We are caught in a society that thinks it’s cool to waste

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

There has been construction work happening where I live; it means there have been skips coming and going. 

On one occasion I spotted an electrical extension lead on the top of the pile. I asked the builder could I take it and of course he consented. I commented on the amount we waste across the board. Not only did he agree but added that he is paying to dump material that is still usable. 

To add to the stupidity of our throwaway society I was embarrassed taking the extension lead and did not want anyone to see me removing it from the skip. Why should I be ashamed of utilising material that still works?

I don’t remember much from my student days but I still recall someone say that the advent of the skip heralded the advent of the throwaway society.

We are living in a society that worships waste.

Everyone knows how the price of electricity has soared since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The cost of a kW/h of electricity in Ireland is one of the highest in the European Union. I’m at a loss to know how poorer people are paying for their energy. 

There is a Scottish proverb that says if you clean outside your own hall door the entire street will be clean. I’m not sure it’s as simple as that but I am certain that we can all play our part in protecting our pockets and the environment by making the tiniest of changes to our lifestyles.

How careful are you with your usage of electricity? Do you make sure to fill your washing machine every time you use it? Could you be more careful with the use of your immersion heater? What about filling the kettle when there is only need to heat half that amount of water? 

What about if you made a decision to reduce your use of  electricity by five units(kW/h) of electricity  in your next monthly billing period? With the vast majority of houses now fitted with smart meters it’s easy to control and observe your usage of electricity. 

The unit of electricity is approximately 36 cent. Over a two month period that would work out at a saving of €3.60. And don’t turn up your nose at that saving. The new UK prime minister has made a big deal of removing VAT from electricity; it works out at a saving of less than £1 a month for the average user. But here’s my idea: if the electricity suppliers agreed to credit you for every five units you save. Say you save 10 units over two months, they credit you with five units in your next two-month bill. 

What about the Minister for Finance introducing such a scheme? It’s well beyond time for our leaders to think imaginatively and outside the box.

There is always hope; chatting with a 16-year-old on Saturday he told me the shirt he was wearing was second hand, bought on the net. He thought my electricity idea was clever.

And yes the electrical extension is in good working order.

‘I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use.’ -Mother Teresa.

Venue for Mayo team celebrations looked sad

Across the world everyone is talking about the Mayo All Ireland win and Sam finding its way to County Mayo.

Did anyone notice the after match celebrations screened by RTÉ on Sunday evening?

It all seemed to happen in shoddy place; the background looked as if it were all taking place in a work canteen.

Not impressive. But what was impressive were the words spoken by team manager and team members.

A pity the venue did not complement the greatness and talent of the winning team and staff.

Can the God of love be involved in any type of warfare?

It takes all shapes and sizes to form any community, organisation, and that applies to all the various churches too.

Most Christian churches in the western world are currently in crisis.  

Last week American priest Mike Schmitz spoke at the National Stadium. It attracted a certain section of society but what have his words to say to the vast majority of Irish people?

The temptation to return to a former vocabulary and style is not going to work and it is not healthy.

The idea of running an event for Father and Son runs counter to the times in which we are living. Is the Catholic Church not man-centred enough?

A woman who saw this ad yesterday commented with one word: 'toxic'.

An organisation with the name 'The Angelic Warfare Confraternity' is alien to the modern ear. Can the God that the Vatican Council and Popes Leo and Francis speak about be a player in a war? When I think of war I think of two World Wars, the Vietnam War. The word Warfare sounds awful. Anyway, using the words confraternity and warfare in the one sentence is surely an oxymoron.

It's not popular or easy to criticise projects in an organisation where one belongs. But a time comes in everyone's life where they have to speak what they believe and think, and hope too. Indeed, it's profoundly sad that so many people within the church, who are uneasy with what is happening, are so silent.

The Dominican Order has been renowned for centuries in preaching and living the Word of  God in a language and style in a contemporary manner. But there have been times when it got it wrong and very wrong.

All part of the history of the Order. It is also the Dominican tradition that people can speak their mind, something that is respected and treasured. Truth is the motto of the Dominican Order.

_______________

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

- Martin Niemöller

'A social media star priest and his flock'

The article below appears in the Weekend supplement of The Irish Times.

Much of it already appeared during the week in the newspaper; why print it a second time?

The long article tells the reader little or nothing about who Fr Mike Schmitz is, about his understanding of church. Did Fr Schmitz at the evening in the National Stadium say one word about synodality or Pope Leo's encyclical Human Magnificence? But Patrick Freyne did tell us Fr Schmitz wore a roman collar, black suit, was handsome and athletic looking.

Did Freyne talk to Schmitz? If so no sign of it in the two-page spread. He never explains the significance of Schmitz saying Mass in St Kevin's Church on Harrington Street.

What was the core message from Fr Schmitz's message. Worth noting Patrick Freyne's ticket cost €49.75. Were the gallery seats more expensive. After all it was showtime.

The word flock in the headline immediately set alarm bells ringing in my ears.

Below is the article; it's left to the reader to decide whether it's worth reading or not.

Fr Mike Schmitz, the social media star, digital evangelist and Catholic chaplain, attracts youth groups, culture warriors and people seeking healing to the National Stadium

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Inside the National Stadium on the South Circular Road in Dublin, 1,600 people are here to see 51-year-old Fr Mike Schmitz: a social media star, digital evangelist and Catholic chaplain at the University of Minnesota Duluth in the US. Some of his videos have millions of views.

Outside there’s a queue. There are a lot of young people here, many with youth groups. My ticket cost €49.75.

As we wait inside there’s triumphant crescendoing liturgical music on a loop and I go around talking to people. The people here run the gamut from what might be termed culture warriors (one woman talks about how badly she thinks Enoch Burke has been treated) to resolutely apolitical people seeking some form of healing.

Many acknowledge the Catholic Church’s history of abuse unprompted. At least two tell me about their “same-sex attracted” friends, in a conversation about how the Church has changed, though they both still disagreed with gay marriage.

Twenty-six-year-old Francis Doole tells me his friend joked that he was going to a “cult meeting”. He laughs. He has long been a believer. “My faith is rooted in bereavement. When my wee brother died, I was five and my daddy he passed away suddenly when I was 12. So God has always been at the heart of everything that I’ve done.”

He’s a Religious Education (RE) teacher here with a youth group from Antrim. He thinks that in a world of TikTok and youth unemployment, young people really need to feel like they belong, to know that “God loves them for who they are because He made them so beautifully”.

A lot of young people are hostile to the Church and he says it’s his job to face up to that. “The institutional Church made mistakes in the past. And at the heart of it all, the Catholic Church comes back to one man, Christ.”

It’s not a political thing, he says. “It’s not like ‘go out and protest’. It’s ‘go out and stand up for the unborn. Go out and stand for life’. It wouldn’t be party political. But it would certainly encourage young people to go out into their schools, workplaces and be proud of their identity.”

How did he explain it to his friend? “I explained that it’s like going to see a celebrity and the celebrity we’re talking about is God. Fr Schmitz is only pointing to God and helping people understand.”

Eighteen-year-old Ruairi Anthony has a T-shirt with an abstract image of the Virgin Mary on it. He’s here with a friend, Ethan Nowo. Both weren’t particularly religious growing up, but found an interest in faith online. Is it like being “born again”? Anthony laughs. “I don’t think I’ve lived long enough to be born again.”

They are an anomaly among their friends, he says. “There are three of us on a WhatsApp group. We’re trying to encourage more.” They go to Mass every week, but it’s largely older people there. “I recently heard of a place in town doing adoration for 18- to 30-year-olds.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Basically, they get the consecrated holy bread and they put it on the altar and you pray to it.”

Why does Catholicism appeal to him? “It just makes sense. When you look at it from a more scientific standpoint it just makes sense. It explains a lot of questions I have.” He adds: “And say if none of it is true; it gives me a good way to live my life.”

I take my seat. Sitting behind me are Ivana Pehar (34) and Ivana Dzodzuashvili (33) from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Pehar works running an apartment complex and Dzodzuashvili is a healthcare assistant. They both use the Halo praying app and learned about Fr Schmitz and this event there. They arranged to leave work early to come here. “His words and his way of talking are like amazing,” says Pehar. “And how he like connects things and the way he thinks, it was just beautiful.”

“He’s very down-to-earth,” says Dzodzuashvili.

Religion is taken much more seriously back home, they say. At her wedding, Dzodzuashvili says, the priest chastised the women for not covering their limbs. When she told her Irish sister-in-law she was appalled. “In Ireland people come to the church in shorts. They’re like ‘You can’t tell me what to wear.’”

Do they understand why Irish people might be suspicious of the Church? “We understand why people distrust the Church,” says Dzodzuashvili. “But it’s not God [who] did that. It’s the humans in the Church that did it.”

The MC for the night, EWTN Catholic TV network presenter Colm Flynn, takes to the stage and stirs some audience rivalry about which county is best. There’s a short speech from Bishop Fintan Gavin, the bishop of Cork and Ross, who speaks of a need for more missionary zeal in a country where Catholicism has lost its centrality in Irish life.

And then Fr Schmitz comes on stage. He has just come from saying Mass at nearby St Kevin’s Church. He’s a handsome man in a black suit and shirt and a priest’s collar. He has the build and swept-back hair of Mad Men’s Don Draper but the earnest, slightly goofy, delivery of a kindly children’s TV presenter.

He asks us all to ask the person next to us the following questions: “What’s your name?” “Where are you at in life?” “Who is someone that you absolutely love? If you had one last thing you could say to them, what would that thing be? . . . You have 45 seconds. Ready, set, go.”

Helena Byrne, an RE teacher heading towards retirement, turns to me and tells me about her husband and two daughters and 92-year-old mother. I tell her about my wife and job and my assignment today.

She’s very nice to me even though she’s sceptical about mainstream media. Why? She is “pro-life” and “anti-masks” she says. She would like to see more clear communication from the Church in the style of Fr Schmitz. “They’re afraid on the pulpit to be honest . . . And young people sense the hypocrisy. There’s a hunger for the truth. I know as a teacher. The curriculum is not giving the answers It’s watered down too much,” she says.

Fr Schmitz gets on to the main act, a discussion of the parables, specifically: Luke 15 (about the shepherd looking for his lost sheep); Matthew 13 (the Parable of the Sower); Luke 16 (about the dishonest steward); and Matthew 25 (the Parable of the Wise Virgins and Foolish Virgins).

He breaks these up with references to Baz Luhrmann, Forrest Gump, Pixar’s Up and self-deprecating stories from his own life and ministry. Much of it is about Jesus’s love for humanity.

He encourages “amens” from the audience, but the audience often respond without prompting. They throw out answers to liturgical questions. Women around me say “aw” spontaneously when Fr Schmitz expresses doubts about his abilities. The man next to me says “yes” softly to himself frequently.

This is not a religion built on metaphor. In Schmitz’s worldview the Devil, aka “the enemy”, and his hosts are real but he brings that up just twice. “I think sometimes we forget that there’s an enemy . . . Here’s the deal, Jesus is more powerful than the enemy. But there is some being out there. In fact, there’s a number of beings out there that actually hate you. They do not want you to be happy. Do not want you to know joy. Don’t want you to know God’s love.”

At the end, Colm Flynn hosts a question-and-answer session during which Fr Schmitz uses Irish slang such as “savage” and “class” to great amusement. There’s a QR code on-screen via which audience members can submit questions. Some are jokey softballs: “Do you colour your hair?” (short answer: no). “Is there any wiggle room on the whole premarital sex thing?” (short answer: no).

Others are theologically complex: “Fr, if God does exist, why do things like childhood cancer exist?” His answer is long and gets into what he sees as the absence of meaning in a Godless universe and ends on Jesus’s choice to experience suffering.

“So even the suffering of the old person, the young person, it’s not meaningless. It’s not wasteful. What we believe about God is that God can do something with it, even if He doesn’t take it away.”

Some questions prompt more hardline answers. One person in a long-term relationship with a Muslim asks for advice. “Scripture is really, really clear. It is not a wise choice to yoke yourself to someone who does not believe in Jesus,” Fr Schmitz says.

Some questions lead to something more welcoming. When a new churchgoer asks how to get rid of his sense of “impostor syndrome”, Fr Schmitz says: “[The church is] not a museum for saints, it’s a hospital for sinners. And if you find yourself a sinner, come right in.”

At the end, people in the audience hold up Bibles and rosary beads to be blessed. They mill out to waiting buses.

Twenty-six-year-old Brendan Gillespie is a youth leader with a youth group from “the Glens of Antrim”.

He had an intense spiritual experience in Lourdes when he was younger, but he left faith behind in early adulthood. “I was ‘living the life’ the way maybe young people think is the ideal life, but I just wasn’t happy. I came back to when I knew I was happiest.”

He started going on pilgrimages again. “Now I get a lot of peace when I pray. And I get peace about the things I can’t control. And then in the things where I have a remit of control, people come into my life who help me. I have a group of people. That’s what young people are looking for.”

Is it different from the Catholicism he grew up with? “Probably. In the generations before [they] prayed to the saints and to Mary. They prayed the rosary. But they didn’t pray to Jesus and read the Bible. There’s a new energy.”

Rachel Fitzpatrick, a 35-year-old singer, didn’t know about Fr Schmitz until her friend Paula Konior, a 23-year-old teacher, told her about the event. “I didn’t know anything about the lad.” Fitzpatrick and Konior met on a pilgrimage to Lisieux. Fitzpatrick is just back from Lourdes. She “came back to the faith three years ago”. Her mother, she says, was “very anti-Church”.

Fitzpatrick got interested in Jordan Peterson and one day she was watching a video in which his wife, Tammy Peterson, at least partly linked her healing from an incurable cancer to praying the rosary.

“I said, ‘Okay, God, if you’re real, send me a set of rosary beads’. And three days later, my grandmother gave me a set of rosary beads.”

She started going to Mass every day, praying the rosary, going to adoration in a church. She gravitated towards charismatic Catholicism, the more mystical wing of the faith. “It is a little bit scary. I didn’t know that people could get ‘slain in the spirit’  ‘Slain in the spirit’ is when somebody prays over you, and you fall over with the power of it.”

She thought they were faking, she says, until it happened to her. “For me, the first most important thing is a relationship with Christ and developing that every day. I grew up without a father, so for me, knowing that I have a loving father in God is beautiful.”

Above and above right: Fr Mike Schmitz speaks to a sold out crowd in Dublin’s National Stadium. Top right: Fr Mike Schmitz leaves Saint Kevin’s Church in Dublin 8 after saying mass.

Photograph: Enda O’Dowd

Fr Schmitz comes on stage. He’s a handsome man in a black suit and shirt and a priest’s collar. He has the build and swept-back hair of Mad Men’s Don Draper but the earnest, slightly goofy, delivery of a kindly children’s TV presenter

‘‘

The Good News will always catch our attention

Fr Robert McNamara, parish priest in Lisdooonvarna/Kilshanny in Co Clare, writes a full page article in The Irish Catholic of July 16; the heading on the piece runs: Reflections on yoga and the notion of the inner journey.

Can this style of writing really have anything to do with Jesus Christ, who died on a cross and rose from the dead?

Indeed, the entire tone of The Irish Catholic must leave one with a sense of despair. Reading through it one is reminded of Neues Deutschland, which was the newspaper of the former German Democratic Republic; page after page spouted out how everything about the ruling SED was perfect, and anyone who disagreed with them and was not part of their circle was to be despised.

That's easily the tone one could get reading The Irish Catholic.

How attractive or inspiring would the average Irish reader find The Irish Catholic?

But there is hope; it's clear Pope Leo is going to continue in the footsteps of Pope Francis.

And there's going to be no going back.

When Archbishop McQuaid retuned from the Vatican Council he told the Irish people there was no need to worry, nothing was going to change.

How wrong he was.

Our hope is in true and real synodality, the trouble is, it's so easy to pay lip service to it.

Are Irish bishops really listening, genuinely  and enthusiastically about Pope Leo's vision of synodality?

Number 89 of Pope Leo's encyclical reads: "Living out justice in the Church means purifying ecclesial relationships and structures from distortions that give rise to inequality, lack of transparency and abuse of power. In this regard, listening to the victims of spiritual, economic, institutional, sexual and power-based abuse, as well as abuses of conscience, is an integral part of a journey toward justice, which includes acknowledging the harm done, just reparation and taking steps to prevent it from happening again. Every power is at the service of communion and mission. All authority is at the service of the People of God."

Titbits about UK's Prime Minister Andy Burnham's cabinet

The new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham has Irish roots and is a Roman Catholic.

The new Secretary for State for Northern Ireland, Sir Chris Bryant is a former Anglican priest.

The new First Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office is in a relationship with former SDLP leader and MP of Foyle, Colum Eastwood.

Secretary for Work and Pensions, Pat McFadden is a Roman Catholic, the son of native Irish parents from Falcarragh in County Donegal. McFadden is fluent in Irish.

A celebrity show where the celebrity talked about was God

The article below appears on the digital edition of The Irish Times on Wednesday.

It is about an event in Dublin where the speaker/star was US priest Mike Schmitz. 

It's worth noting Fr Smith celebrated Mass in the parish church in Dublin's Harrington Street. The church is near the National Stadium but it is also the church where there is a daily Latin Mass. 

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/people/2026/07/22/fr-mike-schmitz-show-in-dublin-its-like-going-to-see-a-celebrity-and-the-celebrity-were-talking-about-is-god/

Prevost and Burnham might point us in a new direction

This week's column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Last week Aer Lingus announced they were shedding 500 of their 6,500 workforce. That figure includes 140 cabin crew, 70 pilots and 290 office staff.

That has to be serious trouble for those 500 people and their families. Yes, many of them are on decent salaries, some on good ones, still it is going to affect their lives and have a knock-on effect on their families and those around them.

This is the busiest time of the year for Aer Lingus. Anyone I ask who has been on an Aer Lingus plane lately tells me it’s been full.

Last year Aer Lingus made €282 million profit and its holding company, International Aviation Group (IAG) made a handy profit of €5 billion. Lynne Embleton, CEO of Aer Lingus earned  a bonus between €269k and €300k; her exact salary is undisclosed. Her boss, Luis Gallego, CEO of IAG, earned a total of €6.4 million in 2024.

Some weeks ago I wrote in this column about the €50 million waste at Irish Rail. While checking out the salaries of the flying bosses I decided to check out how much the rail bosses earn. 

Irish Rail boss, Mary Considine earns €300k a year, Anne Shaw, CEO of the National Transport Authority had a base salary of €237,880 last year while CIE’s boss, Stephen Kent earned a gross salary of €225k. 

Does anyone know exactly what CIÉ does today? I’m still confused what roles National Transport Authority (NTA), Irish Rail, Transport for Ireland (TFI), Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and Córas Impair Éireann (CIE) exactly play in the world of Irish transport.

Luis Gallego the boss of Indra, the company Irish Rail ‘blames’ for the €50 million loss, earned €6.4 million in 2024.

One more figure; the CEO of Flutter, Peter Jackson’s compensation package was worth €16.9 million last year. Next time you are placing a bet with Flutter companies, Paddy Power or Betfair be assured you are supporting the lifestyle of Mr Jackson.

There are many figures there to digest, and hefty sums too.

Pope Leo in his encyclical, Human Magnificence, keeps stressing the importance and primacy of the individual person and how it’s the responsibility of the State to take good care of the individual. He also speaks of the importance of all organisations to be at the service of the person. He casts a cold eye over the mega rich and how their wealth and power have a disproportionate influence on the State.

The new British prime minister Andy Burnham in his first address as leader of the Labour Party reminded MPs where the roots of the British Labour Party lie; to be on the side of the poor and marginalised, to help the working class. 

Might it happen that both Prevost, aka Pope Leo, and Burnham will try changing the way the world is currently heading. Both of them might take seriously what their founders wanted for the people of the world.

Think of it, a world population of eight billion with one billion without enough to eat.

Ten per cent of the world’s population earn less than €2.6 a day, while Elon Musk is worth approximately €787 billion plus.

The current system ain’t working. 

Dialogue involves being with people in their everyday lives

Swiss theologian Karl Barth advised theologians to "take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both"

The sale of hard copy newspapers is in decline. Many will say they read the news 0n their phones.

No doubt there are those who pay for the paper but it's likely most readers don't cross the firewall when reading;  it means they only read tidbits. Most of the material on our machines arrives per algorithms.

Might it be accurate to say that many priests no longer read daily newspapers? 

Are priests concentrating their words on those who are already people of faith? What have they to say to those who have been alienated from organised religion, those who are simply not interested in anything to do with God?

Much church material on social media makes little or no sense to those who have no interest in church matters.

Spending scarce resources on slick social media is wasteful; it doesn't work. And the fear is it might well attract people with far right views.

Britain's new prime minister Andy Burnham spoke yesterday outside Downing Street without a note; he spoke words of hope. Whether or not he realises what he said, his words were inspirational. He spoke with urgency and honesty, but also knowing there was a mountain to climb.

When last were you genuinely inspired by the spoken or written words of someone talking about Godly mattes?

Andy Burnham is the first British prime minister to be  a Roman Catholic. There is disagreement/confusion if Boris Johnson was Catholic on entering Downing Street. Tony Blair became a Catholic after his years as PM.

British journalist Edward Stourton died on Friday. He spent his life working as a journalist. He once famously said that part of the reason why he was a journalist was that he loved observing the madness of humanity.

Those who listen to BBC Radio 4 will be familiar with the great man. His Catholic faith played a major role in his life and work.