The evening RTÉ threw a light on Ireland

On this day, December 31, 1961 at 7pm RTÉ came on air, broadcasting from the Kippure transmitter on the Dublin Wicklow border.

The first colour transmission was in 1968.

Its first director general was the Irish American Edward Roth, who had worked on television in the United States before coming to Ireland. 

Eamonn Andrews was the chairman of the Television Authority on the evening the station opened.

Happy new year to all readers of this blog.

Restoring altar rails akin to moving deckchairs on Titanic

It's now standard English to refer to moving the deckchairs on the Titanic as a way of explaining the purposelessness or uselessness in a given activity.

A north-Dublin inner city Catholic church has recently re-installed altar rails. It's one of a number of vulgar 'lean-to' changes that have been made to the church over the last few years.

Does one have to obtain planning permission to make such changes in a building of historical note?

What sense does it make adding further barriers to people's participation in the liturgy, especially given that so few attend the Dominican church?

This is another example of moving the deckchairs on the ill-fated Titanic.

What else can be done to alienate people from their church? 

What else can be done to ruin a church that was finely redesigned in keeping with church renewal?

And we are all being told that the church is running short of money.

The tale of getting my birth certificate

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

Michael Commane

It’s easy to criticise the State and bureaucracy but it often turns out that the individual is far more culpable than either the State or bureaucracy.

Indeed, from my life-long experience, I have been most times impressed with how the State manages our affairs.

I work for a State organisation and recently I was asked for my birth cert. That dreaded document that we all think we have somewhere at home. I spent the best part of two days looking for it. Nothing found. 

But I did find both my parents’ birth certs, both of whom were born in 1909. Watching the two-part series on the famine which was screened on RTE 1 it dawned on me when reading my parents’ birth certs that most likely their grandparents experienced the famine. That sent a shrill down my spine.

Anyway, no sign of mine. I was looking for it during the last lockdown. These days it’s difficult to find telephone numbers as it is expected that everyone is in possession of some sort of smart device and is connected to the internet. It so happens I am, so I was able to apply online. 

I knew all the required information, my name, my parents, my date and place of birth. I completed the form and paid the fee, pressed the button and off it floated. I’m told on the screen that I can expect my new birth cert to be issued within 30 working days.

Within seconds of pressing the send-button I receive acknowledgement with that all-important reference number.    

A week passes, no cert, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks and still no cert. I go looking for the reference number but of course I can’t find it. I know it has to be ‘somewhere’. Eventually I find it and clearly I didn’t read the email carefully enough. It said 30 working days, which makes it over five weeks.

After a lengthy search I found the phone number and call them. Nope, I need to phone a different number. 

Eventually I get speaking to a most friendly person, who asked me for my reference number, which I proudly call out. She tells me that my birth cert had been issued the previous day. Wasn’t that a coincidence. Two days later it arrived in the post. 

It’s all so different from any birth cert I had ever seen before. The certificate is on special security paper, which incorporates a number of security features. 

Prior to October 1997 registered births did not provide a surname for the child, nor any former surname of the father nor the occupation and address of the mother. 

There is a covering letter with the birth cert explaining the changes that have been made since 1997. 

And then I spot a howler of an error. They, that is the HSE, the issuing authority, use that redundant apostrophe. For the plural of births they have birth’s. And it is on a paragraph heading. That’s not good enough.

But I’m wondering, why my employer would not accept my PPS card, my Passport, my Driving Licence. No, they wanted the one document I didn’t have. Typical.

The HSE thanked me for paying the €22 fee for the posted birth certificate but they only charged me €21, or at least that’s what my bank statement says. I’m not complaining.

Women's freedom is the sign of social freedom

 “Women's freedom is the sign of social freedom.” 

― Rosa Luxemburg

Luxemburg was born in 1871 in Zamośc. The family were Polish Jews, living in Russian-controlled Poland.

Rosa was a Marxist, philosopher, economist and anti-war activist, who became a naturalised German citizen at 28

She was shot in Berlin in 1919 and her body thrown into the Landwehr Canal.

While often in dispute with Communists in Russia and Germany, the government of the former GDR revered her memory.

George Blake 1922 - 2020

The Russian Federation announced yesterday that George Blake had died. He was 98 and living outside Moscow.

To the West he was a traitor. In Russia he was feted as a hero.

It would be difficult to read this Guardian obituary and not be moved.

Below are some extracts from the obit and a link to the full obituary.

Blake described communism as “a very noble experiment

“As I see it...Communist society is indeed the highest form of society imaginable in this world, but to build the highest form of society, the people who build it must possess the highest moral qualities,” he said.

After his escape, Blake was awarded the Order of Lenin. In 2007, on his 85th birthday, he was awarded the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin. The former KGB officer said that Blake “and his colleagues made an enormous contribution to the preservation of peace, to security, and to strategic parity”.

“I do not believe in life after death,” Blake said in an interview with Rossiskaya Gazeta, Russia’s official government newspaper, on his 90th birthday. “In my childhood, I wanted to become a priest, but that passed. As soon as our brain stops receiving blood, we go, and after that there will be nothing. No punishment for the bad things you did, nor rewards for the utterly wonderful.” 

“These are the happiest years of my life, and the most peaceful,” Blake said in the 2012 interview marking his 90th birthday.

Blake is survived by his second wife, Ida, whom he married in Russia, their son, Misha, and three sons, James, Anthony and Patrick, from his first marriage.

• George Blake (Behar), intelligence agent, born 11 November 1922; died 26 December 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/26/george-blake-obituary 

Cardinal Woelki's request for forgiveness sounds odd

At Christmas Mass in the cathedral in Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki  asked for forgiveness.

He was referring to matters concerning the current controversy concerning how the Archdiocese of Cologne has handled a number of sex abuse cases perpetrated by priests of the archdiocese.

But his remarks at the Mass are extraordinary. What is the archbishop apologising for?

It looks and sounds like a perfect example of clerical obfuscation, in other words nonsense.

Best to follow State and Nphet and not David Quinn

This is David Quinn on Twitter on December 22.

Where is the evidence that justifies moving worship online again from December 26? Not even England is doing this. Courts in other countries have declared such moves to be "disproportionate"

For many months now Mr Quinn has been constantly criticising Government and Nphet. In the first months of Covid in his tweets he was implying that Government and Nphet were exaggerating the damage that Covid was doing.

We now have the highest Covid growth rate in the European Union.

Mr Quinn should be advised to leave it to the State and Nphet to advise us.

It so happens that I am a Catholic priest and much prefer to take guidelines from the State and Nphet than from David Quinn.

It is correct that people should not gather in a closed environment if at all possible.

Is Mr Quinn implying that England is some sort of standard to which we should all comply?

David Quinn appears to be singing from the same hymn sheet as John Waters and Gemma O'Doherty, indeed, as is a number of priests.

God's Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins

A poem for Christmas Day

                        God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Kerry beat Clare in Munster minor final

Kerry were victorious in the Munster minor football championship at the LIT Gaelic Grounds on Tuesday evening when they beat Clare 2-14 to 1-7.

It was Kerry's eight Munster final victory in a row.

This is most likely the first time in the 14-year history of this blog that there has been mention of a GAA game.

Two of the players on the Kerry team are from Castlegregory and it so happens I had the great privilege of baptising one of them, Maurice O'Connell, who scored a point when he came on as a sub to replace W Shine.

Congratulations Maurice and well done Kerry.

Is Cabinet aware there are no trains on 25 and 26?

At a Cabinet meeting yesterday Government made a decision that people may not leave their county after Saturday, December 26.

Is it possible that members of the Cabinet are not aware that trains do not operate in the State on December 25 and 26?

The December 26 Cabinet inter-county travel deadline on travel does not take into account people who depend on public transport to get to their destinations.

Surely they should have left it till December 27. It's discriminating in favour of those who have cars. Had the Green Party no input on this decision?

The many twists and turns to our lives

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

Michael Commane

Of course it is a cliche to say the world is a small place. But when you experience it first-hand it really does surprise you. Also, the power that words can have, can be sensational, even the power of one word.

Last week, in a German class I attend, we were reading a book set in Vienna in the 1930s. Our conversation wandered somewhat off the topic and we were discussing a place along the River Rhine near Cologne. Someone mentioned Walberberg. 

It is a small village between Bonn and Cologne. But is has significance for me. In the summers of 1972 and 1973 I spent weekends there while I was attending language school in Cologne. Back then the Dominicans had a large priory in Walberberg, which was the house of studies for the German Dominicans.

So at our class last week I said that I had links with Walberberg. The teacher said that her late mother knew one of the young priests back in the 1960s in Walberberg. Naturally, I was interested and asked her the man’s name. It turned out to my amazement that I knew him. The teacher went on to tell me that she still has a photograph at home of the priest with her late mother.

She and I were intrigued by the coincidence spanning two countries and 50 years.

The following day I found the email address of the priest in question. I emailed him the details of what happened in our German class. The next day an email pops up in my inbox from him.

Fr David well remembers my German teacher. Not only that, he has a photograph in his room of her half-sister and him on their first day in their primary school in 1949 in Cologne.

He went on to tell me of how he witnessed a tragic accident where my German teacher’s father’s first wife was engulfed in a fire while cooking at a stove and subsequently died. 

Remember, this would have been in Germany some short few years after the war, when the city of Cologne had been razed to the ground. The people would have been living under extremely difficult conditions. The famous Cologne cathedral, though badly damaged, was one of the few buildings still standing in the city at the end of the war.

Fr David wrote explaining how he became friendly with the man’s second wife, who was the mother of my German teacher. And in her old age he regularly visited her in her nursing home when he was home on holidays.

Here we are in the last days of 2020 in Ireland and after a period of approximately 50 years, the histories of two people living in different countries are brought together by one word.

I’m always thinking of how our lives are intertwined with other people.

I passed on Fr David’s email address to my German teacher.

I can imagine David and my German teacher have so much to talk about. And isn’t that wonderful that they can chat, laugh and maybe even cry about their lives and what they have done since those post-war days in Cologne.

Life itself writes the best of stories.

Happy and peaceful Christmas to all readers of this column.

West Kerry wisdom versus US Dominican nonsense

In the time of Covid - 19 all decisions are fluid and open to change at short notice. It is a difficult time for governments. It is a difficult time for all of us.

Religious services online have added a whole new phenomenon, aspect, comment to our liturgy.

Overheard in West Kerry on Sunday: a woman wanted to know could she smoke while watching Mass. She also wondered was it ok to answer the door if someone called while she was watching the webcam Mass. But her outstanding remark must be when she suggested that the local pubs in her village should open early on Sunday morning and show the parish Mass being relayed on the webcam.

And then there is this comment on twitter from an American Dominican. Can it get more crazy than this? Also, doesn't it make all the comments of the West Kerry woman sound profoundly sensible when compared to this man's nonsense.

The comment from the US Dominican  "A priest saying 12 straight Masses in a day is clearly contrary to the law."

And this priest is a canon lawyer. It says something about priesthood, canon law, the US Catholic Church and the Dominican Order.

Again, it is now well time for Irish bishops to announce the cancellation of all Masses over the Christmas season with people present in church .

Any other action is putting our health at risk. Priests and bishops need to act responsibly.

With Trump exiting what will we do for entertainment?

An interesting read in The Irish Times yesterday.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/so-long-trump-show-now-what-else-is-on-1.4439679#.X95NEshtd3Y.mailto

Cyclists need to give their fellow pedlars a wide berth

Bicycles are everywhere. There has been an exponential growth in bicycle transport since last March when Covid struck.

The Road Safety Authority has been running an ad for some time stressing the importance of vehicles giving a wide berth to cyclists.

Is there any chance that cyclists would do likewise and give their fellow, albeit slower two-wheelers, more room when passing.

One slight wobble when one of these dangerous cyclists pass, then its curtains.

The pure pleasure of cycling through the city early in the morning.

I cycled yesterday across the city just after 6am. Not a cyclist in sight and certainly no-one  passing within millimetres of me.

If you cycle or are about to take to the bicycle, please give a wide birth to fellow cyclists.

Ownership of stolen religious art worth contested

The estimated value of a trove of religious art stolen by the Nazis, whose ownership was contested at the United States Supreme Court last week is worth approximately €205 million.

John Le Carré regrets a Brexit Britain

John le Carré was born David Cornwell in October 1931 and his mother Olive left the family home when he was five, leaving him with his father Ronnie - a tyrant and a conman who was jailed twice for fraud.

In his 2016 memoir 'The Pigeon Tunnel', le Carré recalled fleeing England for the University of Bern in the late 1940s, not only to study German but "to get out from under my father at all costs".

While at  university in Switzerland, le Carré took his "first infant steps for British Intelligence" doing odd-jobs across the border in Austria.

"It strikes me now that everything that happened later in life was the consequence of that one impulsive adolescent decision to get out of England by the fastest available route and embrace the German muse as a substitute mother," he wrote.

After Bern, le Carré studied at Oxford and taught at  Eton for two years before joining MI5 in 1958. 

Another two years on, he transferred to MI6, which would prove the springboard to his literary career. 

He first served undercover in Bonn, the then West German capital, and observed GRD erect the Berlin Wall.

His third novel 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' was published in 1963 and brought him overnight fame, although his MI6 status meant he was writing under the pseudonym John le Carré.

With the Berlin Wall as a deathly backdrop, the novel portrays a gone-to-seed British spy, Alec Leamas, who flees to the GDR as a double agent, leaving behind his one weakness: a woman he loves.

Its screen adaptation, with Richard Burton as Leamas, began le Carre's long entwinement with cinema and TV, cementing his status as a serious author with a mass following.

Le Carré married for a second time, in 1972, to Valerie Eustace, and two years later brought out his masterpiece, 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', a gripping and intricate record of the hunt for a Soviet mole in the highest levels of MI6.

The author himself had been forced to quit the intelligence service in 1964 when MI6 double agent Kim Philby divulged his identity, and those of many other British spies, to Moscow.

'Tinker Tailor' was the first of a trilogy featuring le Carré's most-loved character -- the shy, brilliant but principled British spymaster, George Smiley. 

When the Cold War ended in 1991, le Carré made a successful transition to a different narrative, skewering arms dealers, drugs traffickers, Russian gangsters, financiers and Big Pharma, whose sins flourished in the new world order.

His 18th novel, 'The Constant Gardener' (2001) was arguably his angriest in that post-Cold War era, portraying an unscrupulous pharmaceutical giant preying on impoverished Africans to test its drugs.

Le Carré's more recent work has returned to his early themes of moral compromise, disillusionment and betrayal, but the anger burns just as bright.

In 'A Legacy of Spies' (2017), published a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, le Carré revives the characters of his 1963 breakthrough. 

As an elderly Smiley reflects on what motivated his career, it is clear that the author is targeting a generation of British politicians who turned their backs on Europe and pandered to nationalist sentiment.

The retired spymaster says: "If I was heartless, I was heartless for Europe. If I had an unattainable ideal, it was of leading Europe out of her darkness towards a new age of reason. I have it still."

Worrying signs about Mass attendance on Christmas Day

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan fears there will be 1,200 daily Covid-19 cases in January.

Mass attendance on Christmas Day is a most worrying prospect. There seems to be no universal plan across the country.

Some parishes are having a ticket system, others will implement first-come system. 

Some parishes will have no public Masses but will have webcam service.

A neighbouring parish where there is no Mass will mean the next parish will have an overflow.

It is most worrying and the Irish bishops need to come up with a system that will protect people coming to Mass on Christmas Day.

The wisest move would be to have no Masses with participating congregations.

'Answer to difference is to respect it'

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

Michel Commane

When John Hume died last August tributes were paid to the great man from people all over the world.

This quote of his encapsulates so much of what the man was and what he stood for:

“Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity.”

Those words have been ringing in my ears these last few days.

Last week I had a most interesting chat with three young student radiotherapists, who are studying in Trinity College and are at present doing work practice in our hospital. 

It was a fascinating conversation. They are from Libya, Zimbabwe and Armenia.

They are in their early 20s, all speak fluent English. I think one of the young women was born in Ireland, one was born in Moscow and the other young woman was born in Zimbabwe.

They have been in the hospital for the last four or five weeks.

I mentioned to the Armenian student that I was somewhat aware of the current problems between her country and Azerbaijan. She was pleasantly surprised that I was familiar with the recently signed peace accord between the two countries and the role that Russia was playing in keeping the peace between the two conflicting sides. 

But she was not at all happy with  her government’s decision to pull their troops out of the disputed Ngorno-Karabach region. Like all conflicts, it is rooted in historical realities and this young lady is Armenian and takes the side of Armenia.  

The student from Libya was too young to remember Muammar Gaddafi but she often heard her parents talking about him. When I asked her what she thought of US policy in Libya she smiled and quickly explained how she was not happy with the American history of taking cheap, if not, free oil out of her country.

During our conversation the student from Zimbabwe said little. But what struck me most of all about the four of us, here we were talking and indeed laughing with one another, enjoying one another’s company and explaining to each other where we come from and what life is like for us in our current situations.

We all were emphatic in being proud about our own culture and where we came from.

It certainly was the high point of my day and I left the three students with a stronger resolve to listen to the views of people from other nations and cultures.

Somewhere out there in the ether we seem to be fed some sort of hatred about ‘the other’. It’s as if ‘my tribe’ is the best and the brightest. Isn’t that exactly what Donald Trump has been peddling for the last four years? The Ku Klux Klan do it too. Closer to home, far-right groups do it.

One of the great tenets of Christianity is that we are all made in the image and likeness of God. John Hume said it most succinctly when he said: ‘respect for diversity’.

FedEx to play pivotal role in distribution of BioNTech vaccine

FedEx will play a pivotal role in the distribution of the Covid 19 vaccine, BioNTech/Pfizer .

Its CEO, Frederick Smith founded the company in 1971.

In the early days of FedEx, Smith had to go to great lengths to keep the company afloat. In one instance, after a crucial business loan was denied, he took the company's last $5,000 to Las Vegas and won $27,000 gambling on blackjack to cover the company's $24,000 fuel bill. It kept FedEx alive for one more week.

In 2000, Smith made an appearance as himself in the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away, when Tom's character is welcomed back, which was filmed on location at FedEx's home facilities in Memphis, Tennessee.

Smith was a supporter of Senator John McCain's 2008 Presidential bid, and had been named McCain's National Co-Chairman of his campaign committee.

Smith has ten children, including photographer Windland Smith Rice and football coach Arthur Smith.

Idealists excite us but at what cost?

This is another of John Humphreys' interesting pieces in his 'Unthinkable' column in The Irish Times. It appeared in Thursday's paper.

A quote from Reinhold Niebuhr in the article:
'Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary'

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/in-defence-of-realism-idealists-excite-us-but-at-what-cost-1.4427767#.X9I9dHzhhbk.mailto

Germany experiences its worst Covid days

Germany is heading to a nation-wide lockdown.

Yesterday 589 people died from Covid and approximately 24,000 new Covid cases were registered. 

They are the worst figures in Germany since the beginning of the pandemic.

What will it be like in Ireland in two/three weeks' time? 

Professor Dr Stefan Kluge, an immunologist from Hamburg, said that the current outbreak is worse than was expected.

He stressed the danger of people meeting in groups and the importance for households not to visit other households.

Karl Lauterbach, an SPD politician and scientist said that politicians and medical and science experts have underestimated the virulency of the virus.

The embarrassment that was Donald Trump

This is a lovely piece of wiring on Donald Trump.

Here's an extract from the article.

It’s almost as if this extraordinary triumph of global science has overwhelmed not just the novel coronavirus but a lifetime of play-acting by a small-time property developer with a big mouth.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/09/donald-trump-vaccine-coronavirus

Ireland's shameful treatment of those denied 'leave to land'

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) last month criticised Ireland for the practice of imprisoning foreign nationals who have been refused entry.

It said people should be accommodated in centres 'specifically designed for that purpose."

It comments that a prison is not a suitable pace in which to detain someone who is neither suspected not convicted of a criminal offence.

Sorcha Pollak paints a shocking picture  in the Weekend Review of The Irish Times last Saturday of how Ireland treats people who are refused 'leave to land'.

Fifty people - 43 men and seven women - were held in Irish prisons between March 2 and July 28 after being refused leave to land in Ireland.

The Irish Times changes the date for Christmas this year

 

This is the month of December on The Irish Times calendar for this year.

Look carefully at the words printed under 25, indeed, under 26 and 27.

Christmas Day, according to the calendar, falls on December 26.

The media always stresses that it is the messenger and never the maker or shaper of the news.  Has The Irish Times changed the date for Christmas? 

Fake news?

It's bit of fun but most likely embarrassment for the people in Tara Street.

It's a lovely calendar with the great cartoons and thank you to The Irish Times for producing it and giving to readers for free.

'We have tested and tasted too much, lover'

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

Michael Commane

I’ve been asking myself are there people out walking these days who never walked in their lives. And the same goes for cyclists. It seems as if there are bicycle shops springing up all over the land.

On the last Saturday of lockdown I walked along the Grand Canal from Harold’s Cross Bridge to Baggot Street Bridge and then we returned back to our starting point via Waterloo Road, before I jumped on my bicycle to cycle home. We walked for a little over two hours and we passed some interesting buildings and places.

At Baggot Street Bridge I spotted the statue to Patrick Kavanagh. It’s a lovely reminder of a great poet. I read on the plaque that he died on November 30, 1967. He was born in Inniskeen in 1904, which means he was a relatively young man when he died. 

The following day it dawned on me that I had bumped into his statue on the day before the anniversary of his death. It so happens this year the First Sunday of Advent fell on the anniversary of Kavanagh’s death. I’m reminded of his poem ‘Advent’, which begins with these two powerful lines:

We have tested and tasted too much, lover-/Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.

Fadó fadó when I was teaching, I always enjoyed discussing this poem with students, especially those first two lines. But these days I’m wondering how could young people really appreciate what it means to be spoiled for choice.

So many of us live extraordinary privileged lives, never knowing what it means to want for anything. But of course the flip side of that is that we can so easily lose all sense of wonder.

 

Before starting out on that walk along the canal I had to cycle to a friend’s house. I had given myself just about enough time but was still a little anxious, so just as I was about to speed up I reminded myself, no, slow down and enjoy the moment that you are in. I did just that and was still on time, arriving at my friend’s house.

 

I can only speak for myself but I’m wondering, are our lives a relentless rush to the next happening, the next event, the next accomplishment? Is that one of the spin offs of consumerism? We always want more. Is it ever possible to stand still and enjoy the now?

I think I have spent my cycling-life concentrating or focusing far too much on my destination. And now it’s dawning on me I should be spending time and energy enjoying the journey. But maybe that sense of relaxing in the now comes with age.

During the five-week Covid lockdown I did a lot of urban walking. I stopped at houses and streetscapes, looked into gardens and compared one building with another. None of these places was new to me. I pass most of them on a regular basis but never before took time out to look and think about them.

It’s said that Kavanagh could be a grumpy character but he sure was a great poet and those two lines from ‘Advent’ are well worth a thought. 

The students loved Wilfrid Harrington

You mention Wilfrid Harrington in your piece in The Irish Times on Saturday.

Everything you said about Wilf is true. An amazing man and a great example to follow. 

When I came to Tallaght in 1959 he was sub master. His typewriter could be heard right up to 22.00 when it was lights-out in student quarters and he would cease  writing.

The students loved him.

Kindest regards,

Edward Walsh

Edward Walsh was an Irish Dominican. He now lives in London. He is a regular contributor to a number of publications, including  Spirituality.

Sinn Féin the party of the political delete

Miriam Lord gets it right about Sinn Féin in her clever column yesterday in The IrishTimes

She introduces the piece with this:

After years banging on about the "Irish political elite," Sinn Féin has become the standard-bearer for the Irish political delete.

She is referring of course to the Deputy Brian Stanley affairs.

People who help us on our journey to Jesus Christ

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

Michael Commane

Tomorrow is the Second Sunday of Advent. Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of Christ at the end of time, and a reminder of his first coming at Christmas. The danger I face is that it is all too easy to write about this in a very predictable way, reciting an extended cliché lasting across the four weeks leading up to Christmas.

In tomorrow’s Gospel, Mark (1: 1 - 8) quotes from the Prophet Isaiah that God is going to send a messenger.  Isaiah writes: ‘Prepare a way for the Lord/make his paths straight’. 

In a commentary on this passage, Dominican priest scripture scholar and Cork man, Wilfrid Harrington writes that St Mark focuses on John the Baptist as a pointer or witness to the Coming One, that is, Jesus Christ. That idea of someone being a witness, someone with advance news of what is to come, brings us gently to receiving the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

Harrington goes on to give examples of John the Baptist-like figures. Among them are Rosa Parks, the woman of colour, who refused to cede her seat on a bus to a white man, as required by law on that famous day in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. That small but gigantic act was a catalyst for the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks was not an important person in society. And that’s important for Harrington and for our understanding.

 

Reading through the different examples that help remind him of Jesus I find myself thinking of the amazing person Harrington is himself. Imagine, at age  93, contributing articles to Biblical journals and indeed still writing books. Yes, he has been fortunate and blessed to live such a long life in good health and to be a man of great scholarship, but there is much more to him than that.

Fr Harrington taught me in the 1970s. Back then he stood out as a giant. He has devoted his life’s work to the study of the Bible but for me one of his most endearing qualities is his refusal to allow himself to be swallowed up by an institutional church. 

Back in the 1970s he had the wit, wisdom and indeed, irreverence to cast a cold eye at the failings of the institutional church. He has become one of the country’s leading scripture scholars, but he has never been seduced by clericalism or become a ‘company man’. His  outstanding integrity is strongly anchored within his Christian faith. But that has never stopped him from being critical of troubling aspects of the institutional church. And to top it all, he is a person of great humility.

On a personal note, I have found his willingness to challenge church officials and bureaucrats an inspiration to me to stand back, consider and ask awkward questions. It’s true to say that across the world many Christian churches are close to meltdown. The Catholic Church in Ireland is not in a healthy place. Within the church there is great division and large numbers of people have spoken with their feet.

Right now we need courageous people who will speak truth to power. We urgently need prophetic people who will point a way for us that will lead us to Jesus Christ. Far too many holy and good people have been alienated from an organisation that refuses to shed all the trappings of entitlement.

In this newspaper Patsy McGarry,  writing recently about the qualities the next archbishop of Dublin will need, praises the good work on the painful topic of child sex abuse that Archbishop  Diarmuid Martin has done since he took office in 2004. 

But in that same piece McGarry also quotes Dublin abuse survivor Marie Collins: “Reports, excuses, promises, mean little to me anymore. Clericalism is alive and well, marching forward unhindered”.

All his life Harrington has thrown scorn on clericalism and that’s one of the reasons why he stands out for me. He is a pointer, a reminder to me, of what it means to be challenged by the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

When Harrington mentions people whom he personally sees as witnesses or those who point the way to God, I’m thankful for him and people like him who help me in my search for God.

The mixing of wasps and chips on shoulders

GAA commentator Tomás Ó Sé speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland today about the Cavan Dublin All-Ireland semi-final at the weekend said of Dublin player Paddy Small that he was 'like a wasp with a chip on his shoulder'.

It sounds like a brilliant one-liner but what exactly does it mean?

Great line.

Hannah Arendt, who coined 'The banality of death' phrase

This article was in The Irish Times yesterday. It makes for great reading.

Hannah Arendt was born into the Jewish faith in Hannover in 1906. 

She was imprisoned by the Nazis for a short time in Berlin and lost her German citizenship in 1937. 

Arendt moved to the United States in 1941 and died in New York on December 4, 1975. 

Today is the anniversary of her death.

While attending the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel in 1961 as a journalist for The New Yorker she coined the famous phrase ‘The banality of evil’.

The Humphreys’ article is well worth a read.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/hannah-arendt-and-the-meaning-of-evil-1.4423441#.X8kZfvdSxP4.mailto

The 39th US president rated one of the most intelligent

Rosalynn and I, over our lives, have learned that silence is violence.

 A comment made by Jimmy Carter after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May.

Jonathan Alter in his newly published book 'His Very Best' argues that Jimmy Carter was one of the most intelligent presidents the United States ever had.

In the book he charts Carter's life, makes some interesting comments on his days as governor in Georgia and how his views on segregation changed over the years.

Because of his extraordinary work in Africa it's now common for parents to call their children after the 39th US president.

A German Coronabsurdity on the railway

Deutsche Bahn, German Rail has announced that it is only selling reservations for seats diagonally opposite on its trains - but it will not block off other seats for passengers.

This story of Deutsche Bahn, which in so many ways represents much of what Germany stands for, certainly tells a tale about the current DB and indeed Germany, when it makes such an arrangement as this.

Then again, it's in the time on the Coronavirus and it was after all reported by the tabloid Bild Zeitung.

Parish priest gives new slant to 'mass gatherings'

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

Michael Commane

On Friday, November 20 Fr PJ Hughes, parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Mullahoran, Co Cavan spoke on the ‘Today with Claire Byrne’ programme. Contrary to Government regulations he was allowing people attend Mass in his parish church. 

Two gardaí arrived at his door and explained to him that he was breaking the law.

At one stage during the interview he said that priests who were not opening churches for Mass ‘were afraid’. When I heard Fr Hughes say that I was close to phoning RTE to explain to them that I totally disagreed with him. I for one am not afraid and I am adhering to Government regulations concerning public worship.

Early in the interview Fr Hughes said that he did not represent the church and then later said: ‘I’m the Catholic Church….’.

He also accused the Government for having ‘no regard for people living on their own who have faith in God’. Wow, that’s some statement to make.

Immediately after the interview Dr Gabriel Scally was interviewed by Claire Byrne. His first word was ‘gosh’ and quipped Fr Hughes’ interview was ‘a new meaning for mass gatherings’. Dr Scally was understandably ‘quite shocked’ by what Fr Hughes had to say.

I’m not sure I was shocked because in 46 years of priesthood I have heard many words from many priests that have been simply bizarre.

Yes, we all see the world from our own point of view and for a long time now I have been observing a dysfunctional hierarchical Catholic Church. I have worked for a number of organisations, including the Department of Education as a teacher, for Concern Worldwide as a press officer, for Independent News and Media as a journalist and honestly what I see and experience at times within the priesthood of the Catholic Church does not impress me.

And on top of the crass mismanagement we are now a greatly divided group of men. Within diocesan priesthood it would seem that far too many parish priests consider themselves little fiefs controlling everything in their fiefdom. In religious congregations many ‘superiors’ have no trouble behaving as bullies.

And then the priests who hide behind the institution. On the other hand it would seem there is a breakdown of law and order. Only recently I heard a senior cleric say that there were far too many ‘lone-rangers’ within priesthood. It’s accurate.

Of course there are great priests out there. But there is urgent need for honest and open dialogue.

Sometimes I think the hierarchical church has learned nothing from the last 20/30 years of disclosures. It still seems to be the case that far too many priests feel a sense of entitlement. 

There is something hard wired inside the brain of the church that says under no circumstances must the ‘good name’ of the hierarchical church be tarnished. 

And that is number one rule. If it means individuals will suffer and pay an enormous price, so be it.

It’s time for all of us to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

The day Patrick Kavanagh died, November 30, 1967

Appropriate to print  Patrick Kavanagh's poem Advent on this, the first Monday in Advent 2020, the last day on November in the year of Covid-19.

Kavanagh was born in Inniskeen, Co Monaghan on October 21, 1904 and died on this day, November 30, in 1967

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.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.