Scotus puts Potus firmly in his place

Maureen Dowd’s column in The Irish Times yesterday.

Having his tariffs struck down as unconstitutional by the supreme court has not sat well with Donald Trump

---

Now that the third branch of government has explained to the second branch that the first branch matters, US president Donald Trump is in a pickle.

He may need a distraction even bigger than bombing Iran and releasing secret files on UFOs and aliens. He may need to produce Marvin the Martian for an Oval Office meeting and install him on the Board of Peace.

Friday was a landmark day in the Trump reign. It was refreshing to finally see someone tell this petulant man-child: “No, you can’t do that!” And it was especially refreshing that the supreme court, which has been awash in its own ethics crises and acting subservient to the megalomaniac in the White House, suddenly found a spine.

The highest court firmly instructed the Emperor of Chaos on why his tariffs were unconstitutional without the blessing of Congress.

And the president responded in the way he always does when he doesn’t get his way: with a Regina George hissy fit.

In a news conference on Friday afternoon, with the lights dimmed to be more flattering, Trump made clear that he was “absolutely ashamed” of chief justice John Roberts, justice Amy Coney Barrett, justice Neil Gorsuch and their three brethren-sisters on the left who shut down his erratic, perverse – sometimes personally vindictive – tariff antics.

Trump railed that the court’s liberals were “a disgrace to our nation” and that the conservatives who joined the majority opinion were merely “fools and lapdogs for the Rinos [Republican in name only] and the radical left”. He whined that the majority did not have “the courage to do what’s right for our country”. The man who expects fealty singled out two of his picks, Gorsuch and Barrett, calling their decision “an embarrassment to their families”.

Mad careening

As usual, Trump absurdly conflated what he wants with what’s best for the country. And as usual, he projected, charging that the justices who blocked his tariffs were “unpatriotic and disloyal to our constitution” and controlled by foreign interests.

Actually, that critique is probably more applicable to the president, not the supreme court justices who put the brakes on Trump’s mad careening.

And Trump was barking up the wrong tree on lapdogs. Until now, Roberts, Gorsuch and Barrett have been lapdogs for him, helping to upend Roe, giving him immunity for nearly all official acts, weakening the Voting Rights Act, letting Doge [department of government efficiency] get its grimy little hands on private data and allowing Elon Musk’s backpack wolf pack to slash the federal workforce.

The constitution is vague on so much. And that has allowed Trump to shimmy through wormholes and do things we assumed he would be barred from doing, like tearing down the East Wing without checking with anyone and letting foreign oligarchs enrich him, his family and his cronies. But the constitution is clear on tariffs: they are the purview of Congress.

Trump has called tariffs “the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary”. And having his toy yanked away, even for the time it took him to figure out some other ploy to punish countries, brought out his fiendish side. After his unhinged news conference, he let fly with a couple of long, unhinged TruthSocial posts.

Power grabs

No sooner did moderate Republicans exhale, because they would no longer have to defend Trump’s mercurial tariff scheme, essentially a tax on consumers, than the president signed an executive order on Friday night invoking the Trade Act of 1974, imposing a “Global 10% Tariff on all Countries”. He had crowed earlier at the news conference that he can not only destroy the trade of any country, but also “can destroy the country”.

“I’m allowed to destroy the country,” he pouted to reporters, “but I can’t charge them a little fee.”

With Trump’s power grabs, the court finally provided some accountability. Meanwhile, the awful wait to assign blame in the Jeffrey Epstein case, involving powerless young women, continues. The only real justice so far, in this lurid saga of bad, bad men from all around the world, is that a predatory woman is in jail.

Sure, Les Wexner, the former Victoria’s Secret mogul who gave Epstein power of attorney over his vast fortune, was deposed by the House Oversight Committee this past week. But he played Mr Magoo, crying that Epstein had “conned” him. It was totally unbelievable. Clearly, Wexner was infatuated with Epstein and enabled the monster to acquire the private plane and private island that lured so many famous people into his web.

King Charles, too, gave us a rare blast of accountability this past week. He didn’t stand in the way when British police arrested his brother, the former British prince Andrew, for reportedly passing confidential information to Epstein. It was gratifying to see the stunned, slack look on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s face as police took him away from his mansion in Norfolk. He is still, however, dodging accusations that he committed sex crimes.

Trump has been madly deflecting from his friendship with Epstein, acting as though he barely knew him, even though it’s clear that hound recognised hound. Trump, Melania, Mar-a-Lago and other related words or phrases are mentioned more than 38,000 times in the Epstein files.

And now, the president will also have to distract from his humiliation at being slapped back by a conservative supreme court. He’s no doubt going to spend the weekend rewriting his State of the Union address and thinking of more nasty jibes for the justices who choked his leash.

And who knows? We may even see Marvin the Martian show up in the Oval, carrying a cookbook entitled How to Serve Man. – This article originally appeared in the New York Times

Misusing words to make it all sound ok

The 21-year-old man shot dead by US secret service agents at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Sunday, wasn’t killed, he was ‘neutralised’.

People don’t lie any longer, they misspeak or are challenged by the truth.

Then there’s mental reservation.

Strange times.

Friedrich Merz promises total support to Ukraine to the end

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz gave over an hour long speech to his CDU party in Stuttgart on Friday. In that speech he stressed over and over Germany will to the end be at the side of Ukraine. They were powerful and passionate words.

In five days last week Ukraine recaptured more land from Russia than it had since the summer of 2023.

Reading through the Epstein files one is forced to ask what does Putin have on Trump.

Candid comments from wise and kind Michael Smurfit

The link below is an interview Michael Smurfit gave to The Irish Times. Smurfit will be 9o in August.

Only in recent days a corporate banker complimented Smurfit Westrock for their knowhow, ethics and efficiency.

Smurfits have had the reputation in Ireland of being good employers.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/02/20/michael-smurfit-i-havent-been-to-ireland-for-years-all-the-things-i-knew-are-gone/

Media hysteria over former Prince Andrew

The media hysteria yesterday over the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor probably tells us something about the state of the world right now.

Has there been any such media noise about all the women who have suffered under the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and his male friends.

The wealth of Epstein, the wealth of Andrew, prince or no prince is obnoxious.

The top one percent of the world’s population owns approximately 50 per cent of the world’s wealth while the top 10 per cent own roughly 75 to 86 per cent of it. 

The bottom 50 per cent of the world's population owns about two per cent of total global wealth. 

The wealthiest 0.001 per cent control three times more wealth than half of humanity.

Never too much talk about the evils that allow such disparity.

Bet none of Epstein and pals’ trafficked young women were from the 0.001 per cent gentlemen.

Retired journalist Vincent Browne never said a truer word when he said that when we give titles to people we give them power over of us.

At Dominican HQ Pope Leo calls death what it is

From Vatican News:

As Lent begins, Pope Leo says that ashes remind us of “the weight of a world that is ablaze, of entire cities destroyed by war.”

Pope Leo reflected on repentance, community, and death, as he presided over Ash Wednesday Mass in the Dominican church Saint Sabina in Rome.

The ashes the attendees were about to receive on their forehands, he said, remind us of “the weight of a world that is ablaze, of entire cities destroyed by war.”

The state of the world, Pope Leo stressed, asks us on this Ash Wednesday “to call death for what it is, and to carry its marks within us”.

The toing and froing of Crimea costing insufferable pain

On this day, February 19, 1954 the Soviet Union transferred the Crimean Oblast from the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republican.

Nikita Khrushchev had become Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union the previous year and stayed in the job until 1964.

It’s interesting that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, just five days short of the 68th anniversary to the day since Crimea had been transferred to Ukraine.

It was also in February, this time 2014, that Russian troops moved into Crimea.

And it was also in February, February 2, 1943 that the Red Army was victorious in Stalingrad, now Volgograd.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly said that the breakup of the Soviet Union should never have happened. 

New archbishop in New York seems an inspiring man

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

There is not a village or town across the land that does not have someone belonging to them living in the United States. That’s why I was surprised when I read or saw nothing about the new Catholic archbishop of New York, Ronald Hicks.

His appointment by Pope Leo is another giveaway of how the pope is thinking.

A bishop is required to offer his resignation to the pope when he reaches the age of 75; it’s custom and practice that the man stays on for some time after that. But in the case of New York, Pope Leo did not delay in accepting Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s letter, and appointing Ronald Hicks as his successor. 

Cardinal Dolan did no favours for the Irish Catholic Church when he visited here in 2011 to investigate seminaries and the state of the church following the abuse scandals. Yes, he appears to be a palsy-walsy type of person, but there obviously is a side to him that is deeply clerical in nature.

The new archbishop in New York is 58, he’s from Chicago, the same town as Pope Leo and was for a short time an auxiliary bishop in his home town, where Cardinal Blase Cupich is archbishop. 

Cupich is, in my humble opinion, America’s leading church man. Last week he criticised the Trump administration for its objectionable racist comments on Michelle and Barack Obama. 

He speaks out on social justice issues when often there’s not a word from his fellow US bishops. Hicks is clearly from the Cupich school.

His installation Mass as archbishop in St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on Saturday, February 7 was a spectacle of prayer, reverence, humanity and sacredness.

Hicks’ words were inspiring, diplomatic too and he also spoke in Spanish, which was ironic as Donald Trump criticised the decision to have Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny perform at the Super Bowl the next day. He said the Spanish-language performance was ‘a slap in the face to our country’. 

At the New York Mass the choir, the music sung, would lift one’s heart, almost force one to pray. The clapping, flowers, relatives, friends, dignitaries in the sanctuary, humour, joy, in other words, normal human behaviour was something to behold. And yet, all done with great reverence and dignity and faith too.

I imagine Hicks is somewhat of an outsider among the American episcopacy, but remember he’s Leo’s man.

Then think what happens in so many dioceses in Ireland. Only recently I heard of someone who was told they could not bring a wreath to a funeral Mass. 

Who made that rule and why? It makes no liturgical sense.

On the website of the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnois there’s a letter from diocesan bishop Paul Connell about guidelines for the use of churches for reposing of remains. 

It’s far too long, turgid and the bishop seems to be saying there are different liturgical guidelines for the burial of priests and bishops as there are for the ‘lay folk’, for example not leaving a coffin open in church.

I pity poor Leo but he’s giving me great hope. Watching that Mass in New York was an inspiring moment. There’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Those forgotten Leap cards are worth a fortune - €8.5m

A lot of cash lying on unused leap cards. Approximately €8.5 million is piling up on unused Leap cards that have not been used for five years or longer.

Why can't the TFI invest that money? Surely it’s possible to make some money on those dormant cards.

Bannon courted Epstein to ‘take down’ Pope Francis

According to the latest released Epstein files, former White House adviser to President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, discussed strategies with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein how to take down Pope Francis.

Bannon and his Catholic right wing associates cannot be one bit happy with Pope Leo.

Below is a link to the CNN report of the Bannon Epstein correspondence.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/14/world/bannon-epstein-take-down-pope-francis-latam-intl?cid=android_app

 

Cutting, tidying, cleaning up along River Dodder all for free

I met an amazing man yesterday.

Over the last number of weeks cycling along the Dodder between Glassons Bridge, beside the Dropping Well pub and restaurant, and Orwell Park I’ve noticed a man cut away branches and overgrowth along the stone wall. He wore no Dublin City Council overalls. I thought he may have been employed by the Dropping Well, but maybe not as he had worked his way away from the pub.

Again yesterday he was hard at work. Curious, I got off my bicycle and interrogated him. To my disbelief he told me he lived nearby and had over the last number of months been cutting, tidying and cleaning up along the bank of the River Dodder.

Chris Ennis is 77, worked as a meter reader for ESB and took on this job for the common good.

Is Dublin City Council aware of the great work he is doing for the people of Dublin? Probably not. Would it be possible, in the times we live, that they might prohibit him from doing such work.

The man deserves special praise/recognition from DCC.

Thank you Mr Ennis.

Pope Leo invites us to abstain from words of hatred

From Vatican News

“I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from 

words that offend and hurt our neighbour.”

Pope Leo XIV made that invitation at the heart of his message 

for Lent 2026, which was released on Friday.

As Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, February 18, the Pope said 

this liturgical season offers Christians an opportunity to place the mystery of God back at the centre of our lives.

Every journey of conversion, he said, begins by letting God’s 

word touch our hearts, so that we may renew our commitment to follow Christ in the mystery of His saving passion, death, and resurrection.

Pope Leo focused on the importance of listening to God and to 

those around us, allowing ourselves to enter into authentic relationships.

“In the midst of the many voices present in our personal lives 

and in society,” he said, “Sacred Scripture helps us to 

recognise and respond to the cry of those who are anguished and suffering.”

Christians, said the Pope, can cultivate inner openness to 

listening, as God does, by growing in awareness that the 

poor challenge our lives and economic systems, as well as 

the Church.

Pope Leo XIV then turned to how fasting helps open us to 

the deep desire for justice, which he said frees us from 

complacency.

“Precisely because it involves the body, fasting makes it 

easier to recognize what we ‘hunger’ for and what we 

deem necessary for our sustenance,” he said. “Moreover, 

it helps us to identify and order our ‘appetites,’ keeping 

our hunger and thirst for justice alive”.

Fasting, he added, teaches us to govern our desire by 

purifying, freeing, and expanding it, in order to direct our 

desire toward  God and good deeds.

However, we must fast in faith, humility, and communion 

with the Lord, and not in a way that leads to pride, 

said the Pope, adding that other forms of self-denial also 

lead to a more sober lifestyle.

Pope Leo then pointed to an under-appreciated form 

of  abstinence, which is refraining from hurtful words.

“Let us begin by disarming our language, avoiding 

harsh words and rash judgement, refraining from slander 

and speaking ill of  those who are not present and cannot 

defend themselves,” he said. “Instead, let us strive to 

measure our words and cultivate kindness and respect in our 

families, among our friends, at work, on social media, 

in political debates, in the media and in Christian communities.”

If we do so, we will let words of hatred “give way to words of 

hope and peace.”

Pope Leo went on to emphasise the communal aspect of 

listening and fasting, which can be lived out in our 

parishes, families, and religious communities.

By listening to the cry of the poor and setting our 

hearts on a path of conversion to Christ, we train our 

conscience and improve the quality of our lives and 

relationships, he said.

“It means allowing ourselves to be challenged by reality 

and recognising what truly guides our desires—both within 

our ecclesial communities and as regards humanity’s thirst for 

justice  and reconciliation.”

Pope Leo XIV concluded his 2026 Lenten Message with a 

call for Christian communities to become places where 

those who suffer find welcome.

Listen to our report

Bishop’s guidelines on reposing of remains

Below are guidelines for the use of churches for reposing of remains issued by the bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois, Paul Connell.

No need for comment. Maybe just one; are priests and bishops’ coffins not left open?

 

In recent months a practice has developed in some parishes around the use of churches for the Reposing of the Remains of those who have died. This is a practice that usually was held in the home, or in recent years in a funeral home, where family and friends could gather, offer sympathy and support.

Some parishes have asked for guidance on the matter, that while every community wishes to support a family at the time of a funeral, others have questioned if a church is the best place for reposing of remains to occur. In the interests of bereaved families in particular, I would like therefore to provide clarity on this issue.

In looking at the instruction around the nature of a Christian Burial it is clear that the tradition of three stations and two processional routes are at the heart of the ritual, as celebrated over the years. Those three places being; the home, the church, and the place of committal. Each hold their particular meaning that the Christian believes in the understanding of death itself. There is the personal element in the home, the community prayer in the church, and the placing in the care of God in the committal. 

Between each of these there is a procession, which highlights that each of our lives is a pilgrimage to eternal rest. None of these are purely functional, but hold significance, both in the comfort that they bring and in the faith that they profess.

In recent years the station at the home has, quite often taken place in a funeral home, and then from there to the church, and place of committal. However, the use of a church in a manner that makes it like a funeral home breaks this practice and is not faithful to the tradition that we hold.

The element that takes place in the church should always be in the context of faith and worship, as this is the nature and purpose of each church. It is a sign and symbol of the Lord's presence in the community, and the place where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. This point is important for all those who use a church outside the celebration of the liturgy.

I am directing that in parishes where the practice of remains reposing in the church has not begun, that these parishes do not introduce the practice.

For parishes where it has occurred, I am directing that the practice be discontinued as and from 9 February 2026, and I am requesting the parish communities involved to look at other possibilities within the area for hosting this station of the funeral rites. The use of Parish halls or other parish facilities is perfectly in order .

 

 

In a parish church the Reception of Remains to a church should follow the Liturgy designed for this station and following this the community should come forward to offer their condolences. It is imperative that those attending always acknowledge that the Blessed Sacrament is present and that this is a sacred place of worship. Hence the importance that when the remains are placed in front of the Altar, the coffin remains closed.

The way we celebrate the funeral rituals is an important element both in our faith and in our culture. I am requesting that these guidelines be followed, so as to ensure the dignity and respect for both those who have died and the place of worship.

In summary

The churches within the diocese are not to be used for the Reposing of Remains.

 

When the remains of a member of the faithful are received at the church, the appropriate liturgical text provided in the Funeral Ritual should be used.

When the remains are received in the church, placed before the altar, and kept overnight, the coffin should always be closed.

Funeral Directors

Funeral Directors play a vital role for families who have been bereaved. The support and direction they offer families is greatly appreciated by all involved. It is important that they keep in close contact with the priest conducting the funeral liturgy and that they are available to give guidance and direction to families and mourners both inside and outside the church in consultation with the priest concerned.

There is no question that the demand for reposing in churches has come about not just because there is a lack of venue available but also because of the perceived high cost of the use of a funeral home by comparison. Many families experience financial pressure in relation to funerals. 

I respectfully request funeral directors to be conscious of this and accordingly to continue to offer their facilities at reasonable rates to bereaved families, and also to other funeral directors who may not have a funeral home, in a spirit of co-operation and good will.