Saturday, June 30, 2018

The Cardinal McCarrick tale is a familiar old story

The link below makes for an interesting read.

It's a familiar story. What about the untouchable ones who have died and 'gotten away with it'?

Should dioceses and religious congregations open files on the dead about whom there were stories, allegations, suspicions, the ones who were 'untouchable'?

The damage they have done to generations.

It is a sad, awful story.

And this story below surrounding Cardinal McCarrick has a universal tone to it.

Friday, June 29, 2018

Born on this day in 1900

On this day, June 29, 1900 French poet and pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born in Lyon. He died at the young age of 44.

Probably his best known work is The Little Prince.

Thursday, June 28, 2018

Kisses of many deaths

I have been learning German since 1972, lived in the country. Watched their footballers win the World Cup in 1974, the year of my priestly ordination. And then I watched the footballers in Kazan on the Volga yesterday.

I attended Presentation Convent School. The Presentation Sisters have dwindled to tiny numbers in Ireland.

I was a pupil at CBS Synge Street Primary and Secondary School. The school is no longer the school it was and the Christian Brothers Congregation in Ireland has experienced years of shame and difficulty.

I was ordained a Dominican priest. Priesthood is in tatters and the Irish Dominican Province is not what it was.

I worked full-time in the newspaper trade, where I am still a columnist. The newspaper industry is in close to free-fall.

I worked for Ireland's largest international aid agency. Over the last number of years NGOs have been in the spotlight for corruption and lack of transparency.

Today I'm working for the HSE.

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

German retreat on the Volga

Germany were beaten by South Korea this afternoon in Kazan.

It means the team fail to qualify for the final 18 in the World Cup and head back to Germany.

Archbishop's title

Piece below is from yesterday's Independent .ie

Is the title given to Archbishop Martin an error or a statement? It occurs twice.

Comments by Minister Josepha Madigan yesterday arising from a situation that arose in the Parish of Mount Merrion at the weekend have caused parishioners in Mount Merrion and further afield considerable distress.

“Many have contacted my offices to express their hurt and upset at the Minister’s comments, as reported in the media,” Mr Martin said.

He added that there are “no shortage of priests” in the Archdiocese, explaining that the situation on Saturday evening arose “due to a misunderstanding”.

“It is in no way correct to say that the Minister ‘said Mass’. It is regrettable that that Minister Madigan used this occasion to push a particular agenda.

“Her expressed view that a mix up in a Dublin parish on one particular Saturday evening should lead to the Universal Church changing core teachings is bizarre,” Mr Martin’s statement said.

He suggest she might “consider listening to the voices of those people who disagree with her public comments”.

And he added that she should “consider the hurt she has caused to parishioners who deem her actions deeply disrespectful

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

It's good to live in the now

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

I was chatting with a man on Sunday who often throws me nuggets of wisdom. I consider him a wise person.

Some days earlier he heard someone say that the time to be happy is now. It had left a mark on him.

Maybe it has something to do with the aging process, I’m not sure, it might be because of a number of circumstances and situations but these days it is dawning on me in the strongest of terms the importance of appreciating the now. Think about it, it is all we have. The past is gone and the future is not yet. 

Living in the past can so easily tie us down to ways of acting and thinking that make no sense at all. 

There is a phenomenon happening around the world at present that is telling us to circle the wagons and return to older known ways of doing things. 

The resurgence of a nasty type of nationalism, which shouts at us to make our country great again, it places strong emphasis on the old idea of a nation state. But are we not moving away from such understandings of statehood?

Is Brexit not linked to a nostalgia for the past, a time when Britain was at the head of an empire and not an equal among members?

The same sort of retrenchment is happening within religions, people hankering for old ways that no longer fit the world of today. Indeed, religions and many of their ministers seem to be at the vanguard of such regressive thinking and behaviour.

When it comes to living in the future, just think of all the wild promises that have been made and then see how they have been fulfilled. The advent of the computer promised us a paperless society. We are using more paper today than at any other time in history. I’m old enough to remember when plastic packaging first appeared in our grocery shops.

Approximately eight million tonnes of plastic enters the world’s oceans every year. Plastic has gone from a great invention to a scourge in many instances.

It might be that I am growing lazy but I keep thinking that airports are the perfect metaphor for our insatiable desire to move out of the now and get to the next place. Of course travel widens our horizons, it’s good to see new places, experience different cultures but when I see people walking around cities aided by a Google map, pushing an awkward case I’m wondering what all this tourism is about. 

And then all the photographs that are taken. Sometimes it seems the pics are more valued than the real thing. Maybe it is that I’ve been there, done that and am now bored with it all. No, I think there is more to it than that. 

The same day that the man mentioned to me about living in the now a neighbour asked me if I had a piece of cheese. She wanted to feed the two robins in her back garden. They are regular visitors. The extraordinary joy those two robins gave us as we watched them being cheeky, coming into the kitchen.

Isn’t it the same with so many aspects to our lives. With all our rushing hither and tither we are missing the extraordinary reality that’s right in front of our noses.

A nugget from Albert Einstein: ‘Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none’.   

 

Monday, June 25, 2018

68.5 million displaced people

There are 68.5 million people displaced around the world according to the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees.

Is there ever a word of concern about these shameful figures from right-wing ministers of religion?

All human life is sacred.

The White House evangelical preacher is quoted as having said in the last few days that God is a capitalist.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

The Germans

The Germans were lucky in Sochi last evening and Toni Kroos is Germany's newest saint. Or was it their doggedness?

Will the Germans break the jinkx of world champions making it out of the qualifiers?

On to Kazan for Wednesday's game against South Korea at 15.00.

Last evening's camera shots of manager Joachim Löw gave the viewer some small idea the pressure he was under for 96 minutes.

Anglican choir performs in the Vatican

This Friday, the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the choir of Hereford Cathedral will make history when it becomes the first Anglican cathedral choir since the Reformation to sing at a Papal Mass.
They choristers will sing in St Peter's Basilica alongside the choir of the Sistine Chapel at one of the Vatican's biggest services.
The choir has been invited as part of the Pope's programme to encourage church diversity.

Saturday, June 23, 2018

What's in a name?

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane
Sometimes I wonder has all the pious 'stuff' we have been told distract us from the great story of Jesus Christ. Only last week a sick woman introduced herself to me by saying she was not 'religious'. When I replied that neither was I, she smiled. We both agreed neither of us was exactly sure what the word religious means.

I'm often inclined to think Christianity and indeed many religions have been hijacked by intolerant zealots.

Tomorrow is the feast of the birth of John the Baptist. Yes, alas, the days are getting shorter,  but the birth of John the Baptist reminds us of new life and the importance this man is to play in foretelling the story of Jesus Christ.

Luke in his Gospel (1: 57 - 66, 80) tells us how his mother gives him the name John. It was expected he would be called Zechariah after his father. There was an element of disappointment about calling him John but once the surprise was gone, people were thrilled with his name. "All their neighbours were filled with awe and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judea."

In recent weeks there has been much media coverage surrounding the Magdalene laundries. The State, the church, the entire nation played a part in causing such pain and suffering to these people.

We have all heard horrendous stories: of babies forcefully taken away from their mothers, of nuns striking young girls, placing them in solitary confinement. I heard one woman on radio explain how they were not called by their names but instead given numbers. Horrific. In that same building where that woman was 'numbered' there were most likely 'holy' statues in every room.

That woman's recollections immediately reminded me of how the Nazis tattooed numbers on the arms of their victims in the concentration camps.

In religious congregations, people were given new names at reception of the habit. Whatever gloss they now put on it, it was an insult to the person, whether they knew it or not.

And then there are nicknames: some are good fun, affectionate and even complimentary. But there are the nasty demeaning ones, that degrade and belittle people.

Think about it, our names are unique aspects of our individuality. When someone calls us out by our name it stops us in our step. And we play all sorts of funny games with how we name people. I'm old enough to recall how we were called by our family name in school. Even back then it sounded cold, callous and nasty to me when the teacher called out, Murphy, Bollard, Phillips, Commane. There was an element of savagery to it. It certainly instilled an atmosphere of fear and dread. I can still feel it more than 50 years later.

What must it have been like in the Magdalene laundries? Certainly our schools, at least in that aspect, are far better places today. My schooldays were steeped in a reign of terror. I know. I was there. And again, the vast majority of schools were run by the Catholic Church, with statues in every classroom.

Now do you understand why I can't take the pious 'stuff'? It might suit some people, but it brings back nasty memories for me.

These days to call someone simply by their family name with no title would be unthinkable. And then when you consider the nonsense and games that surround titles, we find ourselves entering another territory: it's Dr Murphy but the catering assistant is John. Has it all to do with power and control? Why has there been the tradition of a woman taking the family name of her husband?

And then those letters we receive from providers. Last week I received a letter from Virgin Media, which began 'Dear Michael'. The mail may have been generated in the Philippines and certainly the person who wrote the letter does not know me from Adam, so why be so familiar? Is it not another misuse of my name?

Reading tomorrow's Gospel, it is fascinating to see the importance that is given to John's name. In St John's Gospel in the parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10: 1 - 21) we read how the sheep and shepherd identify with one another because, they recognise the shepherd's voice.

Our names are important. When we give respect and care to people's names, we recognise the dignity of the person.

Is that not the message of the Gospel story?

There's a bitter wisdom in Muhammad Ali's words: "All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them."

Friday, June 22, 2018

English according to an RTE Radio panelist

Close to midday today a panelist on the Today with Sean O'Rourke Show said: ".... Strange that she had showed up."

Ouch.

It was a reference to Melania Trump travelling to the Mexican US border.

Trump the demagogue in Duluth

Below is an article from yesterday's Guardian.

It is worth listening and indeed watching the almost hour-long Trump speech in Duluth, Minnesota.

President Trump is a demagogue, who has the ability to enrage people, to make them scream words of hatred and violence.

It is always advised never ever to use Hitler as a comparison but watching this Trump speech one is left dumbfounded and can't but avoid comparing him to Hitler and the reaction of the crowd is just as it was by the adoring Hitler fans, who were awestruck by their Führer who was going to make Germany great again and remove all foreigners from German territory.

Trump brings out the worst in people. His reference here to the young protester, shouting out not knowing whether 'that is a boy or a girl' is appalling. On another occasion he tells someone to 'go home to their mommy'.

And the crowd love every word he says.

His statement about 200 remains of soldiers being returned from North Korea has no substance whatsoever in reality.

But how unwise it was of Hillary Clinton ever to have used that word 'deplorables'.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/21/eight-things-we-learned-from-trumps-minnesota-speech?CMP=share_btn_link

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Gerry Doyle RIP - an exceptionally gifted priest

The funeral Mass of Gerry (Gerard) Doyle took place in Foxrock church yesterday.

The church was filled to capacity with a large number of priests concelebrating.

I begin each day as a hospital chaplain with a paper round. Most mornings Gerry did not want a paper. It meant my paper round was delayed because the first thing I would want to do when I came in was say hello to Gerry. If he were asleep I’d be disappointed that he was not there for us to talk to each other. And laugh.

At the end of the Requiem Mass a nephew of Gerry gave the eulogoy in which he told the congregation about asking Gerry if he had ever considered leaving priesthood. I once asked him if he would do the same all over again. I know, a silly question, but it led to an intriguing conversation. He had never considered being anything but a priest. As to God, yes, he had no doubt about the existence of a being who could create such beauty.

Parish priest Frank Herron alluded to the number of priests present. With a smile he told us that it was ironic in the extreme as Gerry had no respect whatsoever for any shape or form of clericalism and seldom if ever attended clerical meetings.

All three speakers, Frank Herron, Eamonn Walsh and Gerry's nephew, stressed how Gerry had a special gift for connecting with the outsider, the person on the margins, the person in difficulty.

Within 10 minutes of meeting Gerry Doyle I knew I was in the presence of an exceptional person. 

Probably because I happen to be in that category of people to whom Gerry, in a most gifted way, extended his hand of friendship.

Gerry Doyle had the gift of making people feel important.

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

What's good for the goose is good for the gander

The current issue of The Tablet includes a two-page feature on Damian Green MP.

The piece is generally in praise of the former high cabinet minister and de facto deputy prime minister.

He had to resign his cabinet position because of allegations that pornography had been viewed on his work computer during his period as an opposition spokesman some time before 2008.

There were also claims of sexual harassment made against him by the writer Kate Maltby.

Damian Green, now a Conservative MP backbencher, is a close friend of Theresa May since they were in Oxford together in the 1970s.

The MP is a prominent Catholic in the UK. In October last year the Ashford Kent MP came top of The Tablet's list of the 100 most influentil Catholics in Britain.

If a Catholic priest was accused to have done what Damian Green has been alleged to have done he would now be out of ministry.

It's one of the many inconsistencies within the Catholic Church.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

It's so easy to be manipulated

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

Michael Commane
There has been much media coverage surrounding the victims of the Magdalene Laundries in recent weeks.

President Michael D Higgins met them at Áras an Uachtaráin and there was also a function at Dublin’s Mansion House to acknowledge their suffering.

It was a small token of apology for what the State, we the Irish people had done to them when they were of child-bearing age.

It was unspeakable behaviour.

The State, the church, the entire nation played a part in causing such pain and suffering to these people.

We have all heard horrendous stories: religious sisters slapping young girls, placing them in solitary confinement. There is no end to the savagery.

It set me thinking. My mind wandered and I began to think of the ‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’. Oskar Gröning was 18-years-old when war broke out and joined the army at 19.

He was sent to Auschwitz. His job was to itemise money and valuables taken from new arrivals.
He asked to be sent to the front but his request was only accepted in 1944.

Forty or so years after the war when Gröning heard people denying the Holocaust, he stood up and said that he had seen it, that he had worked in Auschwitz.

Eventually the German State arrested him. In 2015 he was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of at least 300,000 Jews, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. He died this year on March 8 before beginning his prison sentence.

I am no bookkeeper, nor, thank God did I work at Auschwitz. But I have been thinking of Oskar Gröning while reading about the Magdalene Laundries.

I was a novice in the Dominican Priory in Pope’s Quay in Cork in 1967. I was 18/19, the same age as Oskar Gröning. There was a church attached to the priory and it was held in high esteem in the city.

The two Christmases I was in Pope’s Quay the novices and students staged a play at Peacock Lane and the Good Shepherd Convent. Both those establishments were Magdalene Laundries. 

I have vague memories of those plays. There was something eerie about the two places but I asked no questions. Either one or both establishments did the laundry for the community at the Dominican Priory in Pope’s Quay. Did anyone higher up the chain of command know that something untoward was going on in these places?

Is it that most people go with the flow, accept the status quo, never question the popular opinion?

I’m wondering what’s the definition of a wise person or prophet. Is it someone, who can think for themselves, sum up a situation and then act accordingly. It’s easy to look back and see what we did wrong. What are we doing wrong today?

EU Commissioner of Competition Margrethe Vestager, criticising social media, has pointed out how it lures us into listening to and seeing the things we want to hear.

Sacked FBI director James Comey in his book A Higher Loyalty writes: ‘The danger in every organisation, especially one built around hierarchy, is that you create an environment that cuts off dissenting views and discourages feedback. That can quickly lead to a culture of delusion and deception.’

But it happens not just in organisations. Is it not part of the human condition to go with the prevailing wind?

It’s so easy to be manipulated. 

It requires courage and wisdom to think for ourselves, to speak our minds and never cow-tow to the establishment, whoever they are.

Monday, June 18, 2018

Stymied in Moscow, unease in Berlin

Yesterday their football team was defeated in Moscow: Mexico 1, Germany 0.

Today the survivial of the Berlin government is on a knife-edge.

If the row between Angela Merkel's CDU and their sister party in Bavaria, the CSU is not settled today, then the government falls.

The CSU wants to abide by the Dublin Agreement re the entry of asyulm seekers ino the country. The CDU wants to solve the problem via the EU.

Later this year there are state elections in Bavaria and it is most likely that the right-wing AfD will cross the five per cent hurdle and enter the parliament in Munich, which means the CSU will lose its overall majority.

The CSU is playing a right-wing card to keep its voters from emigrating to the AfD.

And there is the continuing problems with BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Volkswagen

Sunday, June 17, 2018

The World Cup through the lens of Russia Today

Russian television station Russia Today is giving an interesting coverage of the World Cup.

Manchest United manager Jose Murinho is their main pundet and gives an analysis on each game. Also at hand is former goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, whose son, Kasper is the Danish keeper.

Before each game the viewer is given a short pen-picture of the host city. A lovely way to learn something of the Russian cities, which are hosting the games.

Tomorrow Germany plays Mexico beginning at 16.00 (18.00 Moscow time) at Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow.

This is the World Cup that British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson suggested should be boycotted.

Both the French President and the Germany Chancellor have hinted they may attend the games should their countries advance to the qualifying rounds.

Saturday, June 16, 2018

A new word

Upskirting: a new word. A verb. Making unauthorised photographs under a woman's skirt, capturing images of her underwear and private parts.


Friday, June 15, 2018

Vatican diplomat to stand trial

From the current issue of The Tablet.
It so happens that London, Ontario is where the current 200 class Irish Rail locomotives were manufactured by GM. The plant was closed in 2012.
Note the 'perfection' of the clerical dress.
Former diplomat will stand trial on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography

Mgr Capella is pictured in a 2015 photo at the Vatican 
CNS photo 

If found guilty, he faces a prison sentence of one year to five years and a fine from 2,500 to 50,000 euros (about £2,200-45,000)

Mgr Carlo Alberta Capella, a former diplomat at the Vatican’s embassy in Washington, has been ordered to stand trial in the Vatican’s courtroom on 22 June on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.

A Vatican statement said an investigation found that Mgr Capella, who was arrested in the Vatican in April after he had been recalled from the US, had allegedly possessed and exchanged “a large quantity” of child pornography.

Mgr Capella has been held in a cell in the Vatican’s police barracks since 9 April. 

If found guilty, he faces a prison sentence of one year to five years and a fine from 2,500 to 50,000 euros (about £2,200-45,000). However, according to Vatican law, “the penalty is increased if a considerable quantity of pornographic material is involved.”

The Italian monsignor, who was ordained to the priesthood in 1993 for the Archdiocese of Milan, had been working at the Vatican nunciature Washington for just over a year when he was recalled after the US State Department notified the Holy See of his possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images.

Canadian police later issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Mgr Capella on charges of accessing, possessing and distributing child pornography.

Police said they believed Mgr Capella to have accessed child pornography from a computer at a local church while he was visiting the Diocese of London in Ontario, Canada.

President says Crimea belongs to Russia

TV station Russia Today yesterday reported that  President Donald Trump has said that Crimea belongs to Russia. 

The Russian television station said that President Trump made his comment at the G7 meeting in Canada. He is reported to have said that since all the people in Crimea speak Russian, that it must be Russian.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Putin's Russia

BBC One Television screened an interesting programme last evening on Russia.

Putin's Russia with David Dimbleby, written and presented by Dimbleby, explained how Vladimir Putin has remained in power for so long.

The hour-long programme showed how the country is controlled by the FSB, how it is close to impossible to demonstrate against the State. The three main television stations work cap-in-hand with the Kremlin.

The Orthodox Church is a strong supporter of the Russian president.

The growth of wicked right-wing authoritarianism is showing its ugly head in all corners of the world.

God help us.

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Theatre can get the brain working

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

Michael Commane
The Friday evening of the bank holiday weekend I went to see two plays.
The first was just 15 minutes long. It was called ‘A Thirst For Shakespeare’ and the second one, the feature of the evening was ‘Crazy Horses’.

A work colleague, who is a member of the amateur dramatic society, which was staging the play, brought it to my attention. It was chance to watch a play and give a colleague support.

It had been some time since I had been at a play. I had been going to plays over the years but the person I went with it is kept busy at work these days and I’m less inclined to go to the theatre on my own.

But this play was different for many reasons: as I said it was an amateur production, also it was performed in the upstairs of a pub. It had hints of ‘alternative theatre’ about it.

‘Crazy Horses’ was the feature on the evening. 

The comedy is about how heaven is managed. From the name of the play I presume it has its genesis in The Four Horseman mentioned in the last book of the New Testament, called either The Book of Revelation or The Apocalypse. The word apocalypse is a transliteration of the Greek word for revelation.

Any writing with this title claims to include a revelation of hidden things, imparted by God, and particularly anticipated in events hidden in the future.

And in many ways that’s what the play is about. But of course there is a turn to it, indeed a funny turn. Things in heaven are in a state of turmoil, there’s need for change.

People, are given new roles, the management is not too happy with how personnel are performing. On one occasion when someone on earth is being summoned to death the harbinger of the news goes to the wrong house. Even in their new roles the staff are not performing. Revolt is planned, the devil gets involved. But at the end of it all the story is that ‘God’ is a chancer or conman.

No, the play is not at all insulting to people of faith. It’s funny in places.

I cycled to the venue on the night. The pub is about three kilometres from my home. For the three kilometre-cycle home I was thinking about God, faith, why I believe, what it means to believe in a supreme being. What does it mean to say I believe in resurrection?

Any piece of writing, music or theatre that prompts us to think about God surely is good for our minds and souls. I’m often inclined to think that people of faith are too easily offended by views that do not coincide with their beliefs. Maybe we need to have thicker skins.

The support play on the evening was about two men, who had a yearning to stage Shakespearian plays in the pub, which one of them owned. The two actors on the night wrote the play. It was a bit of fun. Men with notions about their theatrical nous. But as one of them dryly says, really no need for an exalted Shakespeare as the pub is really a stage with its own actors.

Theatre gives us a great opportunity to get the brain working. It allows us engage in debate, to throw ideas at one another, to agree and disagree.

‘I am interested in the shape of ideas, even if I do not believe in them.’ – Samuel Beckett


 

Monday, June 11, 2018

Angela Merkel talks to Anne Will

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave an hour-long interview to Anne Will on ARD, Germany's public broadcaster, last evening.

It was in many ways a stellar performance. Clearly the woman is a brilliant communicator.

She was diplomatic but firm on President Donald Trump, sees a need to keep talking with President Vladimir Putin.

The Chancellor cited the difficulties with Trump and Putin as reasons why Europe needs to work closer and better together.

In speaking about the alleged murder in Germany of a young girl by a 20-year-old from Irak, who had been refused permanent residence, she expressed in sympathetic terms the tragedy it was for the family.

The Chancellor came across as a caring person, the wise woman who lives next door and looks out for her neighbour in a quiet and discreet way.

A super intelligent woman, who happens to be German Chancellor.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Leaving Cert 2018

According to the State Examination Commission, 55,770 students are sitting the Leaving Cert this year.

8,677 students are due to sit the German paper, whereas  24,232 will take the French paper. 380 candidates will answer the Russian paper. Seventy three doing Latin and 14 Ancient Greek.

History, no longer a core subject, will be taken by 11,865.

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Trump is a threat to international peace

The piece below by Sir Ivor Roberts, is from the current issue of The Tablet.
A great read.
Sir Ivor Roberts is a past President of Trinity College, Oxford. He was previously British Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Ireland, and Italy.
While observing the zigzag political manoeuvrings towards, away, and now back again (at least at the time of writing) towards a Donald Trump–Kim Jong-un summit in Singapore on Tuesday, it is worth recalling the words of Dean Acheson, the former United States Secretary of State, who pointed out: “When a chief of state … makes a fumble, the goal line is open behind him.” He might have been talking about goalkeepers in Kiev. But his real point is that the dangers of summitry are not always appreciated by its practitioners.
Summits are high-profile events; expectations are often raised and the risk of failure is all the greater. Hence the need for pre-prepared, well-negotiated outcomes. And this is a job for professionals. It is work that cannot be conducted in full public view, as this would make the inevitable compromises impossible to achieve, nor by public statements, which would foreclose negotiating options or lead to unhelpfully harsh exchanges.
Megaphone diplomacy – often the product of domestic imperatives which impel politicians to talk toughly and roughly, even when they dimly suspect it will damage their longer term aims – is the very antithesis of what diplomacy should be. But it appears to be the only sort of diplomacy at which President Trump excels, in his case with his Twitter account replacing the megaphone. It is often the diplomat on the ground who is left to repair the damage.
The diplomat is also the one best able to prepare the ground for a successful summit. (I am using the word “diplomat” loosely here: the person deputed to carry out a diplomatic function might be from the foreign or another ministry or a special envoy, an unofficial and often informally appointed non-governmental actor.) With very few exceptions, the successful summits – where the outcomes are far reaching and positive – are those that have been most meticulously prepared.
Professional expertise and knowledge of the country and culture of the other side is invaluable. In most cases, the summiteers’ respective embassies play a pivotal role. Scaling a summit necessitates a base camp. And the base camp more often than not is the embassy. 
Personal chemistry may help to make the occasion a success; if the chemistry works to repel rather than attract, the results will be meagre at best. But no matter how well-prepared, or how charming the protagonists, a summit is always a high-wire act.
Yet it is no secret that experts are currently very much out of fashion in both Washington and London. In Washington, the widespread view is that the swamp has to be drained of such people; here, as the Tory Minister Michael Gove succinctly put it during the referendum campaign:“People have had enough of experts.” 
Of course, if what he meant to say was that expertise should not equate to an arrogant presumption of authority, he might have a point. But to dismiss statisticians at the Treasury and the Bank of England as insidious or disloyal was infantile.
Similarly, it was outrageous that Ivan Rogers should have been hounded from his position as British ambassador to the European Union because he had the temerity to point out that not everyone in continental Europe greeted the referendum result with enthusiasm, and that not everyone was planning to make our lives easier in order to accommodate a move most saw as hugely damaging to both the EU and the United Kingdom.
Had Rogers failed to accurately report the unvarnished views of the other 27 countries, however uncomfortably they would be received, he would have been falling down on the job. This fundamental misunderstanding of a diplomat’s task fits into the hardline Brexiteers’ narrative that those who fail to express enthusiasm for Brexit and instead point out the pitfalls are bordering on treachery in defying “the will of the people”. 
While the Brexiteers reprise this mantra ad nauseam, they remain ignorant and wilfully self-deceiving about the reality of what can be negotiated with the EU 27. Their bluff, buccaneering blather – “Britain will be open to the world” – would carry more weight if it did not come, as Ivan Rogers recently pointed out, from people who have never negotiated a trade deal.
It is abundantly clear that speaking truth to power does not work in Washington either. Trump’s National Security Advisor, Herbert McMaster, and Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, both seen as figures of relative moderation and restraint, were dismissed within a couple of weeks of each other, each to be replaced by a man whose views on Iran and North Korea were more compatible with Trump’s.
It is as though Trump felt after a year or so in office that he was now unbound, and had no need to be restrained by advisors and diplomats of more moderate views.
The abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal, the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty and the tearing up of multilateral trade deals: in each case, we have seen Trump ignoring expert advice. He will discover his errors painfully through experience.
This is already starting to happen. Nobody in the Arab world any longer regards the US as capable of being an honest broker in the search for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, after Trump showed his disdain for the decades-long consensus that the question of the status of Jerusalem be reserved for the final stage of the negotiations between the two sides. 
Trump has blamed the deaths that resulted on Hamas, as if no Middle East expert in the US or elsewhere had predicted a violent and bloody reaction to his decision to relocate the embassy. And to open it in Jerusalem on the seventieth anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel, the day the Palestinians refer to as the nakba, the “catastrophe”, only added fuel to the flames. The experts predicted that violence would follow, and it did.
President Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the nuclear deal with Iran marks another serious threat to international peace, as exasperated experts in the politics of region have repeatedly pointed out. 
Within Iran, the moderates around President Hassan Rouhani have been bruised, humiliated and diminished; the hardliners close to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and the Revolutionary Guards, who always opposed the deal because it included a moratorium on Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, have been emboldened.
Inevitably, the Guards’ second-in-command has called for the resumption of an “unlimited” nuclear programme. Given the existential threat that would pose to Israel, we are heading towards a scenario in which it would be well within the bounds of possibility for Israel and/or the US to launch major strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. 
This in turn could provoke retaliation by Iran not only against Israel but against Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates, viewed as allied to the US and tolerant of Israel. 
And not only experts must have held their heads in their hands, wondering how Trump imagines that the shameless breaking of an international treaty could encourage Kim Jong-un to renounce his nuclear programme in return for a US promise not to try to overthrow him.
Perhaps a world without embassies and diplomats and foreign affairs experts would be a better place – but it would be a world with no wars to end, no conflicts to soothe, no nuclear proliferation threats to defuse, no terrorism to prevent, and no tourists who leave their passports on trains – a world of perfectly free and frictionless trade, with no country in need of development aid or emergency relief in the case of a natural disaster.
In the world as it actually is, a diplomat not only has to possess the traditional range of peace-building and deal-making skills but is also expected to negotiate trade agreements, nurture counter-terrorism alliances, advance nuclear non-proliferation and combat international organised crime, including trafficking and modern slavery.
There is no danger of diplomats becoming redundant. It is a long way from the diplomacy of the nineteenth century but the essence of the challenge and satisfaction of its twenty-first-century version is that, almost uniquely, it brings together judgement, knowledge, experience and, yes, unashamedly, expertise.

Friday, June 8, 2018

The little girl burned with US napalm

On this date, June 8, 1972 nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc was burned with napalm dropped by a US bomber flying in the skies of Vietnam.

The horror and brutality of what the US was doing in Vietnam was captured by photographer Nick Ut.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning picture became world famous, indeed, probably a turning point in the Vietnam war.

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Mary Wilson RIP

Poet Mary Wilson has died. She was 102.

Lady Wilson was the wife of British Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.

They married on New Year's Day 1940 and were together for 55 years.


Neither a bookkeeper nor at Auschwitz but......

I was a novice in the Dominican novitiate in Pope’s Quay in Cork in 1967.

There were 21 young men living in the priory. Add to that another four young priests, who were attending University College Cork. In all, there could have been close to 40 men living in the priory. 

Attached to the priory was a busy church, which was held in high esteem in the city.

These last days I have been thinking of the ‘Bookkeeper of Auschwitz’, Oskar Gröning, who died earlier this year. He was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment but never served any of his sentence.

His job at Auschwitz was to itemise money and valuables taken from new arrivals, who were then killed or subjected to slave labour. He asked to be moved to the front but was refused permission until 1944 when he served as a fighting soldier.

After the war when he heard people denying the Holocaust he was one of very few Germans to say what had happened and admit what he had done.

Pope’s Quay was far away from Auschwitz and I was not a bookkeeper at either place.

But when we were novices we performed plays at the nearby Peacock Lane and Good Shepherd Convent. They were both Magdalene Laundries.

Indeed, the girls and women at both establishments laundered our clothes.

I was 18/19/20 and never asked a question. Why didn’t I?

Did the established men in the community ask any questions? Did nobody think it was all strange and wrong? These same men spoke to us of the importance of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

How did the management class know so much about God, the vows and all the other 'stuff' and knew so little about the crass injustice being done to girls and women right beside them? And the same 'stuff' is trotted out today.

It happened on my watch and I said nothing.

Which means I can never dare stay silent again. The nonsense goes on, under a different format.

Every day the Irish Catholic Church is attacked. But who put the leaders/the managers of this church on their pedestals? Clearly, the people, the Irish people.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Irish Catholic schools

Of the 3,110 primary schools in the State, 2,787 or 89 per cent are Catholic.

The Catholic Church is also a significant player in post primary education in the State.

Value for money?

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

It's no secret that we all need good sleep

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

Michael Commane
Do you find it difficult getting out of bed in the morning, especially on a cold wet winter’s day?
It never ceases to amaze me how no one has written a best seller on the terror of early morning rising.

Those five or ten minutes when you would give the world just to turn around, cuddle up and go back to sleep. In those few minutes it’s hell to realise you have to hit the floor. The ultimate misplaced fantasy is to think or believe that you can stay on in bed. If only....

Those moments of terror, hesitation, disbelief, in many ways encapsulate the stories of our lives.

A minute or two out of bed, we have brushed ourselves down, and magically we are set for a new day.

What must it be like for people who are so sick or infirm that they have no choice but to spend their days in bed. That surely is another type of terror.

Summer is here, these days it’s easier to get out of bed early in the morning. It’s bright before 05.00.

In my case the first thing I do is take Tess, my ageing Labrador, for a walk. And these mornings it’s simply magic. Out in the nearby park at just after 06.00 the day is at its best. There’s a freshness, a newness to it. Maybe like everything in our lives the beginnings are often the best of times.

Sleep and sleep patterns have been on my mind in recent weeks. Approximately a month ago I started wearing a GPS (Global Positioning System) smartwatch. 

Staff at the HSE organised a competition to see what team walked the most steps over a four-week period. It was great fun and has been a powerful enabler to get you exercising. The GPS watch measures your daily steps. 

It does much more than that. It is an astonishing gadget. It can tell me the speed I am cycling, the number of kilometres I walk and cycle every day, it tracks my routes, it tells me my heart rate but it also magically gives me information on my sleeping pattern.

In my ignorance I thought you went to bed, fell asleep, woke up in the morning and then experienced those dreaded moments before getting out of the bed.

There is much more to it than that. There are different grades or levels of sleep. The smartwatch tells me how long I sleep and divides my sleeping pattern into light and deep sleep. 

It also tells me the times I am awake. Well, come to think about it I don’t need a tracking device to tell me about that. But one’s sleeping pattern is interesting. Deep sleep is that time when the heart and breathing slow down. 

It's when our bodies repair themselves and recharge for the next day. During deep sleep our organs get rid of toxins and muscle tissue is built up, cells are replaced. It’s the time our bodies use to restore us and keep us healthy.

The average adult only needs two hours’ deep sleep per night but of course that does not mean that is all the sleep you need. Most people who know about these matters say adults require on average eight hours of sleeping time, most of it made up by light sleep.

My smartwatch is letting me in on a lot of deep secrets. But it is no secret that we all need exercise, sleep and good food for healthy living.

 

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