This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.
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.
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