almost worse than the booing itself. I didn’t see the subsequent panel discussion. Did they comment on it?

The following day I was chatting with a young man, who had just done his Leaving Cert. He had been at the game and when I expressed my horror at what had happened he vehemently disagreed with me and thought it was only right and proper that they should have booed. I was speechless. 

His argument was that England had terrorised us for 800 years and all we were now doing was booing at their football team. If my memory serves me, he said they deserved every bit of it.

When I asked him if the Poles should boo at the German anthem when their team plays Germany he said that was different and it didn’t last 800 years.

I’m told it’s almost custom and practice for all  sorts of chanting at football games, especially at English soccer games. But surely that doesn’t make it right or correct.

People might say it’s better to boo on the playing-field  than to kill and maim on the battlefield.

Does this mean there is some sort of seminal hatred deep inside all of us? How long does it last before old wounds and grievances are healed and forgotten.

And that thought made me move on to think about the madness, nastiness and badness that appears on social media every day and night. Maybe after all, that is no blip, not just a few cranks letting off steam. 

If that be the case it is extremely worrying.

The day after the Ireland England game there was an inspiring reading in the liturgy from St Mark’s Gospel talking about the importance of listening to the other person. 

If only we had the ingenuity and wisdom to listen to the other person we might live in a better world. Booing of its nature excludes listening.