Volkswagen Ireland

Volkswagen Ireland is currently running a radio ad which has the following line in it:

...... gives you so much more

It sure does. You would imagine they would quickly change the sentiment.

Basilica of San Clemente

Congratulations to John Cunningham on the publication of a new book/guide on San Clemente.

San Clemente, in the centre of Rome, within a three-minute walking distance of the Colosseum, is a church of the Irish Dominicans with a priory attached.

At present there are three Irish Dominicans living in the priory plus three Americans and one Polish Dominican.

The Basilica of St Clement gives a history of the church and contains excellent pictures of the mosaics, paintings and works in the basillica.

The 64-page production also includes an incantation by Irish Dominican Paul Murray.

By opening a passage through a chamber containing some remains of ancient walls ... we discovered three columns standing erect, in situ ..

Words written by Fr Mullooly describing the beginning of the excavations in 1857.

The book or guide has been published in a number of languages.

Iarnród Éireann talks tomorrow in an effort to avert strike action

Tomorrow talks are due to take place between Iarnród Éireann, Siptu and NBRU at The Workplace Relations Commission in an attempt to avert industrial action on the railway.

Before the company begins to express how short it is of cash, will anyone ask the management of Irish Rail how much money has been squandered on the purchase of locomotives in the 1990s, which are now abandoned in Inchicore.

Why did the company change its mind so soon after buying the GE locos to go for rolling stock, which have the power units slung under the carriages?

What other areas of crass mismanagement exist across the rail company?

Anecdotally it is said that there are 2.4 staff to every manager at the Heuston Station complex.

Last week in Wolfsburg VW senior management spoke to staff.

Does senior management at Irish Rail ever talk to staff? Is there a locomotive driver in the company who does not feel alienated? 

Closing our eyes and ears to human suffering in the world

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

Michael Commane

In mid-September I visited Halba in northern Lebanon, approximately 40km from the Syrian border.

People there have been living in soaring temperatures under tarpaulins. All facilities at a bare minimum and an entire generation of children is missing out on education.

Concern Worldwide, for which I work as a press officer, is supplying water and sanitation to those living in United Nations High Commission for Refugees tents. It is also supporting education for children.

We see the results of the Syrian war on our televisions and read it in our newspapers but when you see the suffering people with your own eyes  it's a very different story.

Every person with whom I spoke could recall the moment they left Syria. It was the day their home was bombed. They had one wish and that was for the war to end so that they could return home. 

Their suffering is pitiful.

There are approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, another five million displaced people living in Syria and then there are the hundreds of thousands we see straggling across the roads and railways of Europe.

In a world of seven billion people, one billion have not enough to eat and an estimated 100 million people are homeless. Alongside this suffering there are individuals and corporations with billions. If we saved a quarter of the food we waste there would be enough to feed the one billion who are starving.

In tomorrow's Gospel we read: "Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, ....'You know the commandments: ... ' And he said to him, 'Master I have kept all these since my earliest days,'   Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, "You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." (Mark 10: 17 - 22)

How can any of us say we truly believe the words of Jesus and at the same time permit  the current status quo to continue?

When I spoke about the plight of the Syrian refugees a woman asked me what was being done for the 1,000 homeless people in Dublin. Someone else expressed the view that as long as Irish people are struggling we cannot afford to accommodate refugees.

But tomorrow's Gospel criticises a world order that allows some to have too much and others to do without. Surely if we read this Gospel and close our eyes to the unjust mess the world is in,  then our words are really nothing more than “pious piffle”.

There are those who speak disparagingly about an a la carte faith. But do we not all see the things we want to see and close our eyes and ears to those things we don't want to see and hear? 

If we were to live out tomorrow's Gospel then we would want to tear down the walls of the status quo that continues to turn a blind eye on the sufferings of millions of people, a suffering partly caused by an unfair distribution of wealth and resources. Because those who experience such hardship are not always in our neck of the woods doesn't mean that Gospel values do not apply to our treatment of them.

We pride ourselves on advanced technology that allows us send messages across the world in milliseconds. And yet we can sleep comfortably in our beds knowing that millions of people have not enough food to eat, a place to sleep. Our words pass in the ether over their heads.

The Syrian refugees in Lebanon, and those trying to make their way to safe havens in  Europe,  are just one aspect of the terrible suffering in the world.

Brendan Hoban's column

An extract from Brendan Hoban's Western People column.

A senior Catholic churchman recently expostulated on signs of hope in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Among them he listed a number of organisations, ‘dynamic movements’ he called them. All of them were from the ultra-conservative wing of the Catholic Church. Some of them were, in common parlance, ‘completely off the wall’.

I could sense, as I read his words, Catholics around the country holding their heads in their hands in one great collective movement of disbelief and horror. Was this naivety or just a device for rallying the troops or even a refusal to deal with reality?Whatever was the intention, it’s a dangerous wheeze.

Because it’s leading the Catholic Church into a cul-de-sac and jettisoning those in the middle-ground, who are hanging on to the door-posts of faith and religion with their finger-nails.

Pope Francis and the 'lefties'

In the controversy over the appointment of the Chilean bishop Juan Barros the NCR reports that Pope Francis referred to 'lefties' in his support of the Barros appointment.

Not impressive. Or is it simply that deep at its core the Catholic Church is a chronic right-wing organisation?

Below is a quote from the NCR report.

“[The diocese] lost its independence once it let its head be filled with what politicians say, who are judging a bishop without any evidence, even after 20 years as bishop,” Francis said in the May 6 recording, before a group of Chilean Catholics in Rome who asked the pope to send a message to those in Osorno disappointed by the arrival of Barros. “Think with your heads and do not be led by the noses by the lefties who orchestrated this whole thing,” he said in Spanish, as translated by NCR.

Gerry Moloney quoted

"Authoritarianism, clericalism, vanity, pietism, pride have been the toxic mix that has so damaged the church in Ireland, and elsewhere."

It's a quote from Fr Gerry Moloney's blogpost.

A blogpost well worth reading.

www.gerardmoloney.wordpress.com

Russian SU30s in Syrian sky

When last were Russian fighters involved in sorties in a foreign country?

Note the tail fin marking on this SU-30.

Signs of appreciation

When people are loved and cherished it usually rubs off on them.

When people are appreciated surely it's a help to spur them on and do more and better.

Most people are fragile and need a friendly word of encouragement, no matter what shadow boxing might take place.

And all the talk one hears about God's love. So often hollow words with no meaning at all. Just simple lies and spoof.

It could be so different. But that's the world.

Today's Gospel reading surely is talking along these lines?

Cameron's IRA comment

In an interview on the Channel 4 evening news yesterday Prime Minister David Cameron, when talking about Syria and the overthrow of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, made a throw-away comment that the IRA probably still has Semtex.

It sounded an extraordinary remark.

Snowden on Twitter

Edward Snowden opened a Twitter account last week.

So far he has tweeted 38 times, follows one person and 1.3 million people are following him.

Season change

This week's INM Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane 
We are in season-change mode. The first chestnuts are on the ground. On Sunday I saw a mother out with her children collecting ‘conkers’.  The creeper on the wall in my garden is slowly but surely changing from green to the early stages of golden brown. The first scarves and gloves are appearing. 

It’s dark at 6.50am. You need a light on your bicycle after 7.00pm. And nothing is going to stop the process, even if we had an Indian summer last week.

Teachers know the exact number of days to mid-term. I counted them too when I was in the classroom. Halloween has been mentioned and the word Christmas too has appeared.

It’s part of our make up to look backwards and forwards. It would be terrible if we couldn't look back on our lives just as it would take so much from our lives if we did not have hopes and plans for the future.

But there is something about living in the now that’s a trick of life that so many of us fail to appreciate.

I remember when I was teaching and looking forward to the holidays someone saying to me that it was a dangerous thing to wish away our lives. A wise man once said to me the things that we worry and fret about seldom if ever happen.

In these days of process, watching the colours change on the trees, feeling the fall in temperature and the days growing shorter one could easily lament the coming of winter and regret having not done all the things we should have during the summer months.

You can do nothing about spilt milk and we have no idea what’s around the corner. So that has to mean that we should do our damnedest to relax in the now. All we ever have is the now.

Dare I say it? I have crashed many a traffic light. In recent weeks, partly due to the clampdown on illegal cycling and cyclists misbehaving on the roads I am stopping at every red traffic light.

Just last week, while stopped at a light, it dawned on me all the things that were right in front of my eyes. A woman was talking to her small child, both laughing. On the other side of the road, Mr Trendy was coming out of a shop with freshly-brewed coffee.

A few metres away, a man talking loudly to someone. I often see him there. He is something of a character and has a word for everyone passing by.

For 30 or so seconds I was watching the world go by.

Had I not stopped at that red light I would have missed all that.

Yes, it’s getting darker earlier, but there is something new about it. It's a different experience to relish.
Only a few weeks back I was saying to someone I hate the advent of winter. Thinking about it these last days it has dawned on me how silly a thing it was to say.

Of course the business world wants us now to begin focusing on winter breaks and thinking of Christmas.

It is one of the terrible drawbacks of ‘market forces’ and the world of capitalism.

It’s far nicer, far better and certainly good for our health to live in the now, breathing in and out the free air that’s there for us to use.

It’s not a case of being smug. It’s good to appreciate the world about us, basking in all that we ever have, the now, the present. Making the best of the moment. Carpe diem.

Polish priest asks how many gay priests in Vatican

Vatican official who outed himself at the weekend, Monsignor Krzysztof Charamsa suggested a study be done on how many homosexuals work in the Vatican.

It seems he has been fired from his job. Why? Because he is a homosexual man or because it is now in the public forum that he is homosexual?

If the church were to fire all its bishops, cardinals and priests who are closet homosexuals who would 'run' the church?

Naked racism on RTE

What happened at the beginning of the Ray D'Arcy Show on RTE 1 last evening must have left many viewers stunned.

As the host announced that the English rugby team had been beaten a loud cheer went up from the audience. D'Arcy made some mild comment and smiled.

Was it choreographed beforehand? However it happened, it was crass racism. It was shocking.

A funny little country indeed.

Day of German unification

Today is the 25th anniversary of the unification of Germany.

President Joachim Gauck in a speech given in Frankfurt-am-Main today said that integration is a greater task/challenge than unification.

A tea cosy destined for the Islamic Republic of Iran

Lally Lawlor, who celebrated her 100th birthday in the spring, knitting. Note she is at work without glasses.

"Michael, they don't drink alcohol in Iran, which means they drink a lot of tea, so guess what I am knitting? A tea cosy for Paul."

The picture was taken today. Lally's son Paul is an Irish Dominican working in Tehran, the capital city of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A Jesuit priest who fought for respect for gay people

Below is a link to an obituary in today's Irish Times.

It is an obit on John McNeill, a Jesuit priest who fought for respect for gay people in the Catholic Church.

In 1987, on orders from the Vatican, he was expelled from the Jesuits.

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/obituary-john-mcneill-jesuit-who-fought-for-respect-for-gay-people-in-church-1.2376354#

It would be interesting to know who were the people involved in his expulsion. How many of them were closet gay men?

Elsewhere in today's issue of the Irish Times there is a piece on Gordon Linney, who has just published in book form a collection of his 'Thinking Anew' columns.

In the piece Linney is quoted as saying:  "religion is in a mess."

Scurrilous attack on Barack Obama on Patriot Radio

Conservative US radio station Patriot Radio demonised President Barack Obama for the comments he made concerning the use of guns in the country after yesterday's college shootings.

The language, the style of how the redio presenters spoke about the President was horrific, close to evil.

Below is an extract from what President Obama said and what Patriot Radio derided.

“As I said just a few months ago and I said a few months before that and each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. 

"It does nothing to prevent this carnage being inflicted some place in America, next week or a couple of months from now. Somehow this has become routine.

"Right now I can imagine the press releases being cranked out. We need more guns, they’ll say. Fewer safety laws. Does anybody really believe that?"

The president called for news organisations to compare the number of Americans killed by terrorism over the past decade with the number who died in gun violence. He noted that the US spends trillions of dollars and has passed myriad laws to protect people from terrorism.

Patriot Radio is the same station that is opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion.

Drogheda Dominicans in the Bru today for booklet launch

The Bru Bar and Bistro in Drogheda"s The Haymarket is the venue today for the launch of a book/booklet on the history of the Dominican church and priory in the town. The publication also includes an account of the current campaign to keep the Dominicans in Drogheda.

There has been controversy, which has made it to national media, over the decision by the Irish Dominican friars to leave the town.

The event today is at 11.00 and the book/booklet will be launched by the editor of The Drogheda Independent, Hubert Murphy.

Irish Rail locomotives left to rot and rust at Inchicore

Anyone who is a regular rail user in and out of Heuston Station will notice a line of locomotives lying idle in Inchicore.

It seems the locos have been left to disintegrate, while some of them are being canablised. It seems there are more than 10 of these locomotives no longer in service.

The first of these locos went into service in 1994. Indeed, the first one arrived at Dublin Airport from Canada in a Russian built Anantov.

That this is happening these locos seems nothing less than a scandal.

Yesterday the Comptroller and Auditor General published his annual report on State spending.

Will the C&AG ever have anything to say on the waste at Irish Rail?

The locos are the 200 class series and are the locomotive class used to operate the Mark lV Dublin Cork trains and the Enterprise service.

Has there been anything in the media about it?

It would seem to be a matter of chronic waste? Mismanagement too?

Harvest in Baltinglass

This week's INM Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane
On Sunday, September 20 the Church of Ireland community in Baltinglass in Co. Wicklow celebrated its annual harvest festival. It’s an important date in the Anglican calendar. Some Catholic communities mark the occasion but it’s not widespread.

There is no special date for it except to say that it takes place this time of the year. As it suggests, it takes place to mark the gathering of the harvest.

And according to all the experts this has been a great grain harvest with farmers experiencing higher yields than in many years.

Does that mean that our bread and porridge will be cheaper this winter? I doubt it.

Máirt Hanley is the Church of Ireland rector in Baltinglass and he invited me to talk in church on the Sunday they were celebrating the harvest festival.

I know Máirt since my days working and living in Kerry when he was ministering in Tralee and then later in Camp in West Kerry.

It was my second time to talk in a Protestant church so naturally I was somewhat more nervous than usual when getting up to speak.

It all worked out fine. The church seemed full and Ireland being the small place that it is, a number of people present knew people I know. That's Ireland.

The theme of my talk was based on my recent trip with Concern Worldwide to Lebanon, which was relevant to the first reading from the prophet Joel, who lived approximately 400 BC/BCE.

Máirt, his wife Una and their three children Sadhbh, Oscar and Cathal live in the manse, which is on the grounds of the church.

I arrived early so there was plenty of time for a freshly brewed cup of coffee. Even if there was an element of panic when I arrived, I immediately felt at home. Within seconds toast and coffee was served. Just what I needed. The reason for the panic was that Una and Máirt were in the throes of putting the finishing touches to the preparations for the food, fun and games that were being served up after the church service.

At one stage little nine-year-old Sadhbh began to explain to me what she missed from living in Kerry but quickly added that she was enjoying life in Wicklow and was happy in her new school. She even went on to tell me what secondary school she expects to attend.

I know little or nothing about Máirt’s family but sitting down in Máirt and Una’s kitchen on that Sunday morning I was conscious of the warmth and ‘normality’ of family life. A man and a woman with their three young children doing what nature, love and life suggests.

I felt at home in the short hour I spent in their kitchen.

On the few occasions I have been in the house/home of a Catholic priest I have to say I have found myself wondering what to say and how to behave. There is always something pained about it, there is something odd about it all. There’s something missing. I’d go as far as saying, in most cases, there seems to be something not right about it.

Driving back from Baltinglass I was wondering is Máirt Hanley any less a priest than his Catholic counterpart? I doubt it. I wonder what God thinks about it all?

Has it all to do with holiness and theology or more to do with history, turf wars and power?

Of course there is place for different types of priesthood within the Catholic Church: religious congregations and diocesan priesthood. Why not married priests? Why not women priests?

Just asking.

Francis stresses importance of being close to people

On his flight back to Italy Pope Francis was asked about the primary task facing the church in the United States: "The challenge of the church is to be what it always was -- close to the people, not detached," he said.

"It's the little gestures..."

In Philadelphia yesterday Pope Francis spoke of those important little things that make us feel at home.

Just how many religious communities make people feel at home?

He's been worth waiting for even if it has taken years of horror.

When did an Irish bishop, an Irish provincial say anything remotely like this? Do anything remotely like this. Genuinely making people feel at home?

In Sunday's homily, Francis reflected on the Gospel reading of the day that sees the disciples ask Jesus whether they should rebuke others who are healing in his name. Jesus replies: "There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me."

The pope said that just like happiness, holiness is "tied to little gestures."

"These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family; they get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different," he said. "They are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children."

"Love is shown by little things, by attention to small daily signs which make us feel at home. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love," said the pope. "That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. They are the right place for faith to become life, and life to become faith."

Following Francis in the dark of Philadelphia

A nice piece of writing and a Dominican sister gets a mention. Taken from the NCR

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/following-francis-dark-hours

Children of the GDR

New VW boss, Matthias Müller was born in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz) in Saxony in 1953 in the former German Democratic Republic.

His family moved to Bavaria when he was still at school. After finishing school in Ingolstadt Müller started an apprenticeship as a toolmaker at Audi, which he completed in 1977.

He then went on to study computer engineering science in Munich.

So the German President, Chancellor and now the boss of the world's largest car maker are from the former German Democratic Republic.

Life on the Dodder

On the Dodder today near Rathfarnham Bridge.

Fishing season closes on the river on Wednesday.

Pope from another America, showing up deep divisions

Two extracts from the editorial comment in yesterday's Guardian newsapaper.

It can sometimes seem as if there are few creatures on earth more pompous than a rightwing American Catholic. During the conservative papacies of John Paul ll and Benedict XVl, Republican pundits preached papal authoritiy at the liberals. Now they have pontificated themselves into a frenzy about how wrong Pope Francis is.

Later in the editorial.

The extreme detachment of Catholic sexual teaching from Catholic sexual practice, and the importance the hierarchy has attached to fighting this doomed battle, has produced a more extremely conservative (and increasingly gay) priesthood, which still further alienates the mainstream.

A great editorial.

And Ireland?

Making money in Syria

An estimated 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian war. Another seven million people are displaced within Syria and 4.1 million have left the country.

In the meantime the four big arms exporters are United States, Russia, China and Germany.

Last year the German government gave licences to the value of €3.94 billion to companies exporting arms.

In the last few days Russia has deployed fighter jets, Sukhoi SU-24s and SU-25s in Syria. 

Pope in tiny car and his man in Dublin is 'Excellency'

It becomes ever so confusing.

While Pope Francis insists on being driven about in the US in a small car, some church people in Ireland refer to his ambassador to the State as "His Excellency".

And to add to the confusion there are also spelling issues when it comes to the man's name.

Tough times.

A perfect example of patronising church arrogance

In this week's Irish Catholic newspaper Benedictine Martin Browne writes:

"The journalistic comic-book mentality cannot cope with theological or conceptual complexity and so reduces all thought in the Church (sic) to basically two positions, each with its own leader."

Elsewhere in the article he writes:

"In the kind of comic-book caricaturing that passes for journalism in many quarters these days........"

How at all do newspapers report on CERN or EU budgetary policy?

The churches are slow to let go of their patronising arrogance.

A perfect example of how to alienate the reader.

Stop Syrian slaughter

This week's INM Irish regional newspaper column

Michael Commane

Within the last fortnight Aldi opened a new megastore in Dublin’s Terenure.  In the immediate days before Aldi opened and in the first days of the new store, nearby Lidl offered a 20 per cent reduction on all its groceries. 

On Saturday, September 12, I returned from Lebanon to Dublin and on the Sunday I went up to Lidl to buy some groceries.

The shop was mobbed. One store assistant said to me that he had never seen anything like it. It was the last day of the promotion.

It was bedlam and Dublin’s south side shoppers were close to panic. And were they showing it.

The previous week I was in northern Lebanon, visiting Syrian refugees. They are living in United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) tents and being supported by Concern Worldwide. I work in the Concern press office so that’s why I was there.

There are approximately 50 to 60 tents on each encampment and every tent holds roughly 30 people or five families.

Lebanon was in the throes of one of its worst ever sandstorms. The temperature was close to 40 degrees Celsius. It was new territory for me.

In Bebnine, a 30-minute drive from the city of Halba, I met Abdullah Al-Hamad, who lives in one of these tents with his family. He explained why they had left Syria and come to Lebanon. They pay $50 a month to live in the tent supplied by the UNHCR. While he was talking someone brought a tray into the tent with small cups of tea for the visitors. In the midst of such turmoil, such pain and suffering our Syrian hosts had the grace to offer us freshly brewed tea.

Scrambling around the Lidl store in Terenure that Sunday my mind went back to my Syrian hosts in Lebanon.

Not for a moment am I saying that Lidl shoppers, Irish people, are any different from Syrian refugees. 

Maybe it has something to do with wherever we are, whatever we are doing, we cope in what we think is an appropriate fashion.

Seeing with my own eyes how Syrian refugees are forced to live, I keep saying how fortunate I am.

Talking to someone about the Syrian refugee crisis, she immediately reminded me of the number of homeless people living in Dublin.

Where to start, what to do? It’s easy to say I have no answers but I don’t.

For the life of me I can’t understand why the powerful and influential, the great world political leaders can’t sit down and stop this current war in Syria, indeed, sit down and stop all wars.

According to a report in ‘The Guardian’ newspaper last week, Russia proposed back in 2012 that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad cede power at some time after peace talks had taken place between the Assad government and the opposition.

The former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate, Martti Ahtisaari said that the US, France and Britain ignored the Russian proposal as they were convinced the Syrian dictator was about to fall.

Who’s supplying all the weaponry for this barbarism? It’s certainly not the refugees I met.

I can only imagine the profits from all the weaponry, the soldiers’ boots and uniforms flow back to wealthy people. It allows them live in great style and opulence.

I’m inclined to think that Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the British Labour Party is saying some prophetic things. He has spent his life campaigning against the madness of war.

Jeremy and I have a few things in common. One being we are the same age.