Ms Kenny's 'fake news' on the railway

A tweet from Mary Kenny. It reads: "Ireland needs more TRAINS. They are so full you can't get a ticket any more."

Irish Rail is in the process of buying new rolling stock. But like most generalisations, Ms Kenny's tweet is not accurate and it contains a non sequitur.

There were capacity issues at the weekend but Ms Kenny jumps from a specific situation and unwisely applies it to the entire system during ordinary weekday services.

Her tweet is symptomatic of the era of 'fake news'.

Arriving at a wedding on a bicycle

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

Michael Commane

The parish priest said it was a first for him.

I officiated at a wedding in rural County Meath at the end of June.

Without my car, this was the first time I had to give a second thought as to how I would get to my destination. The wedding party had kindly offered to drive me there but I declined as I wanted to get there under my own steam. I cycled from home into Dublin city centre, Bus Éireann 103 service to Ashbourne and from Ashbourne to Kilmoon Cross, which is approximately two kilometres from the church in Rathfeigh, with the 105 bus.

Arriving at Ashbourne I had 20 minutes to spare waiting for my next bus. Went across the road for a cup of coffee, where I got talking to two men having an early-morning drink. We had a great laugh. I thought €2.70 was on the high side for an Americano but they were not concerned about coffee prices. They had two nice pints in front of them.

Back to the bus-stop, and waiting there was a youngish woman with her daughter and her daughter’s school friend. They were off to Tayto Park for the day. The two girls had finished first year in secondary school. They had travelled by bus from Dún Laoghaire and were all excited about the day ahead.

I do not know how it came about but mum told me that she had older children and that she was part of a ‘blended family’. I had never heard the expression before but I knew what she meant and we smiled at the term. She thought my fold-up bicycle was a great idea. 

When I asked her if she had ever seen anyone going to a wedding on a bicycle, she thought it was hilarious. And then when I added that I was the officiating priest we both got great mileage out of that. Our bus arrives. It drives right up to the entrance of theme park. I had never seen it before and it looks exotic and must be a great place to take children.

I got off the bus at Kilmoon Cross and just as I was about to cycle off I spot this man, in his late 30s, early 40s. He had got off a bus coming from the other direction. We were on a minor narrow road and I spontaneously asked him if he was going to the wedding. Yes, he was. He was a friend of the groom, who had asked him at the last minute to video the ceremony. 

That was the end of my two-kilometre cycle to the church. It was a hilarious walk. For the 15 minutes or so, he regaled me with what he does for a living, that his wife teaches maths and they have a small child. He had come by bus from Galway to Drogheda because his wife needed the car to bring their child to school. 

Someone suggested he get a taxi from Drogheda. He was having none of it and decided to take the bus to Kilmoon Cross and walk from there. He was a charming man and so funny. He had me laughing all the way to the church.

The parish priest assured me it was the first time he had ever seen the officiating priest turn up for a wedding on a bicycle.

Should I have told him that I had got off the bus approximately two kilometres away at Kilmoon Cross?

RTE versus BBC

At approximately 9.10 am today on RTE Radio 1 the show presenter was talking about a found box of tampons.

At the same time on BBC Radio 4 the presenter was talking about Bertolt Brecht.

Not a word from Paul Murphy TD

Where is Dublin South-West People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy?

Mr Murphy, who was an MEP between 2011 and 2014, has been a prominent politician on the Irish scene in recent years. But for the last number of months he has disappeared from public view.

His name, his face, his views are never to be seen in the media.

The TD is a grand nephew of the late Dominican Fr Albert O'Beirne and also related to the former RTE news reader Michael Murphy.

Dominicans and communication

The worldwide Dominican Order is holding  an elective general chapter in Vietnam at present.

At the meeting a new leader will be elected to 'guide' the Order for the next nine years.

What is it about the Dominicans and the Order's inability to communicate.

In these days when the Order is holding this meeting in Vietnam, at great financial cost, the website of the Order appears to be down.

And then there is the website of the Irish Province of the Order. No doubt more money spent on it, and in charitable language, let's just say it is embarrassing. Much worse than that.

Why such ineptitude and inefficiency? 

From the Kerry railway to the Kerry road

This is a speed limit sign on the R560, the road between Camp and Castlegregory in West Kerry.

Have Irish Rail and Kerry County Council a similar signage strategy?

To mislead rail and road users?

Interesting information at Killarney rail station

These two signs at Killarney Irish Rail Station.

They are funny.

On the automatic ticket machine, passengers/customers are told the train is fully booked. But what train and going where?

The speeding train sign is at the buffers at the end of the line.

Add caption

The price of alcohol

One in 10 people in a hospital bed in the UK are alcohol-dependent and one in five are doing themselves harm by their drinking, according to research that quantifies for the first time the massive burden to the NHS of Britain’s drinking culture.

And most likely significantly higher in Ireland.

Leo Varadkar and his priest comment

What Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said in Dáil Éireann on Wednesday about priests was objectionable.

That's the way of the world: the little person is always kicked and kicked hard by institutions and the so-called 'top-people' in organisations.

But Leo that's the way it happens in the institutional church too. Bishops, provincials can treat their priests in a similar manner and they do. And Leo if you want chapter and verse it can easily be supplied.

I recommend Leo you read Hans Fallada's 'Little Man What Now'. And I recommend it should be obligatory reading for many provincials and bishops.

Leo, your comment was awful but at least you spoke your mind. What about the provincials and bishops who play a game of silent terror. And that too is available, chapter and verse.

Christine Lagarde's 'Lehman Sisters' principle

Christine Lagarde, who has been nominated to be the next President of the European Central Bank, once said that had it been Lehman Sisters rather than Lehman Brothers there may never have been a worldwide recession.

Imagine how healthy the Catholic Church could be today if Largarde's Lehman principle applied.

It is embarrassing.

von der Leyen nominated as European Commissioner

German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen has been nominated as the new President of the European Commission.

The European Parliament will now vote on her nomination.

And not a woman in a leadership role in the institutional Catholic Church.

The erroneous quotation fits: "Huston we have a problem".

Think of it, a German defence minister is nominated to a top job and then there is the Catholic Church.

Brexit behaviour is a reminder of what happened in Berlin

Watching the Brexit Party members turn their backs during the playing of Ode to Joy in the European Parliament yesterday one is reminded of what the Nazis did in the Berlin Parliament before they came to power.

Former Dominican priest Kevin Sheridan RIP

Former Irish Dominican Kevin Nicholas Sheridan died on Thursday, June 28 in the Blackrock Hospice.

He was born in Galway in 1935 and joined the Irish Dominicans in 1953, ordained a priest in 1959.

After ordination he spent some time at Newbridge College before moving to Trinidad in 1961, where he taught English and Religious Education at Holy Cross College in Arima.

He served as priest-in-charge at Pointe-a-Pierre.

He left the Dominicans, retired from priesthood and married Susan Ryan. Susan is the sister of the late Innocent Ryan, who had also been a Dominican priest.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan TD is a nephew of  Susan and the late Innocent Ryan.

Like his mother, who played the organ in Salthill Church, Kevin played the organ in his student days at the Dominican Priory in Tallaght, where he was also known for his football skills.

A Dominican friend said of Kevin: “He was a most generous host, a lively preacher and always in good form. His good mood seldom if ever dipped.”

He is survived by his wife Susan and two children Sarah and Damian.

May he rest in peace.

Tommy Tiernan learns about the absurdity of discrimination

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

Michael Commane

 On Friday evening, June 21 I was TV surfing and landed on The Tommy Tiernan Show.

For those readers who are not familiar with the RTE One television programme, neither Tiernan nor the studio audience knows who the guests are in advance.

When I landed on the show with my zapper Tommy was interviewing Aoife McLysaght.

Tiernan, wearing a black hat, the type of hat my grandfather wore, does a mix of comedy and serious in the show. But most of all there is a serious strain right through the show, at least that’s been the case in the bits and pieces I have watched in this series.

In my ignorance I had never heard of Aoife McLysaght but the moment I tuned in she caught my attention and I was captivated by her.

I listened to her to the end. It was one of those occasions I regretted not having the playback facility on my television. Some months ago I closed down my account with my television provider and had a free-to-air system installed.

Aoife McLysaght is a molecular scientist and is a professor in the Molecular Evolution Laboratory at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity College Dublin. She has written for many scientific journals and is on the editorial board of a journal called ‘Cell Reports’.

Tommy was telling her that he was no good at science and that his talent was in the direction of imagination. McLysaght quickly quipped that many people have a completely wrong understanding of science and that imagination is a vital ingredient for scientific scholarship.

She went on to talk about our Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. When Tiernan heard this of course he made a wisecrack. But Aoife went on to explain how through a study of DNA it’s demonstrably clear that all human beings share so much in common. And that led her on to say that any discrimination between people is simply laughable. The idea that one group of people would discriminate against another group because of the colour of their skin was absurd, she said. That we would discriminate on grounds of pigmentation difference is for Aoife a madness and simply superficial.

She had me sitting at the edge of my seat. Just think of all the ways we separate people, all the idiotic tricks we use to discriminate against one another.

Look at what we do in our schools, we have fee-paying schools and non-fee-paying ones. We begin that nasty trick of discriminating against each other from the day we are born. And then we go on to make building blocks which cause more and more discrimination.

We seem to be experts at it. The divisions that we create on grounds of religion, wealth, intelligence, ethnicity, nationality, health, everything and then the importance that we give to our stupidity.

The difference between any two human beings is infinitesimal and just look at the damage we cause by thinking there are such important and historic differences between us.

And all that silly talk that Muslims are different from Christians, that blacks are different from whites, that socialists are different from conservatives.

It’s most probably a conniving trick of those who make arms so that we can use them to kill our enemies.

That ever-so-tiny difference between each of us makes us unique but not necessarily better.

Aoife McLysaght kept insisting right through the interview how little she knows. That too was most interesting.

There is a lot more to Tommy Tiernan than a comedian.

.  

Dolan - 1: Ocasio-Cortez - 9

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan was interviewed on EWTN. He spoke about the role of government and made the point that it is important for government to stay small and not get over involved in the running of society.

It made for terrible television. The archbishop appeared as pompous and sounded as if he were speaking for the status quo. There was nothing whatsoever prophetic about this old-style church prelate. Boring television.

Netflix has made a documentary on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected to the House of Representatives for the Democratic Party for a New York district in last year's mid-terms.

The young woman comes across as dynamic and prophetic. She is someone who has promised to be on the side of the poor and marginalised.

Comparing Dolan with Ocasio-Cortez tells a story of where the American Catholic Church is today.

Diocese of Waterford and Lismore's pastoral plan

The Diocese of Waterford and Lismore has published its diocesan pastoral plan 2019 - 2024, 'Go Make Disciples'.

It contains many fine aspirations.

Four themes are given priority status. Theme Four, which is about service, talks of remodelling leadership and governance structures to serve the mission of evangelising and transforming the world.

And yet in this 32-page document there is just one picture of a person and that is of the bishop dressed in all his regalia.

The document, including two pictures of empty churches, is visually most unattractive and the layout is poor. Pages of full text where church is spelt with an upper case c and the world with a lower case w. That tells its own story

Reading the document one gets the impression that the authors have taken many aspects for granted, as if the reader is expected to be familiar with much of what is being discussed.

The clerical footprint

The environment and our carbon footprint are on the lips of many people as Europe sizzles.

But why are so many people flying?

A wise Dominican was heard saying in recent days that it seems the clerical establishment is saying nothing on the environment.

It would be interesting to calculate the worldwide clerical footprint.

Next month the Dominican Order is holding a worldwide meeting in Vietnam. People from all over the world will be flying to South East Asia for the occasion.

One might ask for what but certainly it will be interesting to know the damage it will do to the environment.

Three important things in life

"Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; the third is to be kind."

- Henry James

June 28 is a busy day in history

June 28 is an interesting date in history.

In 1491 Henry VIII was born.

On this date in 1914 Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Saravejo and so begins World War I.

In 1919 the Treaty of Versailles is signed and so is formed the genesis of Adolf Hitler and World War II.

In 1922 the Irish Civil War begins with the shelling of the Four Courts in Dublin by Free State forces.

In 1926 Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz merge their two companies to form Mecedes-Benz.

In 1942 Hitler gives the green light for the summer offensive against the Soviet Union.

It was a two-pronged attack, one part of it heading for the Volga. The plan was to take out the Red Army. But against all the odds it was at Stalingrad that the Soviet Union changed the course of the war. It was the beginning of the end for the Germans.

How come in the teaching of history in Irish schools were we never told of the significance of Stalingrad, now Volgograd?

'Facts always play second fiddle to a myth'

An excerpt from Michael Harding's column in The Irish Times of yesterday.

It was the last paragraph that might catch one's eye.

"Once upon a time, he said, Colmcille had a stone chalice no bigger than a child’s heart, and by drinking from it a person could be cured of anything; the gout within or the gout without, the broken head or the broken heart.

"For centuries the women of Tory Island were the keepers of this chalice, until it was robbed by fishermen from Scotland. But it only brought bad luck to people who drank from it because it had been stolen, so eventually it was returned to Tory and remained there until the 19th century when it vanished again; this time into the delicate hands of a local clergyman, who I presume didn’t trust the women of Tory with such a precious relic.

"I don’t know if the story is true, but I suppose the great thing about religion is that facts always play second fiddle to a myth."

An era of outrageous leaders

Below is a damning article by Max Hastings on Boris Johnson.

But it's clear the more outrageous the stories we hear about Boris Johnson the better his chances of being the UK's next prime minister.

Just as it is with Donald Trump. In the last days another woman has come forward making allegations of sexual abuse against the president. She is number 16.

Trump's reply 'She's not my type'. Outrageous but makes his followers more resolute in their support for him.

We seem to have the weirdest and oddest of leaders.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris-johnson-prime-minister-tory-party-britain?CMP=share_btn_link

The Trinity is the central mystery of the Christian faith

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

Michael Commane

Sunday June 16 was the feast of the Blessed Trinity. Belief in the Trinity is a fundamental teaching of all Christian churches. It’s one of the most important feasts in the Christian calendar.

While there is no explicit mention of the Trinity in the New Testament, early Christians tried to understand the relationship between Jesus and God.

It has a long history behind it, a topic that has been discussed over centuries and at many church councils.

It’s part of the syllabus on every course in theology and it’s a topic that is considered extremely erudite.

I can still remember in theology class lecturers grappling with the topic and I recall priests being in horror at having to preach about the mystery in sermons at Mass.

Maybe I am a just a simple ageing man who does not understand, but over the last few years I have been enthralled with the idea of the Trinity.

The Trinity is one of the great mysteries and challenges of Christianity.

I see it as something that has to do with people striving to live in perfect relationship with one another. God is so perfect that there is a relationship of perfect equality within the Godhead.

I can only speak for myself, but the trajectory our lives take is a topsy-turvy one and part of that confusion and wonder and failure is always linked to how we form relationships with other people. 

Sometimes relationships are wonderful but they can also be disastrous. It’s a pity that when we use the word relationship today we seem to concentrate on the sexual/romantic aspect. But we have all sorts of relationships. We have them with our employers, our employees, our parents, our friends, our enemies. There are business relationships. Take a moment out and think of all the different types of relationships you have.

There are relationships of power and control.

The Trinity has to do with such a perfect relationship that it involves perfect equality – perfection at its best. In other words, God.

I experienced a wonderful example, a tiny glimmer or hint of what the Trinity is about.

Some weeks ago a man came to me and asked me if people gathered at Mass would remember in their prayers a certain person. I assured him we would. I wrote down the person’s name and then realised it was a famous name. Or more accurately, she was the wife of a famous person, who had been a taoiseach. He and I got chatting, and the curious person that I am, I asked him if he was related to the deceased couple. No, he wasn’t. He had been the taoiseach’s Garda security detail for all the time he had been in office.

It was a such a lovely story. I have no doubt the man went off about his business and would have had no idea the profound impression he had made on me.

What a hint, what a reminder of the Trinity.

To remember with such fond kindness, the person for whom you worked and his wife, is indeed something special.

In early June a German politician was murdered. The alleged perpetrator is a member of a far-right grouping. Commenting on the murder German president Frank Walter Steinmeier said that where language is vulgarised, a crime is never far off.

Mr Trump, Mr Salvini, Mr Farage please take note.

Right now our world, all of us could do with a dose of Trinitarian reality. Healthy relationships make for a better world.

Former Dominican Matthew Fox talks in Dublin

Episcopalian priest and activist for gender justice, Matthew Fox gave a lecture in Dublin's Christ Church on Saturday.

The title of his talk was 'Signs of Hope in a Time of Despair'

Matthew Fox was born Timothy. When he joined the Dominicans in the United States he was given the name Matthew and ironically he has kept that name since his dismissal from the Order.

Irish Dominican Damian Byrne was Master of the Order during this time.

Was the full story of Matthew Fox ever told?

The piece below is from Wikipedia.

In 1984 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asked the Dominican Order to investigate Fox’s writings. 

When three Dominican theologians examined his works and did not find his books heretical, Ratzinger ordered a second review, which was never undertaken.

Due to his questioning of the doctrine of original sin, in 1988 Fox was forbidden from teaching or lecturing for a year by Ratzinger. 

Fox wrote a “Pastoral Letter to Cardinal Ratzinger and the Whole Church,” calling the Catholic church a dysfunctional family. 

After a year "sabbatical" Fox resumed writing, teaching, and lecturing. In 1991 his Dominican superior ordered Fox to leave the ICCS in California and return to Chicago or face dismissal. Fox refused.

Along the banks of the Dodder

Friday was International Yoga Day and it was celebrated in Dublin at Grand Canal Square yesterday.

A group of us out for a walk came upon the Yoga celebration as we arrived at our destination.

The walk began at St Luke's Hospital in Rathgar. 

We followed the River Dodder through Milltown, Clonskeagh, down to Donnybrook, through Herbert Park, passing Marian College and then skirting along the side of the Aviva Stadium, leaving Ringsend to our right.

The spot where the Dodder flows into the Liffey is interesting as right beside it the Grand Canal also enters the great Dublin river.

After a snack we retraced our steps to St Luke's.

The round trip was 14.3 kilometres and the distance covered in two hours 50 minutes.

A walk that takes in a myriad scenes: the great red and white stacks of the now defunct generating station at the Pigeon House. There's the Aviva but most of the walk is in lush green countryside.

A fabulous facility right in the city.

There's enough for all of us

The ‘Thinking Anew’ in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Tomorrow is the feast of Corpus Christi or the Body and Blood of Christ. I can still remember being a Dominican novice in 1968 taking part in a procession in Cork city to honour the day. A large number of people took part.  

Looking at the recent peaceful demonstration in Hong Kong in opposition to the now postponed law on extradition I was reminded of that 1968 Eucharistic procession in Cork. It was that large and significant too. Politicians and clergy led the procession.

Times have changed. Ireland has changed.
Numbers attending Sunday Mass have greatly fallen off. 

And yet in the most recent census, 78.3 per cent of the population said they were Roman Catholic. That’s almost four out of five. 

If you asked Catholics about Corpus Christi it would be interesting how they would reply. The feast was introduced into the universal church calendar in the 14th century.

It is a celebration of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But it is a sacramental presence and Christ is not present in the Eucharist as I am present here at my desk writing this. The Eucharist is about communion, communion with one another and with Christ. It is also about sacrifice, the self-emptying of Christ.

Liturgy is a form of public religious worship. For it to have meaning and purpose it must be  a living and real expression of how we can communicate/pray/talk to the Divine. Liturgy cannot be static. It has to be relevant to the lives of people who acknowledge their faith in the Divine.

The Second Vatican Council attempted to place greater emphasis on the immanence of God, meaning His presence in our everyday lives. At the incarnation God decided to come into the world and be one of us.

We certainly live in a time when everything has to be immediate. We have instant communication, we have knowledge and information at our fingertips. It's not so long since we had to wait a week to have our camera films developed. All that has changed.

The Mass, the Eucharist is the people of God at prayer. Surely it has to be celebrated in a way that makes sense to people. Of course, there has to be instruction and teaching but you can't expect people of goodwill to take part in a ritual that has no meaning to them. We may be over-emphasising piety at the expense of connection, sacrificing meaning in the western world in the 21st century?

Tomorrow's Gospel is the parable of the loaves and fishes. Jesus attracts a large group of people and they discover they have not got enough food, according to St Luke. All they have to feed five thousand people are five loaves and two fishes. And yet through the work of Jesus everyone has enough to eat. Not only that, but when they had all eaten their fill, food was left over.

Perhaps we should see in tomorrow’s Gospel reading a latter-day miracle where Jesus changes the mind-set of people, whereby we all realise that there is a limited amount of food to go around so it has to be divided so that everyone in the world can be fed. Imagine if our Eucharistic celebration throughout the country was a dynamic life-giving prayerful experience where people gathered to celebrate the mystery and wonder of God, and put the message of love into practice?  

We easily say that we are all children of God. How can we say that when we know that one in seven people on the planet have not got enough to eat? How can we say that when we have such inequality and poverty in our cities and towns?

In the prayer over the gifts in tomorrow's Mass we ask God to give us peace and unity. As long as we close our eyes to inequality and injustice how can such a prayer have any meaning? We pray for unity which means we respect and care for one another. In acknowledging the presence of God in our lives, we become ever more aware that the goods of this earth are not for the few but the many.

Tomorrow’s feast is a feast about the presence of Jesus in the world. It is a powerful reminder of the saving influence of God. In placing our trust in God we can bring about a more just world, which in turn will better reflect the glory and greatness of God.

Seventy million people are displaced

Below is an excerpt from the editorial in The Irish Times yesterday.

It is a scandal. What am I doing about it, what is Ireland doing about it, what are the churches doing about it, what is the Dominican Order doing about it?

And all the time US President Donald Trump talks about making America great again.

More than 70 million people are now forcibly displaced – double the level of 20 years ago, according to new figures from the United Nationsrefugee agency, UNHCR. 

Even that number – a global record – is conservative; for instance, some four million Venezuelans are known to have left their country, making that one of the world’s biggest displacement crises, but only half a million of those individuals have to date made asylum claims. 

Overall, the total global refugee population is at the highest level on record – 25.9 million, a figure that includes the 5.5 million Palestinian refugees under the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency.

What we say and do can spread beyond those we know

Nicholas Christakis was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour on CNN yesterday.

Christakis is a physician and sociologist and lectures at Yale University.

“Most of us are already aware of the direct effect we have on our friends and family; our actions can make them happy or sad, healthy or sick, even rich or poor. But we rarely consider that everything we think, feel, do, or say can spread far beyond the people we know. 

Conversely, our friends and family serve as conduits for us to be influenced by hundreds or even thousands of other people. In a kind of social chain reaction, we can be deeply affected by events we do not witness that happen to people we do not know. It is as if we can feel the pulse of the social world around us and respond to its persistent rhythms. 

As part of a social network, we transcend ourselves, for good or ill, and become a part of something much larger. We are connected.”
― Nicholas A. Christakis, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

Former Irish Dominican Jim Roche RIP

It has come to the attention of this blog that Jim Roche has died.

It was originally reported that he died in California but a reader has co tacted this blog to say that Jim died in Germany.

He was born in Cork in 1944, joined the Dominicans in 1962 and ordained a priest in 1969.

Early  in  his priesthood he went to Argentina and lived in Parana.

Jim Roche was a great man and Jim Roche could never have had anything to do with the Ireland in which Majella Moynihan was hounded by the Garda for becoming pregnant.

Jim was an intelligent man with no time for any of the clerical capers.

There was a custom in the diocese where he was working that priests did not grow beards. Jim grew one. His prior did not approve but had neither the decency nor honesty to tell him he did not approve. On an occasion when the local bishop visited the house he told Jim that it was not the custom for priests in the diocese to grow beards.

Jim in his perfect Spanish, though with a Cork accent, replied to the bishop: "You may be my bishop but you are not my barber."

Typical Jim Roche approach.

The bishop was Adolfo Tortolo.

In July 1975 he was appointed military bishop in Argentina and was a friend of Colonel Juan Francisco Guevara and General Eduardo Senorans.

The bishop was aware in advance of the military putsch.

No doubt Jim quickly realised the type of person the bishop was. And what about the Irish Dominican prior, who is now dead?

On leaving the Irish Dominicans he moved to the United States where he studied law and worked tirelessly for migrants.

He offered support to Nicaraguans who came to Ireland during the conflict in their country.

Jim always had time for the underdog. He was always there to support the marginalised and poor.

He was a fine sportsman, football being his speciality.

He married a woman from the former German Democratic Republic.

Jim was an accomplished musician.

It is unlikely that he would or could have felt at home in the Irish Dominican province of today.

A great and good man.

May he rest in peace.

'Where language is vulgarised, a crime is never far off'

A memebr of a far-right political group has been arrested for the murder of German CDU politician Walter Luebcke.

On Monday, German president Frank Walter Steinmeier urged a quick but thorough investigation – a nod to police failure to link a decade-long series of immigrant killings to an underground neo-Nazi organisation.

He described the initial reaction to the killing as “cynical, tasteless, disgusting” and called for greater means for police and investigators to track down those behind anonymous postings.

“Where language is vulgarised, a crime is never far off,” he said. “The contempt towards a person who was victim of a violent act cannot just outrage us. It challenges us to use every means of the rule of law to pursue vilification and violence in social media.”

Tony Coote's 'Live While You Can'

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

Michael Commane

Dublin diocesan priest Tony Coote’s book ‘Live While You Can’ is a gem.

For over a year or so I have heard his name being mentioned. I knew he was parish priest in Mount Merrion and Kilmacud.

Tony is in his 50s and in 2018 he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease(MND).

Last month I was in a bookshop buying a book for a young boy making his first Holy Communion. 

While paying for the book I spotted ‘Live While You Can’ and bought it.

A few days later while travelling by rail to Galway I began to read the book. I’m a slow reader and easily distracted. By the time I was back in Dublin later that day I had 150 of the 184 pages read.

It is a captivating read.

In some ways I am ashamed I had not twigged to the man and his greatness before now.

Motor Neurone Disease attacks the nervous system and it is a cruel affliction. In 2013 the well-known RTE sports presenter Colm Murray died from MND.

‘Live While You Can’ is a book about hope, it is a book about faith, the genuine faith of a Dublin priest, who paints a lovely image of God and the life he looks forward to in communion with God and humanity after he succumbs to MND.

It’s a simple book and easy to read but does it tell a story about a man in his 50s, who has lived life to the full. That does not mean that it has been all plain-sailing. He writes about his abusive alcoholic father, about the time as a little boy that he was sexually abused in a school classroom. But he also recalls how he and his siblings were reconciled with their father. And all the time there are references to his loving relationship with his mother, who is alive and well.

After ordination to priesthood he was appointed to a parish in Ballymun. He found himself working as a school chaplain, a job he thoroughly enjoyed and it’s clear to see that he built up a great relationship with staff and students. From there he went to work as chaplain in UCD. Next he’s in Haiti, India and Nicaragua organising summer work for UCD students to help the poorest of the poor.

Again, he builds up life-long friendships with the students and the people with whom they work in the developing world.

While he is never pushing himself, it clearly comes across that this man is at his best when he is giving of himself to other people.

Close to the end of the book, on page 158 he writes: ‘If we in the church are truly Christian, followers of Jesus Christ, then we must make sure that we do not close doors to others through words of condemnation or harsh judgement. Once we close doors in such a way, those we have excluded will never open them again.’ Wise and prophetic words.

Such a simple read with an extraordinary message.

This sentence jumped off the page for me: ‘By being compassionate to others, we literally give them life and receive life ourselves.’

It is a perfect read for fifth and sixth year religious education classes.

Claire Byrne, who interviewed Tony on RTE’s ‘Claire Byrne Live’ writes in the foreword of this book: ‘I know that my life is richer as a result and I’m sure, when you turn the last page of this book, yours will be too. 

It is.

Leo Varadkar and the verb 'to do'

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar gave an extensive interview to Brendan O'Connor on RTE Radio on Saturday morning.

As per usual he was articulate and smart, one might say that he did not put a foot wrong. But it was an easy interview.

At 11.33 the taoiseach said: "...what we done....".

The poor verb.