The day the man from Germany's Marktl resigned

On this day, February 11, 2013 the Vatican confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI would resign the papacy as a result of his advanced age.

If he had not resigned on that day he would now be an elderly pope.

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927 in the Bavarian town of Marktl in the Germany of the Weimar Republic. 

The official name of the State was Deutsches Reich or German Kingdom. It was also called  Deutsche Republik or German Republic. Before that it was the German Empire. From 1933 to 1943 it was known as the German Reich and then from 1943 to 1945 the Greater German Reich.

When post-war Germany was divided, one Germany was called The Federal Republic of Germany and the other Germany was The German Democratic Republic.

Today the official name of the united country is The Federal Republic of Germany or shortened to Germany.

Words carry great meaning and so much history.

Missing Labrador found on Lugnaquilla Mountain

This certainly is a heart-warming story in The Irish Times yesterday. And then the picture of the poor mite. 

Well done to the two doctors.

It’s certainly one of those pieces you are forced to read to the end.

I presume from the word ‘bolt’ both dogs were on leads.

Last year approximately 4,000 sheep were killed by dogs in Ireland.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/dog-lost-for-two-weeks-found-in-wicklow-mountains-1.4478977#.YCJ7tYHH5Wo.mailto

 

What is it that makes a powerful speech

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

Michael Commane

Do words ever grab you? 

What about the people who turned up to listen to Donald Trump? 

He’d spend an hour simply haranguing, insulting and demeaning people. At least to me it all sounded vile and appealing to  our worst instincts. Millions are greatly impressed with him. The people who turned up at his rallies genuinely believe he is the man to lead the United States to greatness.

What makes for powerful and persuasive  oratory? Has it something to do with narcissism?Narcissism is a personality disorder, whereby people have an inflated sense of their own importance. They fall in love with their own reflection but somehow or other they are constantly craving approval. Their outward show is a fragile mask.

Hitler was a great orator. They thronged to hear him. He fooled millions of people and they rushed to their deaths for him. He was the quintessential narcissist.

Over the years I have heard many speakers. Two stand out. 

A Dominican Sister, who had spent her life teaching deaf children, wrote a book about her experience. The book was launched in the early 1990s and I went along to the launch.

Sir Anthony O’Reilly, aka Tony O’Reilly, who was a friend of the Dominican Sister, launched the book and spoke on the evening. 

He was over 30 minutes late arriving, which I found annoying, but once he began to speak, all was forgiven and I found myself totally captivated by him. It was an amazing speech. He was funny, smart, intelligent, bold but all the time brilliant and charming. And so reverential to the author, whom he knew. He had everyone in the palm of his hand. 

Thirty years on I have no idea what he said but I can still say that he completely bowled me over.

In 2018 I had the good fortune to attend Concern Worldwide’s 50th anniversary conference in Dublin Castle. Bill Clinton was the star speaker at the event. 

And just as with Tony O’Reilly, I was glued to every word he said. He was a class act. His pauses, his occasional jokes and then the content of what he was saying. Add to that, I got the impression he was actually talking to me.

Both O’Reilly and Clinton are star performers, at least they were for me. But why? Was it that I agreed with what they were saying but there is something far more to it than that.

What’s that special quality they have?

Might it be that most great orators are narcissists? At least with Trump it’s clear to see that he is, but is it possible that others, who are far more polished and refined are also steeped in narcissism?

And then how do we handle the demagogues, how do we protect ourselves against those who use words to manipulate and lead us to violent deeds?

How do we know whom to believe?

Maybe that’s why words fascinate me.

Mark Twain’s words are ringing in my ears: “I know all about audiences, they believe everything you say, except when you are telling the truth.”

Minister Darragh O'Brien looking for fortune tellers

This morning on 'The Claire Byrne Show' Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien said this:

We need connectivity into the future. 

Does the minister mean that he and his government are looking for fortune tellers?

Bringing dogs where they don't belong has to stop

In the current issue of The Kerryman journalist Tadhg Evans reports on the damage that dogs are doing to sheep.

One farmer in west Kerry said that that four or five ewes have broken legs every time he collects his sheep.

A farmer who has sheep on Mount Brandon saw two walkers let their Labrador loose on the mountain.

"They drove about 10 of my ewes to the edge of a cliff. Six of them jumped off. Nobody came around after to apologise or pay the damages - but it's not about that: it's seeing what's happening," John Joe MacGearailt said.

West Kerry sheep farmers are threatening to lock their gates until the matter is dealt with.

They have contacted their politicians and TD Michael Healy-Rae has pledged to raise the matter in the Dáil

Every year approximately 4,000 sheep are killed. by dogs in Ireland.

All those new words in our medicine chest

All the new words we are using and using them as if they were always part of our vocabulary.

The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are mRNA vaccines. 

Then there's the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, and don't forget the Sputnik V vaccine.

Add to the list the Janssen and Novavax vaccines.

At first it was called SARS-CoV-2, then Coronavirus, moved to Covid - 19 and it now appears we are back to Coronavirus.

Earlier they were talking about vaccination, but now we are about to be inoculated.

And who had ever heard of Wuhan before March 2020?

Bishop Baetzing says Cologne crisis was not well managed

This is from a press release yesterday from Associate Press.

Cardinal Woelki was an auxiliary bishop in Cologne when Joachim Meisner was archbishop.

It is extremely unusual for a bishop to criticise in public a fellow bishop  within the same bishops' conference.

BERLIN (AP) — The head of the German Bishops’ Conference has criticized the handling by one of Germany’s most prominent Roman Catholic archbishops of a report on past child sexual abuse by clergy.

Cologne Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki faces mounting discontent in his diocese over his decision to keep under wraps a study he commissioned on how local church officials reacted when priests were accused of sexual abuse. Woelki has cited legal concerns about publishing the study conducted by a law firm.

The head of the national bishops’ conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, criticized Woelki at a news conference on Thursday.

German news agency dpa quoted Baetzing as saying the “crisis that has arisen because the report is not now public was not well-managed, from my point of view.” 

The law firm that prepared report has offered to publish the document on its website and to take sole responsibility for it, but the diocese has rejected that idea.

Woelki has drawn fierce criticism from Catholics in Cologne. The local diocesan council called last month for “full transparency” and said the confidence of the area’s Catholic faithful in church leaders had been damaged.

“After years of secrecy and denial, people in our diocese finally expect plain talk and concrete steps of responsibility,” the council said. “That is always possible. And it is high time.”

Woelki said Thursday he was “painfully aware that confidence had been lost” and acknowledged that he had made mistakes.

He pointed to the planned March 18 publication of a new report he also commissioned, and said that “after that, those affected and then everyone who is interested will get an insight into the first report.”

Bishop Baetzing hints that Cardinal Woelki should go

The president of the German Bishops Conference Georg Baetzing criticised all those, clerical and lay, who have in any way not acted in a proper and correct manner in matters dealing with clerical child sex abuse.

Baetzing, who is bishop in Limburg, was speaking at a two-day zoom conference of the German Catholic Church.

He also said said that any sort of covering up might well demand resignations. And he said that applied to bishops too.

It was a sensational intervention by a bishop in the ongoing controversy in Cologne concerning an alleged coverup by the Archbishop of Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.

Ahmady's escape from Iran and Navalny's jailing in Russia

Links to two interesting articles in yesterday's Guardian.

Kameel Ahmady, with UK and Iranian citizenship, smuggled himself out of Iran through a mountainous border route after being sentenced to nine years

His intrepid escape and the jailing of Alexei Navalny is a reminder of how fortunate we are to live in a democracy, which is based on the rule of law.

It is expected Navalny will serve his sentence in a penal colony far from Moscow.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/kremlin-tries-downplay-navalny-jailing-thousands-arrested-riot-police

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/academic-jailed-in-iran-pulls-off-daring-escape-back-to-britain-kameel-ahmady

RTE's Tommie Gorman to bid farewell to Northern Ireland

Tommie Gorman in a chat with Ryan Tubridy on last Friday's 'Late Late Show' gave a most insightful portrait of his time working as RTE's main man in Northern Ireland.

Tommie is retiring from the broadcaster in April and is looking forward spending more time with his family in his home town of Sligo.

His parents were regulars at the Dominican church in the town.

Talking about his many experiences in Northern Ireland and referring to how situations can get out of hand he said: 

"When anger is in flood people do awful things to one another."

A young man's courageous stand against the darkness

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

Michael Commane

Last Wednesday was a special anniversary that reminds the world of unspeakable evil. On January 27, 1945 an advance group of scouts who broke away from their unit in Oswiecim in Poland, arrived at the gates of Auschwitz.

It was the day that the advancing Red Army began the liberation of the remaining living skeletons at the German death camp. 

And these first days of February celebrate another important date in the history books. On February 2, 1943 the Germans surrendered to the Red Army at Stalingrad on the River Volga. 

It was that great victory that allowed the Russians to move west, eventually arriving in Berlin in May 1945.

The world is always a dark place when we lose our freedom. I have just read a powerful book about the impending doom of what it means to have our bodies and minds incarcerated by evil.

Robert Seethaler’s novel ‘The Tobacconist’ tells the story of young a man, who has the innate goodness and courage to stand up to the all-powerful invading German thugs who arrived in Austria in 1938.

Seethaler weaves a story of so many parts around 17-year-old Franz Huchel, who leaves his sleepy Austrian village and moves to Vienna to work in a kiosk that sells newspapers and magazines. It’s owned by Otto Trsnjek a former friend of his mothers. Franz grew to respect Otto. He listened to him, picked up tips of the trade  and began reading newspapers and magazines.

The world-famous neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud bought his newspaper and cigar at the kiosk. 

On one occasion Franz runs after him to give him his hat which he had left at the Kiosk and so begins a wonderful friendship between 17-year-old Fanz and 81-year-old Sigmund Freud.

Franz meets Anezka at a fair in the city and instantly falls in love with her, or at least so he thinks.

He turns to Freud to discuss his love troubles, who tells him that having worries about women are usually unwise but never unimportant.

 

In a letter he writes to his mother he tells her about his friendship with Freud and that it does not bother him that he is a Jew.

All the time in the background there is the ghost of the arrival of German troops in Austria. It’s not long before the Nazis turn up at the kiosk and take away Otto. It’s the last that Franz sees of him.

While most of Vienna is now giving the Heil Hitler salute, Franz refuses, indeed, lets people know his opposition to the growing darkness.

He is broken-hearted when he discovers that his old fragile friend Sigmund Freud is leaving for London. Unbeknownst  to Freud, Franz stands at the back of the  railway station the day that Freud is boarding his train for his journey to London.

Goodness and courage stay with Franz Huchel right to the end. In the midst of Austria’s overwhelming enthusiasm for the Nazis, the young idealistic man stays loyal to all that is good and right.

‘The Tobacconist’ is a great read. I strongly recommend it.

The 'untalented men' Grossman spotted on the Bug

Wishing all readers of this blog a happy and blessed feast of St Brigid. Today is traditionally held as the first day of Spring in Ireland.

Tomorrow is the anniversary  of the Red Army victory at Stalingrad.

On February 2, 1943 the battle at Stalingrad finally ended. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus of the German 6th Army surrendered. It was the first time in German history that a field marshal surrendered.

There was no cameraman to film the capture of Paulus.

But for the Soviet victory on the River Volga what might have been the course of the war?

Three days earlier in Berlin, on January 30, which was the 10th anniversary of Hitler's coming to power, Goebbels read out a proclamation that included this nonsense: "The heroic struggle of our soldiers on the Volga should be a warning for everybody to do the utmost for the struggle for Germany's freedom and the future of our people, and thus in a wider sense for the maintenance of our entire continent."

On June 22, 1941 the German Army crossed the River Bug. Vasily Grossman in his historical novel 'Stalingrad' writes about that event on the Polish Russian border:

Many of those who were usually most timid and silent, seemingly untalented men whom nobody noticed, revealed a wonderful strength. And sometimes he glimpsed an unexpected void in the eyes of commanders who only the day before had seemed the loudest, most energetic and self-confident; now they seemed lost, crushed and pathetic. [page 112]

What a powerful observation. It was those seemingly untalented and unnoticed men, who changed the tide at Stalingrad and subsequently went on to Berlin.

The KGB spotted Donald Trump in the 1980s

An interesting piece, which argues that the KGB spotted Donald Trump as an asset in the 1980s.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

Gracioiusness is a wonderful gift

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

Michael Commane

In tomorrow’s Gospel St Mark shows that the words spoken by Jesus made a deep impression on his listeners. And a significant reason for that is: “because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority”. (1: 22) St Luke tells his readers that Jesus won approval of all: “And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips”. (Luke 4: 22)

There’s wonderful enthusiasm about that. The people listened to him because he spoke authoritatively and did so in a gracious manner. 

Graciousness is a supreme quality, a wonderful gift. And you know it when you meet it. It is seldom faked. Graciousness brings with it an air of authority; indeed I think it’s fair to say that it complements authority.

Two days after Joe Biden moved into the White House someone commented that he had spoken such gracious words and spoke them with authority. The person went on to say that often when we hear gracious words, we might well forget what was said but remember the graciousness of the person who spoke them. Surely, that’s a lovely thought.

There was a headline in the Guardian newspaper earlier in the month, which ran: “Trapped in a fantasy with no one to shout ‘cut’ ”. 

It was brought to my attention that you could well put so many words in front of that headline which would give it a great resonance. He suggested ‘religious life’. I added the words, priesthood or indeed church. Just as the headline captures the mood of our times, the added words give it an extra reality or vibrancy. It certainly makes for great debate and conversation.

We have just come out of four years listening to a world leader haranguing, insulting, ridiculing and demeaning those who did not agree with him. We are punch-drunk from it all. While Donald Trump may not be the cause of our fatigue and cynicism, he did reflect the confused state of millions of people around the world. 

In this newspaper last week there was an insightful article about QAnon, the deranged conspiracy theory that believes the world is run by a Satanic group of paedophiles and that Donald Trump has spent years leading a top-secret mission to bring these evildoers to justice.

Can you get anything madder than that? Yet it has millions of followers from right across society. Mike Rothschild, who researches conspiracy theories, says about QAnon that it appeals to anyone who is disaffected in any way. 

There is a void, a kind of emptiness affecting our world. Sadly there is precious little graciousness that speaks with authority. And that absence is  noticeable in the Catholic Church in Ireland, indeed, probably in all churches but my competency allows me to speak about the Catholic Church in the country in which I live and work.

Though there are people, who speak with grace and authority, the institution is diminishing in front of our eyes. There is some sort of blindness being perpetrated. And to add to that, there is a development of  cliques, many of which appear extremely right-wing in their views and beliefs.

Whom do we believe, where do we go to hear the truth?

Within the Catholic Church, and I imagine in all churches, there is urgent need for a real and honest discussion. It’s well beyond time when church leadership listened and indeed took a lead from its non-clerical membership. Our church has become crippled by a top-heavy management system, strangled by an unhealthy hierarchical command structure. And the result is that  the people on the ground have stopped listening.

In my job as a hospital chaplain I have the great privilege of being inspired by the faith of the people I meet, patients and staff. When last did the words of a bishop or priest genuinely inspire me? I cannot say. The words and actions I experience as a hospital chaplain are usually suffused with grace and a quiet and confident authority. 

They speak to me as the evangelist Mark describes. I  too am astonished. 

My hope is that when Covid regulations are lifted that I can invite the new Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell to come to the hospital, where I work, and accompany me on my rounds. I shall ask him to leave behind his episcopal ring and cross and experience for himself the lived faith of patients and staff. 

The wisdom and faith of people must be recognised. There is so much to be harnessed. So often there is a graciousness and authority in front of our very eyes.

We need to see it.

Funny money is no laughing matter

A staff member at a Starbuck's shop in Dublin drew a racist caricature on a customer's cup of coffee.

It cost the company €12,000.

In 2019 Ryan Tubridy's RTE salary was €495k.

The Starbuck's employee would have to draw over 45 insulting coffees before it would cost the company Tubridy's RTE salary.

And in the US it's reported that a convicted felon may have paid out $2 million for a Donald Trump pardon.

Rabbi Ephraem Mirvis warns against all forms of racism

The Irish Times yesterday carried an article by Oliver Sears, titled ‘Remembering Holocaust once a year is not enough’.

In the piece, Sears quotes Primo Levi, who said: “The Holocaust happened and it can happen again.”

He also quotes that famous line from Theodore Adorno: “…to write poetry after Auschwitz is an act of barbarism.”

 

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-holocaust-how-to-say-never-again-and-mean-it-1.4468455#.YBFx5BCp4io.mailto

 

Yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’ Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis gave an excellent talk on all forms of racism.

Here’s the link to the talk

Thought for the Day, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis - BBC Radio 4

 

Ephraim Mirvis is currently Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. He was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1985 to 1992.

 

International Holocaust Day

Today is International Holocaust Day.

On January 27, 1945 an advance group of scouts who broke away from their unit in Oswiecim in Poland, arrived at the gates of Auschwitz.

It was the day that the advancing Red Army began the liberation of the remaining living skeletons at the German death camp. 

Yesterday Richard Lutz the head of Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) admitted that today's German rail company is the successor to Deutsche Reichsbahn, and therefore bears a responsibility for the transporting of millions of people to the concentration camps.

Also yesterday the heads of Volkswagen and Daimler Benz, now known as Daimler AG, made a commitment to speaking out against anti-semitism and all forms of racism. 

They were among a number of companies who played a major role in supporting the Hitler terror.

In 2018 Holocaust survivor Salo Muller won a case against the Dutch railway company, whose predecessor carried him and his parents to a German death camp.

German Railways charged a railway fare to those they were transporting to their deaths.

Could there be anything more obscene and absurd?

Trust, like our health is a fragile gift

This week's Independent news & Media Irish regional newspapers' column

Michael Commane

There’s the often trotted out cliché that our health is our wealth. We all say it from time to time but I often wonder do we ever really appreciate what it means to have good health.

Fortunately, I’m relatively fit. I’m walking in the hills, swimming in the sea and cycling a bicycle. Of course a lot of it has to do with our good luck but I also get down on my bended knee to thank my parents for the good start they gave me in life.

But it really is like walking on a tight rope. Anything can happen at any time. It often occurs to me out walking in the hills how easy it would be to trip and break an ankle. 

During the Christmas season a 17-year old boy tripped and fell into the sea in West Kerry and lost his life. The unspeakable pain that must be for his family. An accident can happen at the blink of an eye. 

How many times have I listened to the stories of people recalling the first tell-tale signs of cancer, and then how it slowly but surely changes their lives dramatically. I am forever asking the question what at all is life about.

When our bodies are up and running and at full throttle we can easily think that we are indestructible. And indeed we act accordingly. It’s easy to understand how young healthy people have no conception of what it means not to be able to ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,’ quoting those great words from Muhammad Ali.

It’s such a thin divide between being healthy and well and unhealthy and infirm. It’s as close as one gets to the toss of a coin.

It’s a similar story with trust.

Has it ever dawned on you how we take the notion of trust for granted? Only last week a young mother told me when she goes running she sometimes brings her two young children with her and leaves them at one end of the park, assuring them that she is close by. 

She was explaining to me how her children have absolute trust in her and know exactly that what she is saying is true. They take her word as certain.

And again, we have another cliché for that. We say my word is my bond. It’s a powerful expression. But what happens when it is broken?

Most times, in normal healthy circumstances we take trust as a given, it’s as certain as the air we breathe.

What do we do when we no longer trust a close friend. Indeed, what happens when we lose trust in another person, our boss, a community, an organisation, the place where we work?

 

Certainly, anonymity destroys trust and much of social media is no friend of trust.

Everything about our lives is so fragile. It all seems to hang by a thread. And what’s so strange about it all, we seldom if ever see it in such terms.

When we’re healthy we take it for granted and we take it as a given to trust people. 

But when we have serious health issues it requires great skills to bring us back to health. And so too with trust, when we lose it, it requires great skills to restore it.

Governing is ultimately about choices

Pat Leahy's piece in Saturday's edition of The Irish Times is well worth a read.

It includes a most interesting quote from Barack Obama's most recently published memoir.

Leahy argues that governing is ultimately about choices.

It's a great piece and the next time you are tempted to criticise the Government it might do no harm at all to think of the difficult job they have.

And especially in these uncharted waters, which appears in no text books, Government is constantly having to maker choices.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/school-reopening-the-first-of-many-tough-choices-as-covid-19-numbers-fall-1.4465410#.YA1tecQ1ul0.mailto

Reader enquires about Joe Bergin and Ino Ryan

A reader has enquired about Joe Bergin and Ino Ryan.

A comment giving information on both men has been added to the blogpost of Sunday, April 21, 2019. 

Newest addition to An Post's fleet

Obviously the Irish postal service is adapting to the times.

This is one of An Post's newest addition to its fleet. And it was seen out and about on a Saturday afternoon.

Older people will remember when there were two daily postal deliveries, one in the morning and one in late afternoon. 

When the then Post and Telegraph postal service ceased Saturday deliveries there was a national outcry.

And now what are we seeing? The postwom/an back out delivering on a bicycle.

This new bicycle is battery operated. Then again, it's not a bicycle. How could it be. Three wheels, which makes it a tricycle. Fadó fadó, children called them three-wheelers.

Back in fashion.

What goes round comes round. In more ways than one.

Bye Trump, you changed America, you also changed me

 This is an interesting read.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/21/donald-trump-changed-america-four-years

'Catholic Voice' call for civil disobedience is reprehensible

In a December issue of the Catholic Voice, editor Anthony Murphy writes:

One thing is clear - if the government try to reimpose restrictions and once again ban public worship their[sic] will be little resistance from our bishops and many priests. Therefore we the people must be the ones to lead civil disobedience and we must begin to organise ourselves to do so.

That paragraph appears in a page-long diatribe condemning the bishops, the Association of Catholic Priests and scientists. 

In that same issue the Irish Dominican Province advertises for vocations. 

It is disappointing that the Irish Dominicans would advertise or be associated in any way with such a publication.

Another paragraph goes: Perhaps the most alarming aspect of all this is how readily compliant swathes of the population have been and how easily they surrendered their liberty placing their trust in a group of scientists and politicians far removed from th daily reality of ordinary life. We will be paying the price for the actions of this elite group for many generations to come.

Anthony Murphy is incorrect and he expresses his ignorance in an extraordinary brazen fashion.

Mr Murphy should read the daily figures, check the list of dead and sick across the world. He might talk to front line staff in our hospitals before writing such insulting, indeed, vile words.

The worst possible nonsense.

Cleaning a shore or two could make a big difference

Sleet, rain and snow are forecast for the next number of days. Sun too.

But whatever weather we are about to have in the next fews days we know for sure that it will rain and it's possible there will be flooding in the next weeks.

This is a picture of a shore in south Dubin yesterday.

Might it not be a good idea that Dublin City Council would make sure that all its shores were cleared and ready to take surplus water just in case it might rain.

Such a simple job to clean shores.

Anyone who cycles across Dublin, just take a look down and note the number of shores filled to the brim with debris.

And that of course is replicated all over the land.

It doesn't make any sense.

And wouldn't this be the perfect time to do a big 'clean-up' on our streets' shores when there is so little traffic and kerbside parking clogging up our streets.

Trapped in a fantasy with no one to shout 'cut'

On yesterday's RTE Radio 1's Ryan Tubdridy programme school principal Jarlath or 'Churck' Dunford was interviewed.

He is principal in two-teacher Templemary National School. An impressive man as one of his pupils clearly articulated on Tubridy's Friday programme. Young Anne McDonnell sang Mr Dunford's praises.

On yesterday's programme Jarlath Dunford spoke about his job. At one stage he said: "When you teach children you are all the time brought down to earth quickly".

It reminded me of something the late Dominican Paul Hynes said to me before I began my teaching career. He made that very same point and added that pupils and students will always keep you on your feet and you can never fool them or talk spoof to them.

Wise words.

And if one thinks about it. Are Mr Dunbford's words not an insight into the importance of fatherhood/motherhood. 

Cutting away from all the pretend talk is there really a value or purpose in priestly celibacy in today's world?

This was a subheading on a Guardian article last week: Trapped in a fantasy with no one to shout 'cut'.

A colleague edited the subheading and wrote: Religious Life - trapped in a fantasy with no one to shout 'cut'.

And you could easily replace religious life with priesthood.

Rainbows right at our own feet

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

Michael Commane

I noticed they were taking down the Christmas decorations in our hospital after the feast of the Epiphany, January 6. As the wise men only arrived on January 6, the crib is still in situ in the hospital oratory. The experts tell me it comes down on Candlemas Day or the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, February 2.

And what’s happened all the Christmas gifts, where are all the toys and presents that Santa brought? How much of the Christmas magic is still in our daily lives?

My mother died in 1988 and dad in 2004, and honestly, since the death of my father I’ll just quietly say that Christmas has never been the same.

So, was there a standout moment for me this Christmas? 

Indeed, there was a number. A man who had been a patient in the hospital in early 2019 sent me a Christmas Card, wishing me well and telling me, that all was good with him and family and that he was back at work. Most likely he will never know what he touched in my soul. 

The privilege to know that someone thought of me and wished me well at Christmas. And remember, it was almost two years since we met. I can imagine the kindness and goodness that he radiates in his job.

Sometime in November I spotted two young women locked out of their newly rented house after 6pm. The door had closed on them and the key was inside. They had no idea what to do. I was passing so I offered any help I could. I did not manage to open the door but I did call a locksmith, who arrived within minutes and solved the problem.

Come Christmas they arrived with a card and a small gift. Again, they had the grace and kindness to do that.

Some weeks before Christmas I had an unpleasant experience with a work colleague. It was as much my fault as his. But after Christmas I approached him and we mended fences. It was a lovely sense of relief. 

At least any embarrassment on meeting was now gone.

I keep saying that it’s the little things that make such a difference in our lives.

The current Covid pandemic provides us with an obvious example of how important such small acts as washing our hands, wearing a mask and keeping our distance are.

We are who we are, we are challenged every day to live with ourselves and the unique gifts we have been given. It’s up to each one of us to do the best we can. 

But it’s for us to catch the moment and see the wonder and greatness in the small, every day experiences we encounter.

No, it’s not at all that our lives are humdrum, anything but. There’s always the temptation to chase rainbows. It makes no sense because do you know what, they are right at our feet.

That does not mean that we ever tolerate any forms of injustice or wrongdoing. While we have to hang our heads in shame at the wrong that has been perpetrated in the past we have to be brave and fearless, always to speak truth to power.

The Irish Catholic Church needs a Willy Brandt moment

On December 7, 1970 the then German Chancellor Willy Brandt fell to his knees at the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto.

On December 7 last year on the 50th anniversary of what happened at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial, German Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas said of the famous event in Warsaw:

"Brandt’s falling to his knees was an admission of German guilt – for the crimes of the Holocaust and the war of annihilation against Poland. The Chancellor bowed before Polish suffering and before the courage of the Jews who dared to revolt against the German occupiers in the ghetto uprising of 1943. Back at home, many accused him of exaggeration or even treason. The erstwhile exile bore no personal guilt. The Chancellor knelt, although he did not need to. He knelt for those who needed – but were unwilling – to kneel.

"In 1970, Brandt signed the Treaty of Warsaw in the Polish capital – a turning point in German-Polish relations with the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border. The Nazis had unleashed their racial-ideological war of annihilation against Poland in 1939. Brandt’s falling to his knees at the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto therefore acknowledged all Polish victims of the war – including the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. That is why it is so important that the German Bundestag finally decided to commemorate the Polish and all other Eastern European victims of the war of annihilation with dignified memorials in Germany in the future."

Not for a moment can what happened in Ireland be remotely compared to what Nazi Germany did, nevertheless, some profound, public act of apology from a Catholic Church leader might prove a moment of reconciliation.

Yesterday Archbishop Eamon Martin was interviewed on RTE Radio 1's lunchtime news. While making a number of worthwhile points it was a weak interview in the context of all that has been said and written during the past week.

The Archbishop-elect of Dublin, Dermot Farrell in a sermon in St Mary's Cathedral, Kilkenny yesterday also spoke of how children and unmarried mothers were treated. Again he admitted to the wrong-doing, but there was no one sentence in his sermon that would catch the moment.

The Irish Catholic Church needs a Willy Brandt gesture, a Willy Brandt moment. Who is going to deliver it?

Netflix film on Berlin's Charité hospital not to be missed

Currently on Netflix, Charité comes highly recommended. It was first screened on Germany's ARD in 2017.

The film traces the history of the famous Berlin hospital, where Robert Koch and Emil von Behring made their discoveries. And then the rivalry between the two great men.

Plus the thought that Hoechst AG will make them wealthy men.

Koch's famous divorce to marry Hedwig Freiberg.                  

The hospital has survived the German Reich, the Weimar Republic, the Nazis, East Germany and now once again, flourishes in a united Germany. Focus magazine voted it Germany's best clinic in 2017.

Because of the research at the hospital and the rush to cure tuberculosis and diptheria the film is particularly apposite in the time of Covid and another rush to find a vaccine.

Then the story of religion, anti-semitism, homosexuality and, indeed, heterosexuality.

At the end of the 19th century is was still not possible in the German Reich for a woman to study medicine.

A powerful series and not to be missed. 

Washington riot reminds Germans of century-old myth

This is an excellent piece. It appeared in The Irish Times last Saturday. Certainly well worth a read.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/washington-riot-reminds-germans-of-century-old-myth-1.4453502#.X_scAxd1u4A.mailto

Annoying letters with annoying errors

Do you ever parse a letter you receive?

It's annoying when large corporations give the impression in correspondence that they are on familiar terms with the addressee. 

It's also annoying when people use terms of endearment, when you know well they don't mean a word of it.

How do you deal with errors of grammar and syntax, especially in letters that are annoying?

David Hanly of 'Morning Ireland' fame, when working on the programme, always insisted that no presenter on his programme would ever use the word presently incorrectly.

It's part of Hanly's legacy that RTE always uses presently correctly.

Presently, in these parts of the world, means in the immediate future and does not mean currently or at present.

The dogs in the street know that the word number takes the singular.

There is often an interesting  link between the use of uppercase letters and the self-importance of the writer.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss comes highly recommended to anyone, who is a regular letter writer, as does Alex Games' Balderdash & Piffle.

Any organisation worth its salt would have a house style-guide. 

When it comes to sexuality we are all hypocrites -Freud

The cruelty of the church, the State and the acquiescence of the Irish citizenship must make all of us hang our heads in shame.

To take a child from its mother is an unspeakable crime. To lock up women because they become mothers is another unspeakable crime.

And while all of that was happening the majority of Irish people offered a silly reverence to priests and sisters, who were asked to be celibate.

Is there any explanation for it? Does anyone know what advantage or what gifts celibacy brings to a human being?

But the line from Sigmund Freud is worth quoting; "In matters of sexuality we are at present, every one of us, ill or well, nothing but hypocrites."

It's surely a brilliant line.

Robert Seethaler's The Tobacconist throws some light on the mayhem/the wonder/the danger/the loneliness/the failure of human sexuality.

Seethaler is an Austrian writer. His book, The Tobacconist, published in German in 2012 proved a best seller and was made into a film.

A young man moves from his small village to Vienna in the 1930s. Hitler is in the background. The young man has his first sexual experience during his early days in the Austrian capital. He's confused, accidentally meets Freud and so goes the conversation.