Changing times indeed

This on the front page of the digital version of today's Der Spiegel.

The piece is about English people applying for Irish passports.

On the cheap with Irish Rail from Waterford to Kildare

An interesting glitch in Irish Rail's fare structure.

The single flexible rail fare from Waterford to Limerick Junction is €5.29. The single fare from Waterford to Kildare is €14.49.

Irish Rail has two daily direct service from Waterford to Limerick Junction.

You may travel on the direct service at 07.20 to Limerick Junction but you may also travel on the 07.50 Dublin service, changing at Kildare.

The single flexible fare to Kildare to €14.49. Which seems to imply that with a little rail knowledge a passenger can travel to Kildare for €5.29.

The USSR

On this date, December 30, 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed.

The present

The only place where we can exercise our freedom of choice is in the present.

Edith Eger in The Choice.

Christian harmony can coexist with modern beliefs

Former Irish diplomat, Bobby McDonagh wrote a piece in The Irish Times yesterday on his once teacher and headmaster, Jesuit priest Paul Adams, who died.

He writes how more than a third of his class attended the funeral, which says something about the man given that his stint at the school ended 47 years ago.

This is an excerpt from the piece.

On the one hand, there are those who see Christianity and other religions as being in contradiction with science and even with rational thought. Inspired by the observation that some religious beliefs, such as creationism, can indeed be irrational mumbo jumbo, they make the mistake of tarring all religious belief with the same brush. 

This requires them to ignore the great philosophers, scientists and writers who have seen no contradiction between their work and their religious faith. 

On the other hand, there are those within the church who believe that there are clear unambiguous answers to all the great questions of life and that these answers are available through what they consider official church teaching. They act as if such teaching is not to be questioned. 

Thus, coming from the opposite point of view, they likewise see some contradiction between faith, on the one hand, and rational thought and secular culture on the other. 

It is this view which in the distant past gave us the hauling of Galileo before the Inquisition, in the more recent past the censorship of great literature, and today, for example, a dismissal out of hand of the strong case for women priests and for gay marriage.

Self-disclosure of God in everyday life

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

Michael Commane

In conversation with a friend in the last few days we were talking about how in vogue the word ‘experience’ has become. He brought it to my attention how everything is now regarded as an experience. 

People look forward say to the experience of going for a meal, to Christmas.

One gets the impression that it really doesn’t do any longer to live simply in the now and enjoy the moment in which we find ourselves.

But experiences are not confined to the future. They are also part of the present moment.

We all seem to be programmed to behave in a way that sends us off chasing rainbows.

It certainly looks like that at times and maybe especially so in the run-up to Christmas. All the frenetic shopping. I heard about a major food retailer in Dublin, that usually takes in €20,000 on a normal day, last Christmas Eve had its tills ringing to the tune of €60,000 and the shop closed early on the day.

It happens at Easter but more intensely so at Christmas that people get into a panic when it comes to shopping. With the shops closed for a maximum of two days, we feel obliged to stockpile. It ends up with people buying far too much and then after Christmas there is a scandalous waste of food.

Every year in Ireland we throw out over one million tonnes of food.

On average every household wastes €700 every year, and this peaks at Christmas time. 

At the recent climate summit in Katowice in Poland a commitment was made for greater transparency on efforts to reduce carbon emissions to global warming. Are you playing your part, am I?

Isn’t it true that greedy people are never satisfied with what they have, always wanting more? And isn’t that symptomatic of our lifestyles, we are always jumping to the next place, seldom if ever happy where we actually are.

We seem to be developing some sort of characteristic that is forcing us, constantly wanting us to be in the next place. It’s as if, we are never content or happy living in the present and experiencing the wonder of the now. 

We are rushing somewhere, I’m not too sure where and it seems to manifest itself to a ridiculous degree at Christmas.

These days listening to ‘experts’ giving advice on how to cook the Christmas meal, how to spend the day, how to avoid the pitfalls of the season, I can’t help but think we are losing the run of ourselves.

I recommend we say over and over the first verse of Patrick Kavanagh’s poem ‘Advent’:

‘We have tested and tasted too much lover  -/ Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder./But here in the Advent-darkened room/Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea/Of penance will charm back the luxury/Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom/The knowledge we stole but could not use.’

‘Tóg go bog e’ makes an awful lot of sense.

Dare I say it, is it that we have lost the sense of wonder or transcendence in our lives? Have we lost the ability simply to stand back, pause and appreciate all that is right in front of our eyes? Was it Wordsworth who saw the extraordinary in the ordinary? We sure could learn from him too.

And it’s no harm to remind ourselves that the self-disclosure of God happens most often in the here and now experiences of everyday life.

Live in the present.

David Miliband on Brexit fiasco

Interesting piece in Monday's Guardian by former British foreign secretary David Miliband.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/24/corbyn-given-up-europe-labour-brexit-vote?CMP=share_btn_link

Urbi et Orbi

Pope Francis called for fraternity "among individuals of every nation and culture" in his annual Christmas message at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

"My wish for a happy Christmas is a wish for fraternity. Fraternity among individuals of every nation and culture. Fraternity among people with different ideas, yet capable of respecting and listening to one another. Fraternity among persons of different religions," he said during the "Urbi et Orbi," or "to the city and the world" address Tuesday. 

Pope Francis added that he hoped that Israelis and Palestinians would find common ground and renew peace talks.

"May this Christmas help us to rediscover the bonds of fraternity linking us together as individuals and joining all peoples. May it enable Israelis and Palestinians to resume dialogue and undertake a journey of peace that can put an end to a conflict that for over seventy years has rent the land chosen by the Lord to show his face of love," he said.

Pope Francis specifically prayed for Syria and Yemen, where long-standing conflicts have bred humanitarian disasters and devastated civilian life. 

"May the international community work decisively for a political solution that can put aside divisions and partisan interests, so that the Syrian people, especially all those who were forced to leave their own lands and seek refuge elsewhere, can return to live in peace in their own country," he said. 

Speaking on Yemen, the pope said it was his hope "that the truce brokered by the international community may finally bring relief to all those children and people exhausted by war and famine."

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to all readers.

This paragraph is pennend by someone else. A lovely sentiment.

Let us be gentle with each other in the coming year. Let us not allow ourselves to be dragged down by all the shrill uncouth voices howling division, derision and exclusion.

GDPR and the little bureaucrats

GDPR (General Data Protection Reuglation) is on the minds of all of us these days.

Overheard, senior social worker in Dublin talking about the intricacies and confusion surrounding the GDPR said: GDPR is manna from heaven for little bureaucrats, giving them the power for which they crave.

Edith Eger's 'The Choice

I've never  found it difficult to see that it isn't God who is killing us in gas chambers, in ditches, on cliff sides, on 186 white stairs.

God doesn't run the death camps. People do. But here is the horror again and I don't want to indulge it.

I picture God like being a dancing child. sprightly and innocent and curious.

I must be also if I am to be close to God now.

I want to keep alive the part of me that feels wonder, that wonders, until the very end.

An excerpt from The Choice by Edith Eger, published 2017.

The piece above describes her feelings while at Mauthausen concentration camp. She and her sister had been moved with many others from Auschwitz as the Red Army was approaching from the east.

A great book and highly recommended.

English grammar a la RTE

RTE's Katie Hannon, reviewing yesterday on RTE Radio 1's Drivetime the year of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said,  "..... he had not rang."

She was talking about Leo's gaffe when he was talking with President Trump about his golf course in Ireland and plannig permission.

RTE should give a course to its employees on the use of the past participle.

It's interesting how middle class Ireland will sneer at 'I done' but they seemingly have no issues with misusing the participle with other verbs.

The last day of bituminous coal mining in Germany

Today in Bottrop the last piece of bituminous coal was brought to the surface.

After 200 years Germany no long mines bituminous coal.

President Hans Walter Steinmeier was on hand to receive the final piece of  German coal. He spoke about the role coal has played in German history, stressing its importance in rebuilding post-war Germany.

Present at the ceremony were representatives from the unions, politics, church and state. 

Canterbury versus Rome

This from The Times today.

It is reporting on a meeting in Downing Street between Mrs May and some of those who voted against her last week.

“She was supremely relaxed,” one of the guests said. “We had an hour. It was an eclectic mix of people.” At one point the prime minister remarked that the difference between her and Mr Rees-Mogg was that she paid her allegiance to Canterbury as a member of the Church of England while his was to Rome as a Catholic. He replied: “Only in matters spiritual, prime minister.”

Patrick Kavanagh's Advent

The first verse of Patrick Kavanagh's poem Advent deserves mention in the run-up to Christmas.

We have tested and tasted too much lover  - 
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul,we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

'Mothers of Invention'

Join former Irish President Mary Robinson and comedian Maeve Higgins in a new podcast, celebrating amazing women doing remarkable things in pursuit of climate justice.

​

Each episode features the Mothers of Invention driving powerful solutions to climate change – from the grassroots to the court room, the front lines to the board room – all over the world. 

At home

Irish Dominican Thomas McCarthy has been writing the weekly Advent reflection this year in The Tablet.

This is his reflection for the Third Sunday in Advent.

It makes for an interesting read.

Our eyes welcome only as much light as we can bear. They develop as we grow; they open gradually wider, seeing further and in more and more detail. The heart, responding to what is seen, comes to love, hope and believe. Some know only pain, abandonment and disillusion: for them the eyes grow dim. 

Those who suffer acutely can be forgiven for not wishing to see any more, or to be seen. As night falls, they seek shelter in doorways, their wintry plight a mirror of the weather they endure. Hope ebbs from their heart’s shore. They are truly the homeless in our society.

But there are others, who may live quite near us, perhaps in material comfort, whose pain remains largely unseen. I mean those who seek to “keep the bright side out”, if only to avoid questions about their well-being. Yes, they have a roof over their heads, but, inside, they are homeless, despite their bland, dismissive assurances: “I’m fine, thanks.”

They include wonderful souls whose marriages have soured, leaving them lonely even in the middle of a family. And among them too must be counted priests burnt out by the stress of their beleagured profession, and Religious sisters and brothers no longer at ease in the communities they joined. 

Some may have found an inner “eye” that reaches further, or a zeal that outstretched anything currently evident in the cloister: a generosity of spirit frustrated when the image portrayed by the order they joined has become little more than a façade. Such hearts, too, are homeless.

There is homelessness also in a soul that is impatient. “Be vigilant and pray – this is how to live this time from today until Christmas,” Pope Francis said at the beginning of Advent. These four weeks are “a time to open our hearts and to ask ourselves concrete questions about how we spend our lives and for whom.” We need time to enable a fruitful change of heart. 

The growth and flowering of life takes time. Life is best not rushed. The rate of adjusting our behaviour can depend on how much light the eyes of faith can bear at any given moment. Unless the homeless soul can learn the grace of waiting it may not discover that, as Hermann Hesse wrote, “Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.” 

It is not a purse or a wallet that is needed to alleviate the pain of the homeless soul. A listening ear is more apt, and the alertness that senses unease in a sister’s or brother’s “living and partly living”. As we “go forth” when Mass is ended, we are summoned to seek out the lost, including those sheltered under the same roof as us.

What can sometimes inflame the eye and inspire the heart is the image of dreams coming “one size too big” for us. The challenge is often to be patient, to “grow into them”.

One step at a time. In the spiritual life, questions are easily posed, of ourselves and of others. The provision of the “correct” answers does not guarantee a quick fix. The process is best not rushed. Perhaps we need to be “still and still moving”.

Jesus, who, while still very young, is depicted by Luke as having being discovered by his anxious parents to be asking questions in the Temple, later challenged disciples who were no doubt as “full of years” as those Temple doctors likely were. They could not be expected to imagine it, but in fact the young visitor was more at home in that Temple than they were.

Trump has an ally in EWTN

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

Michael Commane

Every day we see and hear something new, usually outlandish, about President Donald Trump.

In early December Rex Tillerson, who was President Trump’s first secretary of state, said in a talk in Houston, Texas, that Mr Trump was undisciplined, did not like to read and did not respect the limits of his office.

Donald Trump immediately got to his Twitter account and said of Rex Tillerson:

‘Tillerson didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell.’

I can’t imagine a major company such as Exxon Mobil would have appointed someone as ‘dumb as a rock’ as its CEO, where Tillerson was 10 years in the top job.

These days it’s news when Trump is not in the news. And that surely is the way he wants it. In many ways he is a class act in getting attention. Indeed, the world seems to focus on him and his words every day.

The Mueller investigation is closing the net on him and his shenanigans with Russia, Putin and other autocrats and autocratic states.

These are not normal times.

If you or I said what Trump has said about women we would be summarily dismissed from our jobs. And certainly, in my case, I would be immediately removed from ministry. Yet millions of people voted for Trump, a large number of evangelical Christians support him and large swathes of right-wing Catholics cast their vote for the then Republican presidential candidate.

The conservative religious television station EWTN, the Catholic version of Fox News, is gentle and kind to him, even more than that, it makes it clear that it supports many of his policies.

Trump is no fool and it would be absurd to dismiss him as some sort of jester. He is far from it.

The President of the United States has an uncanny ability of appealing to the lowest and darkest sides of our humanity.

He is clever in how he attacks defined enemies, he knows he can ridicule the weak and the fragile. Do you remember that time when he mimicked a person with special needs? He has genius quality in creating scapegoats.

He can say whatever he likes at his mass rallies and his adoring fans will scream and howl in support.

There are now the regular chant lines: ‘lock her up’ or ‘build that wall’. They are clever one-liners, which are used as a response to his stream of nasty consciousness.

When any of us is hurt, feels alienated or unwanted, there is always the temptation to lash out and say or do nasty things. And it is this aspect of our being that Trump seems to touch and cultivate with an uncanny precision.

Anytime he meets with other world leaders he frowns and pouts and that must be because he is not at the centre of attention. It was clear at the funeral of George HW Bush that he was uncomfortable. 

While the eulogies delivered at the funeral were of course about the dead president, there was always the sub plot, pointing out the rudeness and vulgarity of the current president.

Editor of ‘The New Yorker’, David Remnick commented how the words spoken about the dignity of Bush compared with the vulgarity of Trump. He said: ‘One man speaking the truth, another man incapable of speaking the truth.

And the big question; what does former KGB spy in East Germany and now Russian President Vladimir Putin have on Donald Trump?

Happy birthday Pope Francis

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires on this day in 1936.

He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1969.

Elected pope on March 13, 2013, taking the name Pope Francis.

Ryanair now flying Dublin Frankfurt-am-Main

That Ryanair operates a new route is certainly not newsworthy. 

But what is newsworthy and indeed surprising is that the carrier is now flying between Dublin and Frankfurt-am-Main international or main airport, in other words, the real Ffm airport.

And that they have done it all so quietly and fanfare-less is most unusual.

Up to now they have been flying to Hahn, calling it Frankfurt Hahn.

That would be similar to landing in Thurles and calling it Dublin Thurles.

Ryanair continues to fly from Dublin to Hahn and uses the former US airbase as a hub.

Cardinal Pell found guilty of sex abuse by Melbourne court

Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty by a Melbourne court.

In one of the most closely watched trials in modern Catholic Church history, after nearly four full days of deliberations, a jury rendered unanimous guilty verdicts on five charges related to the abuse of two choirboys in 1996.

Pell, who is 77, is currently on a leave of absence from his post as the Vatican’s Secretary for the Economy.

In June 2017, Pell was charged by Australian police with “historical sexual assault offences,” forcing him to leave Rome and return to Australia vowing to “clear his name.”

During the four weeks of testimony, the jury heard from the former master of ceremonies of the cathedral, its former organist, and other choirboys during the same period of the alleged incident.

Much of the testimony centred on whether or not it would have been possible for Pell to have been alone with the members of the choir and whether it would have been physically possible for Pell to engage in such actions while wearing his Mass vestments.

Pell has been a key point of reference in English-speaking Catholicism for at least the last two decades, and he was appointed by Pope Francis to his “C9” council of cardinal advisers from around the world in 2013. 

On Wednesday, the Vatican announced that at the end of October, Pope Francis had removed Pell, along with two other cardinals, from his council of advisers.

He served as the Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996 to 2001, then as the Archbishop of Sydney from 2001 until his appointment to his Vatican position in 2014.

The Australian media is prohibited from printing Pell's name.

The piece below is from The Sydney Morning Post

https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/why-the-media-is-unable-to-report-on-a-case-that-has-generated-huge-interest-online-20181212-p50lta.html

Ireland joins UN

On this date, December 14, 1955, Ireland, along with a number of other countries, joined the United Nations.

Louis Michael O'Halloran OP, RIP

Dominican priest Louis Michael O'Halloran died in Glendonagh Nursing Home, Dungowney, Midleton, Co Cork yesterday morning.

Louis, known in the Order as Lou or indeed, 'The Lou' was born in Cork in 1925, joined the Irish Dominicans in 1950 and was ordained a priest in July 1956.

He went to the famous CBS North Monastery secondary school. In his young days he was a keen tennis player. His parents owned and ran a general grocery shop on the Commons Road in Cork city.

Before coming to the Dominicans he studied engineering at University College Cork, graduating with a degree from the National University of Ireland.

After priestly ordination he did further studies, obtaining his Higher Diploma in Education, subsequently spending sometime teaching mathematics at Newbridge College in Co Kildare.

He also taught mathematics at the then Dominican-run Holy Cross College in Trinidad. He is remembered as a no-nonsense teacher.

Lou was teaching in Holy Cross during the emergence of the Black Power movement and on one occasion spoke critically of the behaviour of a number of students, which did not endear him to those involved in the new political development.

While in Trinidad among the many practical jobs he did was to label all the cabling, sockets, fuses and terminals at Holy Cross Priory, which over the years proved most helpful especially later when extensions or modifications were made to the building.

After Trinidad Fr O'Halloran moved to the United States of America where he worked as a prison chaplain and also ministered in parishes in California.

While spending many years outside his native Ireland he was to his core a Cork man and so proud of it.

In 2014 he returned to his beloved Cork and was living at the Dominican Priory, Ennismore, Montennote, Cork until he moved to the nursing home in Midleton.

May he rest in peace.

Far too many patients on trolleys

In November there were 9,679 patients on trolleys in Ireland.

This is an increase of 11per cent on November 2017.

Figures supplied by INMO.

According to a report in The Irish Times on Saturday there is a €655 million hole in the State's health budget. 

This is due to overspending, increased GP and legal costs, and a failure to achieve €15 million in savings.

Some good tips on using social media

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

Michael Commane

Have you ever sent an email or text message in a hurry?

Before we had smartphones and internet facilities we wrote letters. We had to go looking for an envelope, find a stamp, then post it. That was a long operation. But it stopped us in our step and gave us plenty of space to think exactly what we wanted to put down on paper.

The nonsense and drivel we see on social media surely is the result of the facility of being able to fire off instantly the madness that is the result of that quick rush of blood to our brains.

Social media can be a dangerous business. I had the good fortune two weeks ago of attending a talk on the dangers of social media and how we can protect ourselves against some of its dangers.

The young man who gave the talk was excellent, articulate and well-briefed. It was in the context of my work that I was at the talk. 

I was struck with how quickly everything to do with social media is changing.

He began his talk by pointing out that just 11 years ago, 2007, a smartphone was unimaginable. When he told us that Bebo died in 2009 one could sense a feeling in the room how far we had come in such a short time. And then someone mentioned the Blackberry. Looking for a Blackberry today is something like searching for a steam kettle.

But in the midst of all the change and its speed he kept stressing that the rules for staying safe online never change.

Today in Ireland 95 per cent of children have access to the internet at home. The average age of children having a smart phone is 10.

There are 2.2 billion people on Facebook and Snapchat records 10,000 snaps per second.

Children are going online younger and for longer and according to the latest statistics one in four children are victims of cyber-bullying.

The lecturer pointed out the importance of teaching people how to communicate over the internet. In face-to-face communication it’s not just a matter of what we say but how we say it. To demonstrate his point, he wrote the following sentence on the board: ‘I never said she stole my money’. He pointed out how that sentence as a text message could have seven different meanings, which makes it so dangerous. It depends on where the stress is put to give it its specific meaning. And that’s not possible in a text message. There is little or no nuance or subtlety in social media.

There is the added dimension of anonymity, which dramatically changes everything but especially bullying.

There are some basic social media rules: if you would not say it to a person’s face then don’t put it online, if you don’t know how something works, then find out, once you put something up on the internet you lose control of it. It can’t be undone. Never reply to abusive or bullying messages and always keep a copy.

He told some harrowing stories of how people have been duped on the internet. Never make friends with strangers and never give out private details across the web.

Where is it all leading, no-one knows. But one thing is sure, be constantly on your guard when using social media. Indeed, the very term social media has now unfortunately become an oxymoron.

Remember, once you press that send button, whatever you have posted, text or picture, it’s there for ever.

Trump rubbishes Tillerson

President Donald Trump on his former Secretary of State and ex Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Tillerson was Trump's first Secretary of State:

Tillerson didn't have the mental capacity needed.

He was dumb as a rock and I couldn't get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell.

On first reading it sounds daft. It's what we have grown accustomed to from the President of the United States of America.

But it's dangerous to underestimate Trump. He has that demagogue factor. He knows how to touch millions of people with angry nasty words. He enunciates what many people think in their darkest thoughts.

How many people when they fall out with friends, colleagues and relatives, when they don't like people, say such nasty things against them?  People get hunches and ideas on those they may never have met or with whom they may never have spoken and then they say terrible things about them.

Trump appeals to the dark side of human beings.

With all his right-wing baggage, his vulgarity, his rudeness, he is a dangerous man.

And millions of people voted for this man, who has spoken vile words against women, jeers at people with special needs.

Trump is clever to attack defined enemies.

He promises to make America great again.

Samuel Johnson on pious men

Wise words of Samuel Johnson. Does anything ever change?

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.

Mary and her #MeToo placard

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

Michael Commane

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It is a major feast in the Catholic tradition. It is also celebrated as a 'Lesser Festival' in some Anglican provinces.

The Eastern Church celebrated the feast of the conception of the Most Holy and All Pure Mother of God perhaps as early as the fifth century in Syria.

Like all Christian feasts it has a long historical background. The first moves to refer to Mary as being immaculately conceived were in the 11th century, and the day was made a 'Holy Day of Obligation' in 1708. That term 'Holy Day of Obligation' may sound alienating to our ears in the 21st century.

With the current state of affairs within Irish Christian communities there is a belief among some that young people are not being taught their faith as was in the past, hence the fall off in religious practice.

The following observation puts paid to that thinking.

Some years ago, there was a heated discussion in a newsroom about the meaning of today's feast. One side said that it celebrated the belief that Jesus was immaculately conceived; the other group got it right and said the feast was about the Christian tradition that Mary was born free of original sin.

It is not an apocryphal story as I was there and witnessed it. And the majority of people involved in that discussion grew up in 'old-fashioned' Ireland, when as some would have you believe, religion was taught properly!

We must ask what sort of teaching or catechesis have we ever had about the tradition, faith and history of the religion into which we have been born? History, our life stories, our perceptions are constantly evolving. Change is a central theme to the development of human beings.

I can imagine that many who have been born into the Christian faith in Ireland will not pay any attention to today’s feast day. Maybe the common perception of the unreal “piousity” as distinct from piety, surrounding the life and times of Mary have not just touched a chord with 'ordinary people' but indeed alienated them from getting to grips with any sort of faith that has meaning in their lives.

In today's Gospel we read: "Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you." (Luke 1: 28) Every time I see women speaking, writing and carrying banners supporting the #MeToo campaign I'm prompted to recall the great privilege that God bestowed on Mary.

And as a result of Mary's special role in being singled out to be the mother of God, anyone who infringes on the dignity of any human being but especially on the dignity of a woman, be she my mother, your mother, sister, lover, that person is flying in the face of God.

There is often good reason to criticise the Catholic Church for its patriarchal stance, but it should never be forgotten the special role Mary has played in the Christian tradition.

I can well imagine a modern Mary would be out there carrying her #MeToo placards. Because at the core of Christianity is the idea of liberation from all evil, wrongdoing and enslavement. And we all know how women have been enslaved in front of our eyes and continue to be so treated in many places and in many and various ways

Tomorrow is the second Sunday of Advent and in the Gospel reading we read that famous passage from St Luke how “A voice cries in the wilderness:/Prepare a way for the Lord,/make his paths straight.” (Luke 3: 4)

A prophet cries in the wilderness. Often prophets are not appreciated or made welcome. The job, the challenge of the prophet is to nudge us towards God. Just as Mary is considered highly because the Lord is with her, we too should consider ourselves highly favoured. We need to appreciate our closeness to God. Maybe in the times we are living there is far too negative an attitude to the power of God and how he loves us. It's not for us to tamper with or try to limit God's love.

Every day in my work as a hospital chaplain I see first-hand the evidence of God's love in the people I meet and with whom I work.

We have every reason to believe that we too are highly favoured as was Mary.

An appalling headline in 'The Irish Catholic'

This appears in the current issue of The Irish Catholic.

Is it not a silly piece of writing and is not the heading in the poorest of taste?

It is a shocking headline, especially when the silly story is about a young person.

This is an appalling story. But it does give one an interesting insight.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer elected CDU leader

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has been elected in Hamburg by a slim majority the  new leader of Germany's largest political party, the CDU, Christian Democratic Union.

She is from Saarland, Germany's smallest federal state, where she was once minister president. Her home town is closer to Paris than Berlin.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, because of her unwieldy name is generally known as AKK. She studied at Saarland University and the University of Trier.

She is a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics.

AKK has been general secretary of the CDU since February. She is Chancellor Merkel's anointed one, the reason why she was appointed general secretary earlier this year. 

After 18 years at the helm of the CDU, Angela Merkel has handed over the CDU leadership baton to AKK but she stays on as German Chancellor until the next general election, at least that's the plan.

Spoken English à la RTE

RTE's Drivetime presenter Mary Wilson at 16.47 today:

".....how is that going to affect you and I."

Ouch.

'Impeccably responsible'

From the current issue of The Tablet.

“Pope says gay priests must be ‘impeccably responsible’” is the headline in our correspondent Christopher Lamb’s news report from Rome this week. 

Well, sure - but at a time when, as Pope Francis is well aware, there are voices trying to pin responsibility for the sexual abuse crisis on gays in the priesthood, it would have been wiser to point out that all priests, gay or straight, are called to chastity. 

Shelagh Fogarty writes that callers to her radio show were adamant that if the Church had a “no gays in the priesthood” rule it would be simple homophobia.

One might well add if there were 'no gays in the priesthood' it would indeed be a 'skeleton service'.

David Remnick on President Bush

On CNN's Amanpour programme last evening David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, gave a stellar performance expressing his views and opinions on the life and times of Gerorge HW Bush.

He recognised President Bush's strong points but he also thought it was impotrant to note his weaknesses and failures.

He noted how there were many strands to the tributes that had been paid to the dead president and how they quietly but clearly compared the dignity of Bush with the vulgarity of Trump, one man speaking the truth, another man incapable of speaking the truth.

Remnick also stressed that obituaries are never hagiographies. 

I'm reminded of the various obits that have been penned on Dominican priest Lambert Greenan.

Facebook and taxes

Facebook has paid €38 million on €251 million profit.

What Irish worker pays 15 per cent tax on their earnings?

As Facebook pays 15 per cent tax on vast sums, the 60,000 Irish people who have deferred paying their property tax due to hardship, are forced to pay an extra four per cent as a penalty for the deferment.

This Christmas thing has got out of hand

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

Michael Commane

Will I, won’t I? I’ve been uttering these words to myself over the last few days. And then in the middle of my procrastination I saw someone referring to the word in this manner: ‘Chr*s*m*s’. The journalist was on a campaign not to mention the word Christmas during the month of November. He was having great difficulty. I understand what he is saying, sympathise with him and wish him well.

This Christmas thing has got out of hand. Once Halloween is over and the pumpkins are cleared out of the shops all the Christmas tinsel appears.

Surely it’s as clear as the noses on our faces that it is all about seducing customers to empty their pockets and hand over their money to retailers. In simple plain language Christmas has become one gigantic con job where we are all being fooled to hand over our money for stuff we don’t want or need.

Add Black Friday and Cyber Monday to the mix and you would not need to be too smart to realise the madness that Christmas has become.

There is a number of aspects about the Christmas frenzy that makes it all so strange, crazy and yes, ironic. The further we move away from any appreciation or belief system in the birth of Jesus Christ, believing that he is the Son of God, the more we seem to be seduced by Christmas. How can that make sense? It probably doesn’t and is another reason to realise how odd human behaviour can be.

I have a Martyn Turner calendar hanging on my kitchen wall. For the month of November, the cartoonist quotes two psychologists who have observed that we are all a miasma of bias and prejudice that it is almost impossible for anyone actually to declare a truth or have a genuine, accurate memory.

Turner uses the idea to throw some light on the Trump phenomenon and how people can easily be persuaded to believe in someone or something, irrespective of the person’s worth or the value of what is being said.

But the quote set me thinking about what sort of freedom do we really have. How easy it is to plant some idea into our heads and then we run with it as fast as we can. Have you ever been simply gobsmacked by crazy ideas you have heard from people? And so often the more the person is so convinced in her/his opinion or belief, the zanier is the idea.

Most of us have been seduced into believing that in order to enjoy Christmas we have to buy X, Y and Z. We also have to go places and do things because if we don’t we might be missing out on something. The pressure keeps mounting.

It’s as mad as that. But it proves an amazingly winning formula for people who are trying to divest us of our hard-earned money.

So now you might be saying that I remind you of Dickens’s Christmas Scrooge.

Not at all. Christmas is a great time of year to remind ourselves of the extraordinary belief in the incarnation, God becoming human. The belief that points to a resurrection, an after-life, that has already tenuously begun, is in process and reaches a perfection beyond our understanding in communion with God.

Surely Advent is a far finer lead up to Christmas than the hysteria of Black Friday or Cyber Monday, all that frenetic shopping and driving into intolerable traffic jams.

Peace be with you this Christmas season.