Is the Mass a celebration of prayer and inspiration?

The week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

On the feast of the Holy Family, Sunday, December 28 I attended Mass as I was not rostered to celebrate Mass in a public church. I often smile silently to myself when I hear talk that there is a shortage of priests in Ireland.

The church in which I attended Mass was one of those big churches built in Ireland in the1950s and ’60s. 

It was a visiting priest celebrating the Mass, who introduced himself. I thought that was a lovely gesture. So often I’ve been to Mass and the priest never tells us who he is.

There are many aspects to the Mass. It’s at the centre of our faith. Catholics believe that Christ is really present in the Eucharist. But what does that mean for most of us? 

I once heard a holy and clever priest say that Christ is sacramentally present in the Eucharist and it’s what I say as well. That is not at all taking away from saying Christ is really present in the Eucharist. But Christ is not present in the Eucharist or Mass as I am present here writing these words. 

Christ speaks to us in the breaking of the bread and the reading of the Word.

The Last Supper was a meal, a fellowship experience with Christ at the centre; they were friends, people who respected and cared for one another. They were people who shared a common belief. I think it’s fair to say it would have been an intimate occasion. 

People in such a setting would inspire one another, they’d leave with a spring in their step. And then add to that, their belief that the man in their midst is God.

The Mass that I attended  spoke little or nothing to me. The priest carried out gestures, which had no symbolic meaning to me whatsoever; I doubt they made any sense to the majority of people in the church that day. 

All I can say about his sermon is that I have forgotten what he said but I can remember while he was preaching wondering where it was going.

The Mass was a wordy experience, lifeless too. I know the Mass is the Mass but I kept asking myself why would anyone come here on a Sunday morning over the season of Christmas. 

I thought of all the talk about synodality; there wasn’t a hint of it at this Mass. No offertory procession, no handshake of peace. For me the most uplifting aspect to the Eucharistic celebration was the music sung by the choir; it was uplifting and helped me to pray. Obviously the parish uses the local talent for its music needs.

There needs to be a far better link between priest and parishioners, parish councils must not be the hand picked pious people of the parish priest, instead people who will speak openly and honestly about their faith, the highs and lows of where they are with being a Christian. 

The Mass needs to be an honest and real experience of a living Christian community, an occasion to speak to and with God in words that have meaning for all involved.

Surely the Irish bishops know why people have lost interest in Mass on Sunday.

The Irish Times gets it wrong on wheelchairs on buses

Last week The Irish Times did a

series of articles highlighting the barriers faced by disabled people in Ireland to realising their rights to participate fully in eduction, employment, housing, transport and society.

In Friday’s article Kitty Holland wrote:

"The number 130 bus, being an older model, has only a front door, which Ms Smith has to awkwardly enter along with other passengers, and then manoeuvre her chair to the designated wheelchair spot, rather than through double doors located at the centre of the bus, as with more modern vehicles."

One must wonder when Ms Holland was last on a bus in Dublin. What research was done for the piece?

All double deck buses in the country have facility for wheelchairs. It involves the lowering of a ramp to allow a person to enter the bus in a wheelchair. This facility is always at the front door of the bus. It is explicitly stated on all buses that the ramp facility is at the front door. There is no facility on any bus anywhere in Ireland for such a facility at the middle double doors.

The vast majority of buses, all Dublin Bus vehicles, those with the letters SG, GT, PA, EW, AH have double doors. There is a number of older buses that do not have  double doors in the middle but that has nothing to do with wheelchair facility as that is always operated from the front door.

Also, GT registered buses work  the 130 route and these buses have middle double doors. But again, whether the bus has middle double doors or not, has little implication for those using wheelchairs.

All vehicles operated by Go Ahead have wheelchair facility and again this operates via the front door.

Ms Holland’s information is incorrect, indeed, most misleading, and certainly not fair to Dublin Bus.

Has The Irish Times corrected the error? Has Dublin Bus commented on the poor research?

Pope Leo calls for safeguarding Venezuela sovereignty

From Vatican News:

At the Angelus prayer on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called for the good of the Venezuelan people to prevail, for the rule of law to be upheld, and for the human and civil rights of all to be respected.

Pope Leo XIV expressed his concern on Sunday over recent developments in Venezuela, after United States forces arrested Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on Saturday and brought him to New York for trial.

“The good of the beloved Venezuelan people must prevail over every other consideration and lead us to overcome violence and to undertake paths of justice and peace, safeguarding the country’s sovereignty, ensuring the rule of law enshrined in the Constitution, respecting the human and civil rights of each person and of all, and working to build together a serene future of collaboration, stability, and concord, with special attention to the poorest who suffer because of the difficult economic situation,” said the Pope at the midday Angelus prayer.

Speaking in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo invited everyone to pray for the Venezuelan people, assuring them of his own prayers.

He also entrusted all Venezuelans to the intercession of Our Lady of Coromoto, Patroness of Venezuela, St José Gregorio Hernández, and St. Carmen Rendiles.

Pope Leo XIV concluded his Angelus appeals with an invitation to trust in the God of peace.

“Let us continue to have faith in the God of peace,” he urged. “Let us pray and stand in solidarity with the peoples who suffer because of wars.”

The ‘Putinization’ of US foreign policy arrives in Venezuela

From the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/03/putin-russia-us-foreign-policy-venezuela?CMP=share_btn_url

If the US can run Venezuela why can’t Russia run Ukraine and China Taiwan?

It’s now over 24 hours since  Trump has invaded a sovereign nation and what have the major world powers to say.

If Trump is opposed to dictatorships why does he not drop a few bombs over China and Russia, even North Korea.

To give such power to a despot such as Trump has a lot to say about democracy.

Pope Leo celebrated a New Year’s Day Mass in St Peter’s Basilica and then delivered a special noontime prayer from his studio overlooking the piazza, which was full of pilgrims and tourists on the bright, chilly day.

January 1 marks the church’s World Day of Peace and pope Leo used the occasion to issue a prayer:

“Let us all pray together for peace: first, among nations bloodied by conflict and suffering, but also within our homes, in families wounded by violence or pain,” he said.

Did President Trump know January 1 is World Day of Peace?

What at all lies ahead of us for 2026?

Who decides the common good? The privileged do

Below is Justine McCarthy ’s column in The Irish Times yesterday.

 While admitting it is the privileged who decide what the common good she has the decency to tell the reader that she lives in ‘pricey' Dún Laoghaire.

The philosophers and theologians have a lot to say about the common good, and the natural law too.

J McC’s column

Eileen Flynn posed a bombshell of a question in Leinster House last summer. The Independent Senator and Travellers’ rights activist was questioning representatives of business lobby group Ibec at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Infrastructure and the National Development Plan about their report, entitled Our Infrastructure Ambition for a Competitive, Productive and Resilient Economy.

Zooming in on the proposition that the planning system should favour the common good over individual rights, she wondered: “Who decided what the common good is?” The common good tends to augment the uncommonly privileged, nobody replied.

Outside Leinster House’s sash windows, a parade of politicians’ parked cars flashed sunbeams across the lawn at their €335,000 bike shelter, installed courtesy of the public. Beyond the gates, tourists staying at nearby five-star hotels strolled in the shade of Merrion Square’s sycamores. Visiting Martians would have been impressed by the opulent tapestry. Visiting Dubliners might have thought they had landed on Mars.

For most people, reality is a constant battle with polluting traffic jams, undependable bus timetables, footpaths cluttered with unnecessary obstacles and queues for GP and mental health appointments. Our masters of the universe are seldom spotted trudging to work in the rain, waiting for a bed in a hospital or a domestic violence refuge, residing beside derelict buildings or on streets festooned with menacing anti-immigration flags.

Back in the committee room, the business delegates were arguing that adequate public infrastructure is essential for a competitive and resilient economy. Echoes of the primacy of wealth creation over the general populace’s quality of life bounced off the lovely walls.

Public administration is becoming an ever more entrenched class issue in Ireland. Budget 2026 provided a sharp reminder of this hierarchy in the contest of priorities. Tax breaks for builders and a VAT reduction for restaurateurs contrasted with zero payments to offset inflated household energy bills and an effective tax increase for many PAYE workers.

Vocal opponents

Warren Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, acknowledged there is a global them-and-us ideology in a New York Times interview in 2006. “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war and we’re winning,” he confirmed, disapprovingly.

For evidence that money speaks, see the Government’s reversal of the 2:1 expenditure ratio of public transport to roads in the revised National Development Plan. At the same time, 21 per cent of rural dwellers say they feel impeded from spending time in nature by the lack of roadside footpaths, according to a Central Statistics Office study.

Some of the most vocal opponents of Dublin’s MetroLink are individuals who seem least likely to rely on the 18.8km rail line from Swords to Charlemont. It is a luxury they do not need because they can afford to live in multimillion-euro houses located in lush inner suburbs already replete with buses, trains and trams. They bask in the double advantage of their homes having become even more unaffordable to most mortals because of their proximity to Dart and Luas lines. An ironic twist in MetroLink’s long-running saga is that some Ranelagh residents complain the new rail system will deliver too many commuters to the sought-after locality which already has a Luas stop. Granted, they do have a point.

While some areas are spoilt for choice, others have zero to none. A recent report by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland found purchasers need salaries exceeding €108,000 to buy even a basic new apartment. Only the top 20 per cent earn enough to rent one. The upshot is that people – mostly young, and many with burgeoning families – have to move further and further away from their social networks and workplaces to acquire somewhere to live.

Once there, they find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. Many prospective homeowners might have felt optimistic when Dublin City Council rezoned land for the building of 5,300 houses near the planned Dart+ South West line that is to connect the city centre to Hazelhatch in Co Kildare. Their hopes were quickly dashed when, 11 days later, the Department of Transport revealed that the beginning of construction of Dart+ South West is to be delayed by four years.

While sprawling new towns are being built without adequate public services, some established, well-heeled ones seem immunised against any dilution of their exclusive cachet. The Office of the Planning Regulator has criticised Wicklow County Council for failing to rezone land around Greystones, a seaside shopping destination, opting instead to rezone land in Kilcoole. Despite property prices spiralling to the sky after the Dart was extended to the town, councillors say its public transport services are insufficient to accommodate newcomers.

The axiom “build them and they’ll come” is not always true. There are great tracts, especially in the capital city and its hinterland, where GPs are as rare as electric gates and golf clubs. It is no coincidence that among the worst-affected areas are the ones boasting the fewest millionaires. In Dublin’s north inner-city, there is one GP to every 3,525 residents, according to HSE data supplied in response to parliamentary questions by local Labour TD Marie Sherlock. A mile away in coastal Clontarf there is one GP to every 1,500 residents.

The north inner city is home to one of Ireland’s biggest prisons. Mountjoy is bursting at the seams with too many inmates, and few white-collar criminals among them. The area also contains a network of traffic rat-runs where fuel-guzzling cars whizz to important meetings or frequent-flyers’ departures at the airport.

When the Sunday Independent asked Tadhg Crowley, chair of the Irish Medical Organisation’s GP committee, about the dearth of local doctors in certain districts, he candidly identified one of the factors as doctors’ reluctance to live in areas of deprivation.

And who would blame them? (Not I, who lives on the high moral ground in pricey Dún Laoghaire).

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has called for the constitutional enshrinement of economic, social and cultural rights as a key to cohesion and inclusion. While we wait for that referendum, we can throw all the money in the national coffers at fixing our deficient infrastructure, but it will not be right. It is doomed not to serve the common good, that’s why.

An inside view of the evil of the death penalty

This from the Guardian.

Some weeks ago Pope Leo spoke out against the death penalty when he said that if people say they are opposed to abortion must also say they oppose the death penalty.

The US reporter who has witnessed 14 executions: ‘People need to know what it looks like’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/01/reporter-witnessed-executions-capital-punishment?CMP=share_btn_url

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Our names always have a story to tell about who we are

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper

Michael Commane

This time of year newspapers print a list of the most common names given to newborn children during the year.

My current job has me working with a large number of non-Irish people, mainly from India and the African continent. It has taken me some time to pronounce their names correctly; it’s a whole new experience and one that I am enjoying.

Some weeks ago I got chatting to a mother, who had a new-born baby with her. The child’s name was Sailor. I was tempted to ask her if the daddy was a sailor man.

I’m intrigued with how we get our names, and I’m especially interested in the socio-economic background to so many of our first names.

And then there are all those family names that are associated with trades, occupations and professions. 

Someone told me that before we were given surnames we were known by the type of work we did. It made for a great discussion around the dinner table this Christmas. No doubt the Woods were working with tress or in the forest, and the Thatchers made roofs with straw or reeds. Presumably the Taylors were in the rag trade.

In Newbridge in Co Kildare there is a railway bridge called Sex’s Bridge and I’m told there is a good story as to how it got its name.

Many railway and canal bridges were called after the designing architects or engineers.

Our names are important and how we address people is also important. In school fadó fadó we were called by our surnames. It was a horrible practice but complemented the treatment meted out to us. The first thing the Germans did to those arriving at the concentration camps was to strip them of their names and burn a number on their arms.

Nicknames can be good fun or insulting and greatly harming. Kate Winslet recalled in a Christmas interview how she was called Blubber in school and then later as an adult was known as Corset Kate.

I was introduced to a man called Karl last month. I asked him had he been called after Karl Marx, he said no, that he had been called after Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla. I silently laughed to myself as I can only imagine the man today has little or no time for popes and none at all for JPII. I know another man with whom I worked is simply known at JP and he too is another baby of the John Paul II era. I wonder what Mr Varadkar thinks of Pope Leo calling himself after a former taoiseach?

Is it my imagination or is it that today first names are driven by our social background. In the past first names were handed down from one generation to the next; I’m called after my paternal grandfather. Maybe up until the 1970s and ’80s children were also called after saints.

But those traditions seem to have disappeared; today there are the neutral names, Old Testament names, celebrity names, TV names, and yes, even in the Republic of Ireland, the royal names.

I think if I had a child I’d give them a name which would make for a simple email address.

Happy New Year to all.

The birth of RTÉ and Vladimir Putin’s rise to power

 On this date, December 31, 1961 RTÉ was born.

And on the same date, this time 1999, on the resignation of Russia’s first president, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became acting president and successor to Boris Yeltsin.

During the days of the GDR Putin was said to be chief KGB spy in Dresden. The common joke doing the rounds after the fall of the Berlin Wall was that Putin was considered not good enough by the KGB to be in its Bonn office.

No laughing matter at all.

Between you and me RTÉ simply does not get it

In the RTÉ 1 main evening Monday news a journalist reporting on the current Ukraine peace talks said: “between he and Mr Putin”.

The daily errors in the English language on RTÉ are unimpressive, indeed, annoying. Every day there are regular grammar faux pas and then there are the unusual pronunciations.

It makes it difficult to teach English grammar or any language when the national broadcaster does not know what case to use after the preposition ‘between’.

Brenda Fricker at 80: "I can't remember not wanting to die"’

Below is a link to an interview

with Brenda Fricker, which was re-aired on the Brendan O’Connor Show on RTÉ Radio 1 on Saturday morning.

I came to it some minutes into the interview; before I recognised the voice I was greatly taken with what she was saying.

Brenda talks about her lifelong fight with depression; she speaks powerful words, she constantly feels she would like to die.

Do we ever give enough attention and care to those who suffer from all forms of depression and those who are afflicted with mental illness?

Who cares for those when they are down and out, depressed, drinking too much, those suffering burn out? What about women and men who are lonely and tired of their jobs.

Depression and mental illness know no boundaries.

Many words are spoken but sometimes they sound hollow.

Brenda Fricker's new book, 'She Died Young: A Life in Fragments’ has just been published.

It’s a personal story about her life, including  struggles with  mental health and sexual sexual abuse. She was raped on two occasions and says men simply cannot understand the damage that rape inflicts on a woman.

The interview:

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22545795/

Pope Leo expresses worries about religious formation

Making history for this blog; the third successive post quoting from a pope. But this surely is worth mentioning.

While the man might be skirting the issue, it’s clear he knows what’s happening. 

It's worth recalling what the late taoiseach Charles Haughey had to say about any organisation that includes the words superior and general in its title.

Below is an extract from words spoken by Pope Leo at  a meeting of the Union of Superior Generals in Rome on November 26, 2025.

It’s a pity the translation is so poor and includes typos. The text below was forwarded from the provincial office of the Irish Dominicans, who received it from HQ at Santa Sabina in Rome.

Question asked by representative from the USG.

What guidelines can you indicate for the formation of young religious and for strengthening community life in the new challenges of our time?

Pope Leo XIV

I think that this is a very important question for several reasons, especially in those parts of the world where our communities are challenged to find vocations. You may find in some of  your communities, monasteries, provinces, regions, a situation where you might have only one student in formation, maybe two. In that case, to create an environment and the culture of formation is a real challenge, when you don't have the basic elements necessary to create the environment to form a new member for communal and consecrated life. So that we end up sometimes forming in individualism because perhaps there's only one candidate. And so

the great challenge for formation, is giving greater emphasis to participating in intercongregational formation experiences, in having a greater number of encounters with other members of the congregation or order. It may not be people in formation, but for example with the younger members of a community or congregation who could be of closer support in a positive way to those who are in formation.

Another important issue is that there are still today groups that do not pay attention to so many guidelines that have been given about receiving people into formation that have been sent out of other formation houses or other seminaries. The Dycastery for clergy that are casting for consecrated life to see all the problems that there are because people started off on the wrong. It's wonderful that someone says he has a vocation. But part of our role is discernment. And that discernment for the good of the Church means we can't accept everyone who knocks at the door. And we have to be very serious about that. Oftentimes that very first step was ignored.

One other aspect which I would like to specifically mention is what I would call formation in freedom or liberty. A true formation, a healthy formation, I think, needs to accompany the young candidates who come to us, so that they first become healthy human beings. There are a number of modern movements which under the guise of being traditional or conservative, take in young people and oblige them to fit into a mold and say if you do this you will be a good candidate. Sometimes we're repeating the same errors that were committed many years ago, and they're coming back to haunt us. Instead of being able to develop first as a human being and understand what human freedom is, we are sometimes forming young people in a situation where we oblige them under conscience, we remove their freedom, we make them feel guilty if they say, well I don't think I have a vocation. We sometimes put obligations on young people that are not healthy. Our formation, especially in the first stages, really needs to be to form people to become true human beings with the gifts that God has given them and to see how the Lord is calling them through those gifts, not through the mold that we’re forcing them to fit into. 

There are real challenges in that. I'm sure many of you have been formators and understand that, but again nowadays I think a lot of people in religious life and in seminaries have forgotten the lessons learned in the past. So it's very important for our formation that we form healthy human beings who then with that health of uh their own humanity discover how God is working in their lives and how God is calling them to give those gifts to the Church to service.

Pope Leo criticises conditions for Palestinians in Gaza

Interesting words from Pope Leo on Christmas Day.

Pope Leo decried conditions for Palestinians in Gaza in his Christmas sermon yesterday, in an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn, spiritual service on the day Christians across the globe celebrate the birth of Jesus.

He said the story of Jesus being born in a stable showed that God had “pitched his fragile tent” among the people of the world.

“How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?” he asked.

Pope Leo lamented the situation for migrants and refugees who “traverse the American continent”.

Leo, who has criticised US president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, did not mention Trump. In a Christmas Eve sermon on Wednesday, the pope said refusing to help the poor and strangers was tantamount to rejecting God himself.

The new pope has lamented the conditions for Palestinians in Gaza several times recently and told journalists last month that the only solution in the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people must include a Palestinian state.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October after two years of intense Israeli bombardment and military operations that followed a deadly attack by Hamas-led fighters on Israeli communities in October 2023. Humanitarian agencies say there is still too little aid getting into Gaza, where nearly the entire population is homeless.

In yesterday’s service with thousands in St Peter’s Basilica, Leo also lamented conditions for the homeless across the globe and the destruction caused by war more generally.

“Fragile is the flesh of defenceless populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” said the pope.

“Fragile are the minds and lives of young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths,” he said.

In an appeal during the Urbi et Orbi message and blessing, Leo called for an end to all global wars.

Speaking from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people in the square below, he lamented conflicts, political, social or military, in Ukraine, Sudan, Mali, Myanmar, and Thailand and Cambodia, among others.

Leo said people in Ukraine, where Russian troops are threatening cities critical to the country’s eastern defences, have been “tormented” by violence.

“May the clamour of weapons cease, and may the parties involved, with the support and commitment of the international community, find the courage to engage in sincere, direct and respectful dialogue,” said the pope.

For Thailand and Cambodia, where border fighting is in its third week with at least 80 killed, Leo asked that the nations’ “ancient friendship” be restored, “to work towards reconciliation and peace”. – Reuters