Thursday, September 25, 2025

Pope Leo invites men of different views to his table

The link below is well worth a read. It’s from the National Catholic Reporter.

Pope Leo held private audiences with two figures emblematic of opposing poles within US Catholicism: Cardinal Raymond Burke, a prominent Francis critic who denounced synodality as a threat to the integrity of the church, and Jesuit priest James Martin, an advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church whose ministry with LGBTQ+ outreach received repeated signs of support from Francis. 

Pope Leo's interview with a Vatican journalist provides insight into how he sees his role as pope: a bridge-builder, engaging but uncontroversial, and acting as an astute administrator.

 https://www.ncronline.org/node/311641

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Former Dominican priest Brian Horgan dies

Former Dominican priest Brian Horgan died in Tallaght University Hospital this morning.

Brian was ordained a priest in 1972. He resigned from priesthood some few short years after ordination and spent his working life as a probation officer, and played a leading role in the trade union movement.

His brother Denys, was also a Dominican priest, he too resigned from priesthood and is now living in the US.

Brian was born in Dublin in July 1947. 

May Brian rest in peace. 

It’s our money that pays for the visit and weapons

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.


Michael Commane

The state visit of President Donald Trump to our neighbouring island last week was a spectacle to behold. Watching some of the television coverage of the banquet in Windsor Castle I could not believe the length of the dining table where the great and mighty were sitting.


Early estimates of Trump’s visit suggest it cost €8 million. It’s said it will bring in billions for the UK economy. And of course Trump loved every minute of it.


How much did it cost to ferry him, Melania and the gigantic entourage across the Atlantic to eat soup in Windsor Castle and at Chequers?


Rumour has it that Vladimir Putin is the wealthiest man in the world. What must be the wealth of XI Jinping, the Chinese leader and then all the sheiks in the Middle East?


It seems the world is awash with money, at least for the rich and powerful.


But isn’t it all absurd and what’s even more absurd is how we accept the absurdity.


Think of the money that is spent on armaments every year. Last year the world spent €2.7 trillion on weapons. One B2 Spirit bomber costs over €1.7 billion. One F-111 US fighter jet costs a mere €15.33 million. Remember all the fuss whether or not the West should give them to Ukraine. That sort of money is beyond my understanding.


But what’s not beyond my understanding is the crass poverty of over a billion people in the world. And what is also not beyond my understanding, is that every cent spent on State dinners and every cent spent on armaments comes from the pockets of the taxpayer, you and me, and from people far poorer than we.


Nothing is simple, everything in our lives is nuanced and there are so many sides to every story, it would be only a fool who thinks that everything is black and white. But right now our world seems to be heading towards some sort of cataclysmic moment; there is some sort of rush for the rich to get richer, companies to get bigger and bigger, countries to develop faster and better weapons of war. And then there’s AI. How is it going to stop, who can stop it?


Maybe by nature I’m a pessimist and see the glass half empty rather than half full.


Where are the churches in all this confusion and bedlam?


There is a wave of right-wing Christian fundamentalism developing in America that is saying horrific things. People believe Trump is a man sent by God, that it was God who saved him against the assassination attempt.


Last week the cardinal archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan compared Charlie Kirk with St Paul. Is the cardinal aware of some of the vile words spoken by Kirk?


New Pope Leo seems to be a wise and good man; he has spoken about the importance of peace and cooperation.


I’m back thinking of the meal at Windsor and the savagery being unleashed on the people of Gaza and Ukraine; Trump a herald sent from God. 


And every cent of the wealth comes from our pockets. Why do we let them do it? Strange times indeed. The sad thing is, we always do.

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Two US bishops with different style - Alleluia

From Bishop Robert Barron.

What do the  US bishops think of this man? What does Bishop Barron think of President’s Trump’s words of hate and how he calls for the suspect to receive the death penalty? Was the bishop ‘moved’ by President Trump’s nasty words? Was that too a ‘rich spirituality’?

Robert Barron must be the world’s leading peripatetic bishop. Is he ever in his diocese?

Blase Cupich, cardinal archbishop of Chicago writes on his X account: "The Second Amendment did not come down from Sinai. The right to bear arms will never be more important than human life. Our children have rights too. And our elected officials have a moral duty to protect them.” Heartening to see there are other voices in the US episcopacy.

From Bishop Robert Barron: "Friends, what a rich, spiritually enlivening experience it was to attend Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Phoenix, Arizona. 

"I was moved to hear often the name of Jesus on the lips of our government officials, and most especially by Erika Kirk granting forgiveness to the man who killed her husband—Christ’s call to love our enemies on display.

"Let us continue to pray for Erika, Charlie, and all those gathered to honour his legacy."

Read everyday across all continents on the planet

This blog had 5,530 hits in 33 countries in the last 24 hours.

Hong Kong is top of the list with the United States a close second.

While numbers are small in China, readership in the country is growing on a daily basis.

The blog is also read across the Russian Federation and India.

It is read daily on all continents on earth.

The blog began in June 2007 and a post is published every day.

Monday, September 22, 2025

Why I’ve finally had enough of other people’s rudeness

Justine McCarthy’s Friday column in The Irish Times. It makes great sense. Her point about how we are losing the practice of speaking to people on a day-to-day basis is interesting; we can now check out our groceries without one word, all done on at a self-service machine. And then our obsession with mobile phones. Thank you Justine. 


The shop was a suburban Dublin mecca for stylish women with money to spare. The customer had the sheen of social polish.

“Have you got these in a size seven?” she enquired, taking a shoe from the shelf.

“I’ll just go and check,” answered the smiling assistant, returning a short while later with an apology. “I’m really sorry, but we don’t have any left in size seven.”

The customer leapt from the seat where she had been waiting. “Now you tell me, after I’ve taken off my shoes,” she blasted, flinging the display shoe still in her hand with such fury it went bouncing across the floor. She stormed out of the shop. The young assistant made a hasty retreat, too – into a back room where nobody would see her crying.

It was just another day in the life of Rude Ireland.

Retail and hospitality workers could fill the National Library with stories about customers’ bad manners. “They keep talking on their phones while they’re paying for something,” said one. “Sometimes, I have to wait three or four minutes before they finish the call so I can talk to them.”

Teachers tell of children as young as five and six grabbing, demanding, back- answering and never uttering a “please” or a “thank you”. Letter-writers to The Irish Times complain about public transport users bashing them with their backpacks, occupying adjoining seats with their bags and thus forcing other passengers to stand, and playing loud audio on their phones.

An entire symphony of letters recently complained about theatre-goers’ phones lighting up during performances in darkened auditoriums. Bad manners have become a contagion. Some argue it is Covid’s legacy, but I suspect it is the hallmark of the Celtic Tiger Mark II.

On last Monday’s Liveline on RTÉ Radio 1, Anne, 82 and unsteadied by the after-effects of a stroke, recounted boarding a packed bus in south Dublin last Saturday and being forced to stand, gripping two bars to stay upright. Nobody offered her a seat. She got kicked in the leg and hit on the shoulders in the scrum.

“My son said I should have said: ‘Hello, I’m 82 years of age and I’ve had a stroke, could somebody give me a seat?’ And shame them into it.” She said she might try that the next time. Anne, think again.

Last straw

On the same day Anne was on the bus, I walked to the grocery shop along a narrow footpath, only wide enough to accommodate two people and skirting a road of sprinting cars. A pair of women came towards me, walking two abreast. They never broke their stride, seeming not to register my existence. Had I not flattened myself against the wall, they may well have impelled me into the traffic.

I proceeded on my way, berating myself for having said nothing. On arriving at the entrance to the shop, I noticed a young woman wheeling a stroller towards the door, about to leave. I stepped back on to the footpath to let her pass. Now vigilant after the incident on the footpath, I watched her face as she exited. She looked everywhere but at me. Her lips did not move. It was the last straw.

“Excuse me,” I said, “did you see that I stepped back to let you out?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I said thanks.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

We went our separate ways. An everyday encounter that should have been a pleasant moment of human connection had soured the day. But there was more to come. Another customer was waiting for me inside the shop. “Did you see she’s a young mum?” she asked, accusingly. Instead of replying that, obviously I did, it was why I had withdrawn onto the footpath to let her pass, I said: “I’m sick of standing back for people and being ignored.”

“But she’s a young mum,” insisted the equally young woman, before walking away.

Having once been one myself, it was news to me that young mothers are exempt from the normal courtesies. Perhaps it explains some of the impoliteness in their children’s classrooms.

Manners matter. They have nothing to do with snobbishness, social class, etiquette, decorum or knowing whether or not to crook one’s little finger while holding a teacup. Manners are small acts of consideration and opportunities for human connectedness. They are threads of the social fabric, and when they start to unravel there are consequences for society. This is when the personal becomes political.

Rudeness is an expression of disrespect for others. Conducting loud phone calls in a train carriage, letting a shop door swing in a stranger’s face or not acknowledging a thoughtful gesture are microaggressions in an age of growing polarisation. The message they transmit is that my life matters more than yours.

At a recent wedding, two wealthy businessmen talked loudly to one another throughout the speeches, reducing the bride and groom to bit-players. Nobody asked them to be quiet.

Dehumanised terrain

We live in an increasingly impersonal world. You go to the bank, you deal with a machine. You go to the supermarket, you self-checkout at a machine. You go to an airport, you self-check-in at a machine. On buses and trains, in cafes and shops, the most common engagement is no longer with other human beings, but with phones.

In this dehumanised terrain, good manners are interludes for strengthening the bonds that tie us together. Bad manners do the opposite. They breed isolation, mé féinism, division, resentment, self-absorption, individualism and grievance.

I remember interviewing the wise and unostentatious John McGahern at his home in Leitrim while the first Celtic Tiger was on the rampage. He lamented the erosion of good manners, believing them to be the foundation of civil society. They were rooted in empathy, he said.

Ireland’s intimacy is one of its most appealing characteristics. That does not come solely from its small size, but from an innate appetite for finding connections with strangers. “Where are you from? Oh, do you know so-and-so?”

Establishing connections becomes more challenging as the country’s population grows – set to have doubled by 2057 since the mid-1980s. Is a simple “thank you” too high a price to pay to preserve our collective wellbeing?

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Barack Obama talks in Dublin on Friday - at a price

Former US president, Barack Obama is speaking in Dublin next Friday. The event is sold out, with only resale tickets available; prices range from €165.32 to €441.32.

Why would people pay that money to hear someone talk? Why is President Obama on tour? Is it to spread the word, is it to make money?

We live in the strangest of times. But as the saying goes; ‘they’re all at it’.

Saturday, September 20, 2025

Cardinal Timothy Dolan likens Charlie Kirk to St Paul

Catholic archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan said on his Facebook account about the late Charlie  Kirk: "Charlie Kirk was a modern day St Paul. He is what Jesus meant when he said the truth shall set you free.”

Is this a fake, is it AI generated, did the archbishop actually say this?

If he did, surely Pope Leo has to call him aside.

Has Archbishop Dolan heard of some of the vile and unchristian comments made over many years by the late Mr Kirk.

This is an appalling comment made by the cardinal archbishop. But maybe it really tells the world where the Catholic Church stands.

Elsewhere  on his X account the cardinal is looking for money for projects.

Where are the good US bishops, archbishops and cardinals now, why are they not speaking out in opposition to what Dolan and Barron are spouting?

It is preposterous to compare Mr Kirk to St Paul.

That said, it was a shocking crime to murder Mr Kirk and no right-thinking person can, should or would support it. All life is sacred.

Dolan's comments are outrageous.


This from the National Catholic Reporter:

Cardinal Dolan joins the Catholic right's ever growing quest to lionise the late Charlie Kirk as a Christian martyr.

Read more
https://www.ncronline.org/node/311626

Friday, September 19, 2025

UK PM seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth

Former US diplomat Richard Haass on the occasion of Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK said that the British see The US president not as a problem to be solved, but a situation to be managed.

At the press conference in Chequers yesterday a journalist asked a question if England were still a Christian country;  Keir Starmer replied that he was christened. Prime Minister Keir Starmer confesses that he is an atheist; confusing, to say the least, as indeed, were so many aspects of Donald Trump’s UK visit.

Thursday, September 18, 2025

Bad habits are hard to break

Anyone who is out and about in Dublin city, especially at the busy commuter hours will know the law of the jungle rules.

I cycle to and from work most days during morning and evening rush hours. It is beyond wonder that there are not daily fatal accidents on the streets.

The behaviour of cyclists, especially the Deliveroo, Eats et al crew is something to behold.  And then the scooters. What do you call a person who rides a scooter? I presume a scooter too.  The behaviour of the cycling food deliverers and the scooters must be stopped. It is outlandish. Surely these companies should be held to account for what is happening. 

And then the cyclists on doctored electric bicycles, cycling at speeds over 40 km/h act in kamikaze style.

Pity the poor bus drivers, and they will tell you without hesitation a major disaster can’t be far away. 

And never a garda to be seen apprehending the law- breakers.

Pedestrians too are shameless and dangerous, crossing busy roads, while looking at their phones, crossing streets willy-nilly, not looking to see if traffic is approaching. 

Interesting to spot a young man in a flowing white garb, a Dominican habit, crossing O’Connell Bridge when the pedestrian light shows red.

What would St Dominic have to say to that?

Oops, there were no traffic lights in the time of St Dominic. Had there been, would Dominic have dressed as he did, doubtful.

 

Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Catholic priest suggests we ban non-Christian migrants

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

The murder last week of Charlie Kirk has been condemned by all right-thinking people.


He has left behind a wife and two young children. Life is sacred and it is a horrific crime to gun down a person.


Mr Kirk was a youthful conservative politician, who appealed to many young Americans, who wanted to make ‘America Great Again’. He was a controversial figure.


It’s many years ago now since I first heard of Mr Kirk; he had a programme on US Patriot Radio, which is an extreme far-right station that is a strong supporter of Donald Trump


Back then Mr Kirk came across as a firebrand and the mouthpiece of everything that I found unpalatable at the time in the US. I did exactly what Gay Byrne advised; I tuned out.

 

When I heard of his murder last week it was my first time to hear of the man in four to five years. I have been surprised to hear US Bishop Robert Barron speak of the man as a ‘kind of apostle of civil discourse’. But, as they say, everyone to their own.


Last week a YouTube video of a Fr Brendan Kilcoyne was brought to my attention. In the video Fr Kilcoyne suggests only Christian migrants be allowed into Ireland; that Ireland is being crammed with people, who have no sympathy for the country. He also makes a disparaging comment about journalists, saying they are all ‘middle class’.


At the end of his words he blesses himself, an almost sacrilegious act, considering what the canon said earlier, yes, the man is a canon. Maybe he is even blessing his viewers; a shuddering thought.


The man is a priest of the Archdiocese of Tuam. Some days after having seen the video I phoned the archdiocese, a priest answered. I gave him my name and asked him if he were aware of the views and opinions expressed by Canon Kilcoyne. 


He suggested I call the canon. No, I said, because I wanted to know what was the policy of the archdiocese. I then asked if I could speak with the archbishop. He said yes, but he was not available at present. 


To that I quickly and probably wrongly quipped: ‘are they ever’. He immediately replied that if I continued to speak in that tone he would hang up. And that’s exactly what he did. The priest did not give me his name.


That’s so often how the institutional church behaves. But away from the phone call, Canon Kilcoyne’s comments are outrageous. Has there been a comment from the bishop refuting what one of his priests has said? If so, I haven’t heard or seen it.


There is a seismic move of the institutional Catholic Church moving further right than it ever was and I believe it is being influenced by everything that is worrying and dangerous about the evangelical churches in the US.


Trump has spotted what is happening and has used it like a genius to further his own despotic plans.


Violence will solve nothing, all it will do is divide us further apart. It’s much better to stay talking, even on the phone.

Monday, September 15, 2025

Governor Spencer Cox spouts dangerous words

The governor of Utah Spencer Cox said about the murder of Charlie Kirk: 'I was praying that if this had to happen here, it wouldn’t be one of us.

Can it get more vile than that? Surely words that spout the worst form of racism.

Someone should suggest to Governor Cox he read  Andorra by Max Frisch. He’d learn how dangerous it is to use such terms as ‘one of us’.

Below is an interesting piece in the Guardian about the world in which Charlie Kirk was murdered.

It is upsetting to see and read some of the comments being made about Charlie Kirk, including those of Bishop Robert Barron.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/13/charlie-kirk-killing-alleged-shooter-motivation?CMP=share_btn_url

Sunday, September 14, 2025

Pope Leo tells of being attacked while visiting Dublin

In 2019 Pope Leo, then Bishop Robert Prevost recounted an incident, which happened him on a Dublin street before 2005. He spoke of the attack during a discussion in Peru about child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

It’s an upsetting story but the bishop tells it with a gracious sense of charity and indeed, understanding.

This man is a wise and kind man, clever too.

Make sure to read the clip: https://jrnl.ie/6815870

Saturday, September 13, 2025

Open at Doonbeg won’t help image of a sport labelled elitist

Justine McCarthy’s piece in The Irish Times yesterday is worth a read.


Rory McIlroy was searching for the words, though he had no need of them. The catch in his voice said it all. “Rory, Rory, Rory,” the spectators were chanting.

The golfer had just produced a thriller Agatha Christie would envy. The twist in the tale could not have been more dramatic when he sank a putt as long as the Nile on the 18th hole on his way to snatch what seemed an impossible victory in the Irish Open.

Four months ago, he strode into the history books by winning the Masters in the US, becoming only the sixth player and the first European to complete a career grand slam, but last Sunday evening in Kildare was special.

It culminated in a love-in on a divided island with a young man who, like many of his post-Troubles generation in Northern Ireland, refuses to be trapped in the ancient pigeonholes of identity.

This was about much more than birdies and bogeys. His voice crackled with feeling as he exulted in coming home to win his national tournament and being among “these people”, gesturing towards the crowd.

The green and orange of Irish flags billowed with celebration; not the hatred they too often symbolise.

Nelson Mandela believed sport could make the world better. “We need inspiration, Francois,” his Invictus movie incarnation urged South Africa captain Francois Pienaar before the 1995 Rugby World Cup. “Because in order to build our nation we must exceed our own expectations.”

But sport has the power to divide, too. That danger is greatest when it ditches its standards. The decision to stage next September’s Irish Open at Donald Trump’s golf club in Co Clare looks guaranteed to divide. For, if the prospect of Establishment Ireland swooning over the planet’s most notorious golf cheat inspires anything, it is contempt. This decision does not exceed Ireland’s expectations. It rips them up.

Masses of Irish people have consistently expressed an expectation that tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Binyamin Netanyahu will be held to account by the law. That goes for Trump too. He has spent every waking hour since becoming US president in January breaking laws and sucking up to the demonic duo.

Spectators at the men’s US Open tennis final in New York responded to their president’s presence there with thunderous booing last Saturday. Yet the Taoiseach has stated that, if the pouting Potus decides to visit his Trump International Golf Links for the Irish Open, “there’s no question that [he] will be welcome to Ireland”.

Many golfers resent their sport’s image as an elitist pursuit for the moneyed; less a game of two halves than a game for the “haves”. Not everyone can afford a membership, green fees, clubs and four hours in the day for what GK Chesterton called an expensive version of marbles.

The stereotype caricature golfer saunters around the course in pinstripe plus-fours making deals and dispensing business cards with leather-gloved hand. That, of course, is entirely unfair to the millions of golfers who play the game for nothing more than the sheer pleasure of it. They are ill-served by those who pull the sport’s strings and the image of it they convey as a money-making machine. Even Trump would not have been stupid enough to buy a string of courses, stretching from Scotland and California to Florida, Oman and Indonesia, if there was not gold in their bunkers.

The news that an additional €30 million is being sought from the public to host the 2027 Ryder Cup in Adare is mind-blowing. The State has already designated €58 million to support the event and has set aside another €150 million for a 7km bypass, a new railway line and other infrastructural improvements to facilitate it. We are told the cost to the exchequer of security, park-and-ride provision and local authority outlay was grossly underestimated. That explanation gives no solace to families struggling to buy groceries and pay electricity bills as prices keep rising. Nor will it console the one in five children the Economic and Social Research Institute says are living below the poverty line when housing costs are factored in.

It has the sting of a slap in the face for parents of children with special needs who are being denied an education and children whose spines are shrivelling in long surgery queues. These are people unlikely to be swanning off to the Ryder Cup at Adare Manor, the five-star hotel and golf course owned by tax exile JP McManus.

Skewed towards ABC1 groups

A report by Deloitte on the economic impact of hosting the biennial Europe-versus-US men’s competition in 2006 at the K Club – half-owned then by another non-tax resident, Michael Smurfit – described the profile of attendees as being “skewed towards the upper end of the socio-economic scale”, with 90 per cent being in the ABC1 groups.

Only 3 per cent came from “lower socio-economic groupings” which, the report said, “illustrates the general ‘upmarket’ profile of those with an interest in golf”. A sizeable proportion of those attending were corporate guests.

Minister for Sport Patrick O’Donovan, whose Limerick constituency encompasses Adare, has defended the State’s funding, saying a bypass – which should have been built before now – and a new rail link between Foynes port and Limerick city with a stop in the heritage village will be elements of its legacy. His constituents will, undoubtedly, be hearing all about those bonuses from Government canvassers before the next general election.

Big sports events are money-spinners. Local hotels and restaurants benefit at the time, while vast global television audiences may generate future tourist numbers. The biggest beneficiaries, however, are the organisers – the PGA of America and Ryder Cup Europe in this case.

Adare Manor can expect future returns too, after being showcased on the international stage as a prestigious golf venue. When the Ryder Cup was last played in Europe in 2023, the Roman course was beamed around the world on TV.

For the majority, though, the Ryder Cup in Adare and the Irish Open in Doonbeg signify nothing more than grandiose extravagances with too high a price to pay.

Featured Post

Pope Leo invites men of different views to his table

The link below is well worth a read. It’s from the National Catholic Reporter. Pope Leo held private audiences with two figures emblematic o...