The Germans are worried and Quinn continues to complain

Governments across Europe are closing down their countries as Covid rages.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stressed to all 16 Länder leaders that they must all work in unison.

Premier of North Rhine Westphalia, Armin Laschet has warned of the importance of flattening the curve and there is speculation that German hospitals will be incapable of coping if Germany does not get on top of the virus.

In the meantime there is continuing nagging and barbing by many right-wing commentators that we in Ireland are overreacting. Among those who publish comment on Twitter on a daily basis is Iona member David Quinn.

One is reminded of what John F Kennedy said at Berlin's Rudolph Wilde Platz in June 1963: "Let them come to Berlin".

I suggest to David Quinn and his fellow travellers they listen to Kennedy's words. Kennedy meant them in a very different context. But David, the Germans are scared right now, as our Government is too.

What do you know that our medical professionals are missing?

Barbara Sukowa on Hitler's legacy and hidden love

This makes for interesting reading.

Highly recommended to click on Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/30/when-i-travelled-i-hid-my-passport-fassbinder-muse-barbara-sukowa-on-hitlers-legacy-and-hidden-love 

US police fire 14 shots in killing a black mentally-ill man

On Wednesday in Philadelphia a mentally-ill black man was shot dead by two white police officers, who each fired approximately seven shots. The man was carrying a knife.

The man's mother had dialled 911 and was expecting an ambulance to arrive.

That police should fire 14 shots at a mentally-ill man, wielding a knife is barbaric. The police authorities knew the individual.

His mother stood between her son and the police as they shot him dead.

The shooting dead of the man was followed by rioting.

US President Donald Trump uses such instances to stress the importance of law and order.

Has it dawned on him that it is on his watch as president that these episodes occur?

Pope Clement's words hit the spot

Wise words, written a long time ago. Surely they apply perfectly to our world today.

Let us clothe ourselves in a mutual tolerance of one another's views, cultivating humanity and self-restraint, avoiding all gossiping and backbiting, and earning our justification by deeds and not by words. For it says, 'He who is full of words shall be answered in full measure. Does a man think himself righteous for his much speaking?'

A letter written by Pope St Clement I to the Corinthians. Clement was pope from 88 to 99.

Thoughtful words from an American poet and Cistercian

                            Nowhere is my destination.

                            And no one is my identity.

My daily bread is powerlessness.
Temptations can be overwhelming.
Gone is every hope of help.

An abyss opens up within me.
I am falling, falling,
Plunging into non-existence.

Is this annihilation?
Or, is it the path to the Silent Love
That we are?. . .

                                                       - Thomas Keating, The Last Laugh                                                            

Be gentler criticising others

I read about a case in the Dublin District Court where a 10-year-old boy was awarded €7,000 over a traffic accident.

He was sitting in the back seat of the car his father was driving when it was struck by another car on the side the little boy was sitting on.

The boy suffered no physical damage but did incur temporary psychological injuries, including a fear of travelling by car. He was also afraid that the driver of the other car ‘would come and harm him’.

He attended a child psychologist over a 10-month period during which time he still experienced symptoms. Fortunately they have since abated.

Judge Marie Quirke acknowledging that the injuries were predominately psychological said, ‘there was no guidance from the book of guidance’.

Those words left me thinking.

Some days earlier I was talking to a friend. She had just put her young daughter to bed and I could hear the little girl crying. She really sounded hysterical. 

The family had been out visiting and their daughter had left her teddybear behind her and was now missing him in bed. She never went to bed without taking teddybear Patrick with her.

As I heard the child cry my first thoughts were that this was ridiculous to get so upset about missing a teddybear, but with my thinking cap on, I began to empathise with the little girl. Indeed, I moved to a position where I really felt upset for her. When she calmed down she spoke to me on the phone and we ended up making an agreement that the next time we meet she would give me one of her older teddybears.

We never know what’s going on in the mind of another person. I don’t have any children so I do not have the remotest idea why children behave as they do. I can imagine mothers and fathers learn how to adapt to children. They learn from their children and obviously children learn from their parents. 

They gradually learn all about the tell-tale signs and then over the years become proficient and skilled at rearing their children. I can imagine it’s a lifelong process, with ups and downs, successes and failures. But isn’t that the way of the world with everything.

I’m wondering how often do we judge other people according to how our mind is working at that particular moment? How often to we judge others according to our own standards?

I’ve been watching some of Trump’s rallies on YouTube and as the crowds roar and scream in support of him I’m asking myself how could they be so influenced to react in such a way to this charlatan. But I have no idea of their state of mind, what they think, what they feel, what they may have suffered.

Maybe we should all go more gently when we criticise other people. Do we ever think of asking them why they behave as they do? I know, I for one, need to be far more tolerant in my attempt at understanding other people.

My little friend’s father went back for the teddybear that night, so that his daughter could have him beside her.

A nice touch.

A world covered in Covid-19

There are discussions taking place in many EU countries that parliament should have a greater say in the implementation of Covid regulations.

It was discussed on the Anne Will programme on Germany's ARD yesterday evening.

Gerhart Baum, a former federal minister in the governments of Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, who is a renowned lawyer, said on the programme he believes that the German government is acting unconstitutionally in how it is dealing with the virus.

In Ireland €2,500 is the maximum fine gardaí can impose  on people hosting house parties.

As a result off one person failing to quarantine after returning home after a holiday 56 people were infected with Covid-19.  

Todate 1, 157,924 people have died from the virus and there have been 225,197 fatalities in the United States.

Scandalous behaviour by some priests in lockdown

The Dominicans in St Mary's Priory, Popes Quay Cork yesterday retweeted a comment made by Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan.

The tweet reads: I believe that we in the church, have taken these restrictions far too easily and have not paid sufficient suggestion to the huge cost of these restrictions for ordinary people in different ways - spiritually, mentally and economically. Our government has a very difficult job but it must hear the message loud and clear [sic] that lockdown is crushing many people including people of faith who believe that the practice of one's faith in public is an essential service.

During the  last week priests have allowed people into church to Mass, priests have distributed Holy Communion on the tongue, priests have gone abroad on holiday, priests have travelled across Ireland to attend funerals at which they were not the celebrant.

The behaviour of some priests during this time when we are asked to protect one another is a scandal.

It's important, that we the citizens, take our instruction on health matters from medical experts. Government has asked us not to make any unnecessary travel so as to protect as many citizens as possible.

It's important that people behave in a manner which will protect citizens.

The arrogance of these priests who flagrantly do not adhere to Government advice tells its own story, loudly and clearly.

What exactly does Bishop Cullinan mean when he tweets that the practice of one's faith in public is an essential service.

Which is wiser, to listen to the advice of Dr Tony Houlihan or the words of Bishop Cullinan when it comes to matters of public health?

Clearly, it has to be Tony Houlihan. 

Time for David Quinn to trust the experts

Below are two random quotes from David Quinn's Twitter account.

Every day he is criticising Nphet and Government on their fight against the deadly virus.

His daily attacks seem to have become an obsession.

What is it about right-wing commentators that makes them such experts on topics about which they know little or nothing.

Surely it makes more sense to take medical advice from experts in the field than from people such as David Quinn.

And the Irish church should make sure to take a wide birth from its US counterpart.

In the US, some bishops are fighting back against excessive restrictions on public worship. Something similar is needed here.

Dublin cases last four Fridays: 198, 123, 254, 182. Today's figure is the lowest since October 9. Level 3, plus the ban on household visits was working. (Mind you, the ban on home visits is barely a week old).

Wise words from Talking Heads' David Byrne

Singer, songwriter David Byrne has been involved in highlighting housing problems around the world.

As a result of a project he was involved with in Vienna, he said that now in Vienna you cannot tell from a person's address whether they are rich or poor. "They are all mixed up," he said.

Can that be possible and especially so in Vienna?

David Byrne was born in Scotland and has dual UK US citizenship is also a record producer, artist, actor, writer, music theorist, and filmmaker, who was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American new wave band Talking Heads.

Séamus Peter Collins OP (1933 - 2020) - an obituary

Séamus Peter Collins was born on May 1, 1933. He joined the Irish Province of the Dominican Order in  St Mary's Priory, Pope's Quay, Cork in September 1951, made his first profession the
following year and was ordained a priest on December 20, 1958.

Séamus' father was a member of the Defence Forces, based at the Curragh. Séamus spent his early years in Newbridge and attended secondary school at Newbridge College.

He spent most of his life outside Ireland, working in Trinidad, South America, and the United States of America. He also ministered as a priest in Sligo and spent the last number of years back in County Kildare, as a member of the Dominican Community at Newbridge College.

In August 1969 the Irish Dominicans founded a priory in Paraná, having moved from Recreo in 1967, which was when they first went to Argentina. 

The move happened in March 1967 after Raymond Collins arrived in Argentina from language school in Lima, thus allowing Damian Byrne and Tim Cathal Manley to move to Paraná where they lived initially in Archbishop Tortola's bishop's house.

Séamus lived with the Argentine Dominicans in Cordoba before moving to Paraná.

Séamus Collins was one of the first members of the community. With him were Diarmuid Clilfford,  Joe Moran, Tim Manley, Malachy O'Dwyer, Ross McCauley, Kieran O'Shea and Pat Burrows. All but Diarmuid Clifford have died.

While in Argentina Séamus spent a number of years as an army chaplain.

He never lost his interest in Argentina, kept in touch with people he knew there and enjoyed practising his fluent Spanish.

I first met Séamus in 1987 when we were both living at Holy Cross Priory in Sligo.

We have stayed in touch ever since. Only two weeks ago Séamus phoned me and it was agreed that as soon as Covid restrictions were lifted we would meet in Newbridge for a meal. Since his moving to Newbridge we had met on occasions for lunch in Eason in Dublin.

Séamus was full of fun. He had the good sense to be able to laugh at many aspects of the establishment but he was always a most respectful person, who treated others with dignity.

Séamus well knew my views on the state of the Irish church and the Irish Dominicans, respected it but had that great ability to humour me, smile and never allow me to know exactly what his views were.

He spent 20 years working in the United States, including a number of years as an assistant pastor at St Michael the Archangel  in Port Richey, Florida.

In the early 1990s I spent two summers working in a parish in West Palm Beach in Florida. At the time the pastor was Fr Michael O'Flaherty, a brother of the late Dominican Christy O'Flaherty.

While there, to my great surprise, Séamus travelled from St Petersburg on Florida's gulf coast to pay me a visit.

He was a priest to his fingertips. He always gave me the impression that it was the work and the life he always wanted to lead. 

While spending many years away from priory life he was genuinely at home as a Dominican, indeed, he was  proud to be a member of the Order of St Dominic.

On his final return from the US he was assigned to Newbridge College. He was extremely happy and content in Newbridge and always made sure to tell me that he felt very much at home in the community. He'd point out that he was getting old and that he was receiving great care from his Dominican brothers.

And he well deserved it. He worked hard all his life, kept in touch with the contemporary world. He read his theology and was adept at unfolding the Christian message. He was an excellent preacher and people listened to him.

He was an accomplished photographer and he used his computer skills to enhance his photographic expertise.

While he was not a young man, his sudden and unexpected death has greatly saddened me.

Séamus was a loyal friend, he was someone you could turn to in moments of difficulty and you would be assured of his wise counsel.

Through his own suffering from depression, he was in a strong position to advise and guide others, thereby bringing a sense of wholeness and meaning to their lives.

Séamus Collins was a kind man. He was honourable. His Christianity was infectious. Any conversation with him would cause one to keep asking him more questions about his own faith, his living the Christian life and indeed his priesthood.

Open to correction - he is survived by a brother, who is a medical doctor in the United States. Séamus and he were very close. Up to very recently Séamus would travel to the US to visit his brother, whom I think has been ill of late.

Séamus died in Tallaght Hospital yesterday, October 21 on the anniversary of the death of Dominican Austin Flannery, who died in Dublin in 2008.

May he rest in peace.

Séamus Peter Collins OP, RIP

Dominican priest  Séamus Peter Collins died in Tallaght Hospital today.

Séamus was a member of the Dominican Community in Newbridge College, Co Kildare.

Funeral Mass is in the church at the Dominican College in Newbridge at 2pm on Saturday. Covid State regulations are in place. Funeral after Mass to St Conleth's Cemetery.

May he rest in peace.

'Ten monkeys with flamethrowers'

This is a great one-liner from Mike Murphy about how the Trump campaign has unwisely spent its money too early in the campaign. 

Murphy is a veteran Republican consultant, who advised John McCain and Jeb Bush and is an outspoken Trump critic. 

You could literally have 10 monkeys with flamethrowers go after the money, and they wouldn’t have burned through it as stupidly.

We'll see.

The Irish Times' Washington correspondent Suzanne Lynch interviews former CIA boss, John Brennan in today's paper.

Brennan refuses to announce for whom he will be voting but does say: " I do believe that Trump is going to go down in defeat and it's going to be a rather clear defeat. I believe Donald Trump is very much an aberration."

He tells Suzanne Lynch that in an interview with the CIA he told them he had once voted for a communist candidate. He points out that his detractors on the right continue to use it against him.

Current Garda Vetting system is not fit for purpose

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

Michael Commane

If you are familiar with Garda Vetting you will realise how insane the entire palaver is.

Of course it is essential that certain groups of people have to be Garda vetted but the way the State does this is beyond absurd and it should be improved immediately.

At this stage I have no idea how many times I have been Garda vetted.

I have to be Garda vetted as a Dominican, as a priest working in the Dublin archdiocese, as a hospital chaplain and as a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society; that’s four different vettings. Why?

Each time I have to fill out an online form giving the addresses and dates of every place I have lived since the day I was born. As I have already mentioned, this is insane. At this stage the Garda Vetting authority has multiple copies of all my details. 

Can someone please explain to me why I have to keep giving the same information ad nauseam. Is someone out there trying to annoy me, humiliate me or simply frustrate me? An Garda Síochána knows many times over when and where I have lived from the date of my birth up to the most recent form-filling exercise. Why can’t I simply tell them where I have lived since I last filled out the form?

And to add to the frustration, and pure stupidity, the bureaucrats in the churches are most annoying.

They are insistent in dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ’t'. And then all the seminars we are supposed to attend. Only last week I saw a newsletter from a religious congregation on safeguarding. It must have cost a lot of money to produce but communicates little. 

It is the perfect example of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. It would be interesting to know how much money every religious congregation and diocese is paying its safeguarding staff to organise and police the paper trail that is involved in the current Garda Vetting system.

I’m baffled how there has never been any serious discussion how all that happened happened. The emphasis now seems to be PC-oriented with no in-depth analysis of the wrong that was committed and how it was ignored by religious superiors. 

Some days after completing the vetting form you receive an electronic notification which includes this sentence: ‘The vetting application made in respect of you has been completed and a disclosure has been made to [the relevant organisation]’. An appalling use of language. 

The first time I saw that I was baffled by the use of the word ‘disclosure’ and extremely worried too. The word disclosure implies that something untoward or secret has been discovered.

It’s as clear as day that the system is not fit for purpose. And of course not a word from a provincial or a bishop objecting to the current vetting system.

Why does the State not devise a system whereby one’s details, including a person’s Garda Vetting status could be put on our Public Services Card or else they could develop an app that would serve the same purpose?

Anyone interested in starting a campaign to have this silly Garda vetting system redesigned? I for one will join the club.

Walter Senner OP RIP 1948 - 2020 - an obituary

German Dominican priest, Walter Senner died in Mainz, Germany
on July 3. 

Walter was born in Wiesbaden in 1948. After his Abitur at the Oraniengymnasium in 1968 he joined the Dominican Order in Warburg, where he spent his noviciate year. The following year he moved to Walberberg on the Rhine where he studied philosophy and theology. Walter was ordained a priest in 1974.

In 2006 he was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of St Tomas in Rome, where he taught until last year.

Walter in his life received many academic awards, including that of Master of Sacred Theology, which is the highest academic honour of the Dominican Order.  The Master of the Order at the time, Bruno Cadorè conferred Walter with the degree in 2014.

In 1989 he received a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Louvain.

Between 1982 and 1989 Walter was chaplain to the student community at the universities in West Berlin.

I worked with Walter during some of that time in Berlin. We both lived at the Dominican Priory in Oldenburger Straße in Moabit.

Walter gave of himself totally to the job as chaplain, while at the same time he was preparing for his doctorate in philosophy.

He was a kind man, who would always go out of his way to listen to the students and help them in whatever way he could.

He was renowned for holding long meetings, well into the night. He wanted to make sure that everything within the student community was done democratically. But the meetings went on so late into the night that most of the students would have left before a vote was taken. And regularly the vote would go in Walter's favour.

He was a learned man with a wide interest in contemporary world events. But philosophy and history were his great loves.

As university chaplain in West Berlin he was in close contact with his counterpart in East Berlin's Humboldt University. On one occasion he asked me to take a number of Bibles across to the chaplain in East Berlin.

At the then border crossing at Friedrichstraße I was asked to open my bag. When the Bibles were discovered I was brought to a cabin where I was strip-searched and the Bibles were taken from me. They were sealed with official stamps and I was told I could collect them on my departure from the GDR later that day.

Walter had a great interest in German railways and knew off-by-heart the timetable of the German Railway network. The 1988/89 DB Kursbuch (German Railway Timetable) consisted of approximately 1,732 pages. And Walter knew what was on every one of those pages.

Students were forever asking Walter the times of trains from Berlin to their home destinations. Walter would immediately supply them with the times and the stations where they would have to change. And he would also know from what platform the train was departing at Berlin Zoologischer Garten.

I'm wondering what he must have thought of Berlin's new main station built on the site of the former Lehrter Bahnhof.

Walter Senner was a noble person, a man of great Christian faith. He was man of integrity and honesty.

May he rest in peace.

German Jesuit slams church for its behaviour

The President of the Centre for Child Protection (CCP) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Fr Hans Zollner SJ, last week accused the church of not shouldering responsibility for its sins, writes Christa Pongratz- Lippitt in The Tablet.

Speaking at a meeting in Bonn organised by the German Commission for Contemporary History, entitled “Dark Spaces: The Church and Sexual Abuse”, Fr Zollner said he failed to see a clear sense of responsibility and accountability in the church and he had wondered why that was. Was the church incapable of assigning clear tasks and taking responsibility? he asked.

He also asked himself why the church asked individual Catholics to confess their sins and atone for them when the church itself as an institution failed to do so.

He admitted that the church was changing but the change was far too slow, he said. The same procedure of denying and refusing to come to terms with clerical sexual abuse was still evident in church communities the world over, he said, adding: “Very often, the church leadership only reacts if pressurised from outside [by the secular world].”

At the German bishops’ conference’s plenary last month Fr Zollner emphasised that in future those responsible in any way for clerical sexual abuse would have to step down.

“We may have to force resignations by using public pressure – but it will happen. Whosoever has incurred guilt, stands accountable and must accept responsibility,” he said.

The church was not a special world of its own, he maintained, and it must ask for and publish names. “Who made the abuse possible? Who was responsible?”

HSE wedding regulations are ambivalent

Under Level Five concerning Covid-19 regulations the HSE website says: "Up to 6 guests can attend a wedding ceremony and reception".

Does that number include the five essential people at the wedding, the bride, groom, two witnesses and the officiating solemniser?

Are the five 'essential' parties guests? Hardly.

Phoning the HSE special number, 1850 24 1850 does not seem to work. After 11 minutes no reply.

And if one phones a Garda Station one will be no wiser.

The Covid-19 virus means we are living in changing and dynamic times. But there is little doubt that right now there is urgent need for improved communication between the HSE and citizens.

Archbishop Martin's encounter with far-right culture warriors

Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin spoke on RTE's Drivetime yesterday about an incident where his car was attacked outside Croke Park when he attended an Eid celebration.

He said that when he was attacked in his car he could hear background music with hymns to our Lady and people reciting the Rosary.

Archbishop Martin greatly appreciated the assistance he received from Croke Park staff.

The archbishop has to be commended for his denunciation of the far-right but it was a pity that he did not go on to talk about the inroads the far-right is making within the Catholic Church in Ireland.

There is a a strong link between the anti-mask people and those who are opposed to Irish Government policy on immigration. There is also a nexus between these groups and those who are critical of current Government policy on prohibiting people attending Mass.

The Irish Catholic newspaper is constantly criticising the Government for not allowing people attend Mass.

Columnist David Quinn regularly attacks the Government on its Covid-19 regulations. He tweets on a daily basis, accusing the Government of imposing measures that are disproportionate and unjustifiable.

He mirrors what US Dominican priest Pius Pietrzyk is tweeting across the Atlantic, as he harangues Democrat-run states on their Covid policies and on those who criticise US President Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, elements of the Irish Catholic Church are being influenced by a far-right American church. 

Is there a church leader who will speak out on what is happening?

It will end in tears.

John Kelly's damning words on Donald Trump

He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.

            - John Kelly served as the White House chief of staff for President Donald Trump. He had previously served as secretary of homeland security in the Trump administration.

'Was the bishops' intervention wise?'

Brendan Hoban's column in this week's Western People. Included is a comment from Fr Jordan O'Brien OP.

During the Great Famine (1845-52) much play was made of the slogan ‘Property should support poverty’. In other words, landlords (the property class) from the rent they received on their lands were expected to pay rates to fund, for example, workhouses. The problem was that as the tenants couldn’t pay rents, the landlords couldn’t pay rates.

Whereas nowadays the government would be expected to come to the rescue, the infamous Trevelyan adamantly refused to intervene in case the balance of the economy would be damaged by state intervention. Meanwhile the people died . . .

Now we’re dealing with another slogan – ‘Health versus wealth’ and a workable balance between the two. If we place too much emphasis on wealth, the death toll will rise exponentially; if we place too much on health, our economy will fragment.

So decisions are not easy, and it’s understandable that the different parties involved are beginning to get a bit tetchy with one another. For two reasons. One is that the future is difficult to predict as there are so many moving parts (not least if or when the public will do what needs to be done); and, two, no matter what decisions they reach, they are liable to be blamed by someone.

Part of the background to complex decision-making is a chorus of voices, most of whom have vested interests. That chorus can be divided into two main groups: one understandable, and the other predictable.

The understandable ones are those rightly worried because of jobs, mortgages, businesses and so forth that are in danger of disappearing with all the consequent repercussions for thousands of families.

The predictable ones are mainly politicians who push the populist line, who are (most of the time) against whatever the government is doing on the basis that they have no problem spending money they know they will have no responsibility for gathering.

Others in this category are those extremists who are convinced that the coronavirus doesn’t exist, that wearing masks is a breach of their constitutional rights, that they wouldn’t accept a vaccine (even if there was a vaccine) or a curious litany of other groups (including very extreme Catholics) who long to be protesting somewhere about something.

Usually, a general criticism by vested interests of decisions taken is that the regulations proposed by the government and/or NPHET lack ‘clarity’ and ‘coherence’. This wheeze is usually adopted when opposition politicians want to have their cake and eat it – to be against something but want to leave enough wriggle-room to change their minds, if the need arises.

When the usually civilised co-operation between the government and NPHET came unstuck recently over whether the country should enter Levels 3 or 5, the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar, appeared on the Claire Byrne show to comment. It was a quite extraordinary performance by Varadkar – clear, logical, analytical, comprehensive, persuasive – placing the (‘health’) argument by NPHET in the context of the (‘wealth’) concerns of the government and teasing out in digestible pieces the implications of life in Level 5.

There was no ‘lack of clarity or incoherence’ in his stunning performance – a tour de force in my estimation – and the media were reduced to lining up a series of minor political figures to chastise Varadkar on being unfair to Dr Holahan.

Varadkar marked out the field in terms of responsibility and decision-making, the need for appropriate communication between the different parties and the importance of comprehensive research in terms of teasing out what decisions would mean in practice. Anyone looking for ‘clarity’ and ‘coherence’ got it in buckets, including from Taoiseach Micheál Martin as well.

The truly awful spectre of President Trump, like a bold child having tantrums, talking gibberish and embarrassing every sane American on the planet should have us on our knees thanking God for the adult, responsible and balanced leadership of Martin, Varadkar and Ryan.

In the full force of a pandemic with the ground shifting under our feet, we need responsible leaders – in terms of public health – who will name difficult truths, who will set aside the vested interests they usually uphold and who will challenge their own people.

It would have been a responsible, powerful and prophetic decision if the Catholic church (and other churches) were to announce a complete close-down for the duration of this present Level 3 phase of all churches and all religious activity (with the exception of funerals). 

By that I mean all forms of worship, First Communions, Confirmations, Baptisms, Weddings, communal gatherings for prayer or other associated activities and to encourage those who would miss important religious occasions and practices to make that sacrifice in the interest of public health.

What a prophetic, pro-life stance that would be – as there is no doubt that it would save lives– if we had the courage to take it because: most of those who gather for religious services are elderly with a high percentage having an underlying health issue; confining Baptisms, First Communions, etc. to a handful in the church is effectively facilitating a greater number to gather in the home-festivities that follow; priests abusing the protocols for distributing Communion by placing it on the tongue would no longer be such an obvious risk of facilitating the spread of the virus; and it would set a good example for other organisations like the GAA to take similar decisions.

It’s not possible to police the entire nation. Not everyone in every possible situation is going to do the right thing. So some priests will bend the rules. Winning the county championship may mean that members of the successful team drinking out of the cup.

And some, with vested interests, will simply not care. An editor of a Catholic newspaper, on hearing that we were set to enter Level 3, tweeted that from the point of view of churches, the measure is ‘draconian’ and then added that there is a real issue involved here around ‘religious freedom’. Or possibly the real issue is about selling his paper.

o PrintShare to Mor2 Responses

1. Patrick J O'Brien
   October 13th, 2020 at 5:39 pm

Thanks Brendan for a clear picture of the present situation. I appreciated Leo Varadkar’s interview but I seemed to be alone in the community. We have to leave it to the leadership of the country to point the way forward. As a church we need to rethink our services while being available for our people.

I suggest that we flatten the curve in our approach to Christmas and keep it low key and tip toe to the darkened crib, and quench the bright lights.

2. Paddy Ferry
   October 14th, 2020 at 11:03 am

Excellent article, Brendan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Barrett said inappropriate replacing judge in election year

This is a paragraph from the link below.

It tells an interesting story.

The fact that hearings are being held at all is also egregious given Mitch McConnell’s blocking of similar hearings to replace justice Antonin Scalia after his death, in February of an election year. 

Back then, McConnell and the Republican party insisted that confirming a justice would be inappropriate and undermine the legitimacy of the court. 

Even many months before an election, they said, the American people should decide who appoints a new judge. McConnell blocked the Senate from even hearing from Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee. 

At the time, Amy Coney Barrett went on television and said that replacing Scalia in an election year would be inappropriate – and that it would be especially inappropriate to replace “the staunchest conservative on the court” with a liberal because “it’s not a lateral move”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/13/amy-coney-barrett-hearing-us-supreme-court?CMP=share_btn_link

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes questions politicians' faith

A quote from US Democrat Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

When politicians use faith as an excuse to pass and uphold laws that seize control of people’s bodies but not guarantee them healthcare, feed the poor, shelter the homeless, or welcome the stranger, you have to wonder if it’s really about faith at all.

The mystery of life, death and belief

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

Michael Commane

I phoned a friend some days ago. My introductory question was: ‘Is there a God, do you believe in God’. 

He has a sharp wit and immediately replied: ‘I think you have the wrong number, you should have phoned Et cum spiritu tuo’. I’m still laughing. No, I never did phone 220. But I have been thinking so much about these matters of late. Birth, life, death.

I have been working as a hospital chaplain for the last four years. I keep telling friends that it has been a life-enhancing experience. And it certainly has been.

Maybe it’s the job, maybe it’s my age, 71, maybe it has something to do with the death of a friend’s wife, but I have been scratching my head an awful of late, wondering about it all, wondering about the mystery of life and death too.

Imagine if I as a priest were to write here that I don’t believe in the afterlife. I can only presume I would be called before some church authority to answer for myself. And then there would be all the bureaucratic rigmarole, the secret files, the dossier would grow exponentially and then I’d probably have to sign a form saying I believe in this that and the other.

A former Dominican colleague and friend of mine, who died in 2002, often made the point to me that there are many priests who no longer believe in God and that the church should make it easy for them to retire from ministry.

All that said, back to the big question of our mortality.

No, not because I don’t want to be annoyed by any church authorities, the older I get, the more I’m inclined to believe in life after death, resurrection and God. But please, don’t ask me to put any specific shape on any of that.

Remember, anything we say about God is said in terms of analogy.

But who at all are we? What’s important, what’s not?

Every time I think of my parents and that’s every day, I keep saying to myself that they have not been annihilated. Somehow, someway, yes, I believe they are in some sort of communion and a communion that involves God.

Every day in my job, in the company of sick people, listening to their stories, looking at them I am always amazed at their grace. The kindness that I have experienced at the hands of sick people has honestly humbled me.

I keep saying to myself surely we are made for more than this, this ‘mortal coil of ours’.

I could well be looking for an excuse as I approach the last years of my life. I don’t think so. If there is nothing in the beyond, does that mean we are all doomed? 

While I find many of the man-made rules of most religions tedious, a minutia that seems to enslave people, I still say out loud, yes, I falteringly believe in God, the goodness of God and in resurrection.

It’s an exciting project. But in the meantime I think it’s important for all of us in our works and words to spread the news of kindness and goodness.

Nope, I’m not going to bother phoning that 220 number. Not yet anyway.

Hitler thanks providence and Trump thanks God

On surviving the assassination attempt on his life in East Prussia in July 1944 Hitler proclaimed to the world that it was providence that had saved him. In less than a year he's gone.

Trump, on surviving from Covid-19, has proclaimed to the world that God has saved him.

Margaret MacCurtain OP 1929 - 2020 'The Irish Times' obit

Below is the link to the obituary on Margaret MacCurtain OP that appeared in The Irish Times on Saturday. 

She was a lady. Anytime I met her after Mass in St Dominic's in Tallaght she was always so pleasant, friendly and witty too.

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/margaret-maccurtain-obituary-pioneering-historian-and-campaigner-1.4373446#.X4NVVvJ2DeE.mailto

Hugh Fenning OP (1935 - 2018) - 'Archivium Hibernicum'

This obituary of the late Fr Hugh Fenning OP by Fr John M Cunningham OP, appears in volume 73 (2020) of Archivium Hibernicum. It is reprinted here with kind permission of the editor of Archivium Hibernicum. Hugh wrote for the journal for over 50 years. This picture of the late Hugh Fenning is printed with the kind permission of Fr Pat Lucey and did not appear with the obituary in Archivium Hibernicum.

Fr Hugh Fenning OP, was born in Dublin on 25 January 1935, the second eldest of seven children born to Seamus Fenning, a book dealer, and Nora Richardson. He received his early education from the Sisters of the Holy Faith at Clarendon Street, Dublin, and at the Infant School of the Sisters of St Louis, Rathmines. For his primary and secondary education, he attended CBS, Synge Street, Dublin.

On 14 September 1953, Fr Hugh received the habit of the Dominican Order at St Mary’s Priory, Cork, where he made his first profession a year later on 15 September 1954. After a year of philosophical studies at St Mary’s Priory, Cork, as was customary at the time, he was assigned to St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, where he studied philosophy for a further two years and embarked upon the study of theology. On 10 July 1960, Fr Hugh was ordained to the priesthood at Holy Cross College, Dublin, by John Charles McQuaid, C.S.Sp., Archbishop of Dublin.

To complete his theology, he was assigned to Collegio San Clemente, Rome, where for a year he attended the Angelicum, at that time the Pontifical International Athenaeum of the Dominican Order in Rome. He then attended a year of courses in pastoral theology at the Pontifical Lateran University, and assumed the office of bursar. He also heard reports that Fr Aubrey Gwynn SJ, Professor of Medieval History, University College Dublin, and Robert Dudley Edwards, Professor of Modern Irish History at University College Dublin and a nephew of Fr Humbert MacInerny OP, were anxious to have his superiors set him on the path of historical studies. Whether due to their efforts or not, his publication of St Saviour’s Church, Dublin: centenary, 1861–1961 (Dublin, 1961) is usually credited by his brethren with the decision in 1962 to send him to study history. Fr Hugh himself favoured UCD, Fr Louis C. Coffey OP, Prior Provincial, preferred an institute in Rome, while Fr Leonard E. Boyle OP, suggested the Université Catholique de Louvain.

By the end of the year, Fr Hugh was enrolled in the Université Catholique de Louvain for the Licence en sciences historiques, a course that required three years of lectures, exercises, and examinations, as well as a mémoire. In addition, he taught a weekly class of English to the Flemish Dominican students at Louvain and assisted occasionally with chaplaincy work at a US air force camp at Bitburg, Germany. With the permission of Fr Aniceto Fernández OP, Master General, he resided with the Irish Franciscans at St Anthony’s College, Louvain. As he advanced through the course of studies, he prevailed upon Professor Roger Canon Aubert, to direct his mémoire on the decree issued by the Congregation de Propaganda Fide in 1751 forbidding novitiates in Ireland in so far as that concerned the Dominican Order, a field of research that proved ideally suited to expansion for a doctorate. 

As the doctoral programme itself required no fixed period of residence at Louvain, Fr Hugh returned to Collegio San Clemente to which he was still officially assigned and where he remained until 1967, engaged in research for his thesis.

At the beginning of 1967, it was decided that Fr Hugh was to be assigned to the Historical Institute of the Order at the Convent of Santa Sabina, Rome, ‘for some time to come.’ Proclaimed on the day of his assignation ‘una nuova gemma nella corona gloriosa di Santa Sabina e dell’Istituto Storico,’ Fr Hugh welcomed the appointment as an opportunity to pursue research into the history of the Province of Ireland. However, he was less enthusiastic at the prospect of living ‘on fish and spaghetti, [and] on a dole of a pound a month,’ and on more than one occasion referred to the regime at Santa Sabina in terms of penal servitude.

In addition to the completion of his doctoral thesis, membership of the Historical Institute obliged him to submit one article a year to its journal, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum. A judiciously chosen area of research saw him faithfully discharge this annual task and subsequently revise, edit, and publish the articles as a book, The Irish Dominican Province, 1698–1797 (Dublin, 1990), a volume regarded as ‘a milestone in Irish historiography’ and ‘in terms of scale and scope ... without peer.’ 

While resident at Santa Sabina, he also found himself with an unenviable nomination to the Commission de Dépouillement des Résponses au Questionnaire du Maître Général, a commission established to manage the revision of the constitutions in the wake of Vatican Council II and tasking its members with an examination of 2,500 replies arranged into more than 6,000 propositions. To supplement ‘the dole,’ Fr Hugh also acted as de facto English editor of International Dominican Information.

On 15 February 1973, in the Salle des Promotions at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Fr Hugh successfully defended his doctoral thesis, The undoing of the friars of Ireland: a study of the novitiate question in the eighteenth century, described in the pages of L’Osservatore Romano as ‘an excellent contribution to our knowledge of the Irish Church in the eighteenth century.’ 

Already an invited lecturer at the Pontifical Institute Regina Mundi, he was soon teaching ecclesiastical history also at St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, and at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome, where the new Docteur en sciences historiques was further invited to teach the course De gratia! 

Fr Hugh would gradually limit his teaching commitment to St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, and eventually cease teaching altogether so as to concentrate on the historical research for which he was so eminently qualified and signally suited.

In 1975, with the permission of Fr Vincent de Couesnongle OP, Master of the Order, Fr Hugh was assigned to Collegio San Clemente while still remaining a member of the Historical Institute and continuing to contribute on an annual basis to its journal. In 1982 he was assigned to St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, where he remained assigned for the rest of his life except for a brief assignation to the Black Abbey, Kilkenny. The assignation to Tallaght afforded prolonged proximity to the provincial archive for which he was responsible since 1973 and allowed Fr Hugh to add to its holdings, respond to inquiries, and facilitate users. He also secured more suitable accommodation for the archive, and contributed a fine series of obituaries of his brethren to a succession of provincial chapters.

With the encouragement of Fr Flannan Hynes OP, Prior Provincial, he gradually established in the provincial archive a substantial library of Catholic literature printed in Ireland from its genesis in the eighteenth century until the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, gathered almost entirely from the priories in Ireland. 

Long before his return to Ireland, Fr Hugh had already examined the libraries of six Irish colleges in Rome for similar publications and published his findings. Over several decades in Ireland, he sought out all relevant publications in each of the major institutions while also affording attention to smaller religious libraries, and published a remarkable series of annotated bibliographies of all material of Catholic interest printed in Dublin and Cork in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

With apparent ease and great self-deprecation, Fr Hugh managed to combine the roles of historian, archivist, librarian, and bibliographer, and to great effect. His extensive bibliography provides eloquent and indisputable evidence of diligence and ability.

The significance of his research was perhaps better known to his historiographical peers than to his brethren although the latter did not fail to express their own appreciation and admiration. 

In 1997, after successful application to Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP, Master of the Order, the degree of Master in Sacred Theology was conferred on Fr Hugh, a degree reserved for academic eminence and excellence. The following year, a further accolade was paid to Fr Hugh when he was recognised as the Historian of the Province of Ireland.

Continuing the tradition of the Order’s involvement in the cause of the Irish martyrs, Fr Hugh served in the 1990s as a member of the historical commission for the beatification of a second group of Irish martyrs, just as Fr Reginald Walsh OP, and Fr Humbert McInerny OP, had been associated with the beatification of the first group. 

In addition, Fr Hugh was for many years a member and sometime committee member of the Catholic Historical Society of Ireland and also served as chairman of the Association for Church Archives of Ireland from 1994 until 1996. Although the primary work entrusted to him by his superiors was of an intellectual nature, he always discharged the simple duties of his priesthood readily and with fidelity.

A severe stroke in 2012 deprived him of his powers of concentration and left him physically incapacitated and dependent upon care provided by others. Unable to continue what had been his life’s work and passion, and deprived even of his love of gardening and ornithology, he accepted his lot nobly. However, even in his infirmity, he continued to be possessed of an ability to couple apt description of character and circumstance with a subtle sardonic style. 

Ultimately, his needs required transfer to the Kiltipper Woods Care Centre, Kiltipper Road, Dublin 24, in 2013 where he remained for the last years of his life and where he died peacefully on 25 July 2018. His remains reposed in the large parlour of St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, prior to removal to the church. Fr Pat Lucey OP, socius to the Prior Provincial, was the celebrant of the Mass of Christian Burial after which Fr Hugh’s remains were interred in the community cemetery with his brethren, the record of whose lives he had himself composed for many years.

While a student of theology, the effort required of Fr Hugh to grasp God’s knowledge of contingent futures persuaded him that his mind was not suited to such speculation. As a result, having been introduced to Irish Dominican history by Fr Luke Taheny OP, he decidedly favoured the realm of historical investigation. Indeed, Fr Louis C. Coffey OP, Prior Provincial for most of the 1960s, regarded the decision to advance Fr Hugh on the path to a professional historian’s career as one of the most important achievements of his own term of office. In turn, Fr Hugh regarded him as ‘the first mover’ in his career as an historian. 

Fr Hugh’s brethren remember with admiration and pride his dedication to the historical investigation and publication of the history of the Province of Ireland while posterity will value the enormity and erudition of his contribution to Irish historiography in general.

A time to talk and a time to listen

The ‘Thinking Anew’ column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Tomorrow marks another significant moment in history. On October 11, 1962, the Second Vatican Council was formally opened by Pope John XXIII. 

It lasted three years and was closed by Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965. In those three years much was discussed and written in Rome. The Vatican Council was summoned to address the relationship between the Catholic Church and the modern world.

It attempted to heal divisions and make the Word of God and those who serve it more accessible and  more real for all people of goodwill.

During the council meetings and in the years immediately succeeding it an atmosphere of great hope and enthusiasm was evident. It had many offshoots, including liberation theology, especially in the Latin American church. That coincided with the end of the conflict in Vietnam, when the youthful enthusiasm of young idealistic people helped turn US public opinion against the war.

The end of the conflict gave many idealistic people a new spring in their step. It opened up  new horizons, people could dream new dreams of propriety and goodness in international relations.

Last Saturday there were scaled-down celebrations in Potsdam to mark the 30th anniversary of German unity. It was a low-key event because of Covid-

19. In itself the peaceful unification of Germany has been successful. 

However the fall of the Berlin Wall was in many ways a marker in time that points to the development of an unease in the world. The demise of the Soviet Union and the collapse of east west frontiers has brought about new tensions. Right now the world seems on edge with itself. Maybe after all, there was an added symbolism to the scaled-down Potsdam celebrations.

We are all children of our own specific generation. It’s true to say that we are embedded in our own times. 

And from the end of the Second World War until soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at least in the developed world, no matter how depressed things were, there were always those who offered a hope and an enthusiasm that seemed attractive and possible.

In tomorrow’s Gospel, Matthew (22: 1 - 14) tells the story of a king who throws a banquet for his son’s wedding. What happens? No one wants to come to it and those who eventually arrive are dressed in a disrespectful way. What seems a great occasion, an event that turns all eyes to the future, ends up in turmoil and disarray.

Is that simply the way of the world? Is it the state that we find ourselves in right now?

The Vatican Council tried to lift the church by its bootstraps into the modern world. It was an attempt at dusting down old tawdry habits and restoring the Word of God into the exciting and compelling message  that it originally contained.   As always happens some  mistakes were made.

But just like what’s happening right across the world, it seems right now that the church is in a tired place. 

This affords great opportunities to fanatical views of all shapes and sizes. Battalions of people have walked away. In the developed world, a significant number of fine young priests left ministry in the 1970s and ’80s, men who would have much wisdom to offer the church as priests today.

Listening to the rhetoric of Donald Trump and his followers, his call to make America great again, his refusal to disassociate himself from far-right white supremacist groups and how he appeals to evangelical and conservative Christians, I keep thinking that the world seems to be tired and there’s no one about who will genuinely carry the baton of the aspirations of the Vatican Council.  

We have come such a long way from the Vatican Council. We sorely need an impetus, a guiding star to bring us back to what the Vatican Council was attempting to do, a conversation between the church and the world. Pope Francis is trying to get that process going. And between  the churches, there is urgent need for open and real conversation. Right now the world needs us all to start talking to each other in love and truth. 

But I think we can be heartened. In the first reading (Isaiah 25: 6 - 9) in tomorrow’s liturgy the prophet Isaiah assures us that the “Lord of hosts will prepare for all people a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines of food rich and juicy, of fine strained wines.”

People always talk to each other at banquets.

Let’s all try some pleasant talking.