Interview with Sahra Wagenknecht

Sahra Wagenknecht, the rising star of Die Linke gave an hour-long interview on German 3sat this evening.

A remarkable interview with an astonishing woman.

She argues that capitalism as we know it is the enemy of the people and quotes Goethe to argue her point.

The former PDS member argues for a war against the banks and the capitalist employers who have only one purpose - to make more profit for their shareholders.

The wonder and support of a child

In Vasily Grossman's 'Time and Fate', Getmanov, a hardened commissar to a tank corps says; "a soldier can harden himself to anything. He can warm himself with smoke and shave with an awl. But what a soldier can never get used to is living apart from his children".

German State agency spies on Die Linke

The German story of the week is the revelation that the German Internal Security Service - Bundesverfassungsschutz - has been 'spying' 'observing' the behaviour of the Left Party - Die Linke.

On Gunther Jauch this evening a Mrs Lenksfeld - a former critic of the East German State, has expressed her belief that Die Linke, behind all its 'democratic show' hankers after a return to the old SED State. She argues that the party does not want to abide by the constitution.

Mrs Lengfeld's husband worked as an agent for the Stasi and spied on his wife.

Is it part of the German psyche to spend their lives spying on one another?

It seems they do it in the modern Federal Republic. They did it in the GDR state and then there was the Gestapo.

The current rational for the action of the Internal Security Service is that Die Linke are capable of not staying within the constitution.

Strange, eigenartig.

Anniversary date of liberation at Auschwitz

Sixty-seven years ago today the Soveit Army arrived at the gates of Auschwitz.

Some years ago a Dublin Jew who worked as a dentist remarked that he could never set foot on German soil after what the Germans had done.

Anyone who reads Vasily Grossman's 'Time and Fate' must understand why the Dublin dentist felt as he did.

It wasn't just a handful of crazy Nazis who slaughtered millions but armies of Germans.

Reading Grossman and seeing what they did in Russia is really unimaginable.

One of the great success stories of the EU is the reality that we experience today.

Alleluia for the EU and peace in Europe.

A niece writes from the US on her uncle

For more comment on TP McInerney, scroll down.

Der Spiegel suggests police cover-up

The story below appears in today's 'Irish Times'.

Is this simply a German story, a German police story, a BND story, a Stasi story? Or is it simply the story of all agencies and authorities who wield power over other people.

Does it happen in Dublin, does it happen in the church, does it happen everywhere?

It is a shocking story.

This happened a mere 22 years since the Gestapo were doing similar tricks on the same streets in Berlin.

Is it all hopeless?

ONE BULLET was all it took to change the course of German history. The shot, on June 2nd, 1967, killed a West Berlin student, enraged a generation and sparked the student revolution that found its extreme end in the 1970s campaign of extreme-left terrorism.


The man who fired the shot, policeman Karl-Heinz Kurras, claimed during his trial that he fired his gun during a struggle – and he was acquitted. Four decades later, Kurras was exposed as an informer for the East German secret police, the Stasi, his file filling 17 folders.

That revelation prompted speculation that his actions were that of an agent provocateur.

Now Der Spiegel has published documents that suggest the killing was not a Stasi conspiracy, but a West Berlin police cover-up.

The cover-up began around West Berlin’s Deutsche Oper on June 2nd with the visit of the Iranian Shah, Resa Pahlewi. At a protest against his repressive regime, students waved banners and threw stones, paintballs and tomatoes. West Berlin police intervened, beating student protesters and chasing others as they escaped.

Police officer Kurras ran onto the courtyard of a side-street apartment where, during questioning later, he claimed he was surrounded by an “out-of- control mob”. He pulled his Walther PPK pistol and, following two warning shots, fired a third time.

The following day on the news, he claimed he learned that this final shot had wounded Benno Ohnesorg, fatally.

Despite “doubts” about Kurras’s version of events, his trial judge released him saying there was no evidence the police officer deliberately targeted the student.

However, newly uncovered photos threw fresh doubt on Kurras’s version. He was not surrounded by a mob of students, rather Ohnesorg was, in his last moments, surrounded by police officers. A series of photos suggest Kurras – later cropped out – approached the student from behind. Seconds later Ohnesorg is lying on the ground, bleeding profusely. Digital magnification and retouching has revealed Kurras’s shocked face, staring at the ground with wide eyes.

Claims of a Stasi conspiracy are, Der Spiegel suggests, far-fetched. A police cover-up to protect one of their own seems more likely.

In an audio recording from the scene a man, believed to be Kurras’s superior, is heard shouting: “Kurras, get back! Away! Quick, go!” Photos exist of the two men standing near each other in the courtyard. At the trial, however, the same officer said he never saw Kurras at the scene.

Later, in hospital, doctors sewed up the gunshot wound after their autopsy, while the piece of Ohnesorg’s skull shattered by the bullet vanished the next day. The cause of death was recorded: “Head injuries through blunt instrument.”

“It’s far worse than our worst fantasies at the time,” said Hans- Christian Ströbele, a former student leader, now Green Party Bundestag MP. “If someone told us all this, then we’d have written it off as a conspiracy theory.”

Questioned by Der Spiegel last week about the shooting, Mr Kurras (86) said: “I’m not well, enough has been written about that.”

Another comment on TP McInerney

And yet another comment on the late Fr TP McInerney.

Maybe it is here on this blog provincial news could be disseminated in an open, lively and readable manner and to a larger readership. Away from the sterile 'churchy stuff'.

Remembering Tom Pat McInerney OP

There are now 12 comments posted in reply to the blog on the death of Fr TP McInerney, included one from his nephew, Laurence O'Dwyer.

Thank you to those who contributed. And this blog welcomes any further contributions on TP.

Simply scroll down to see the blog entry and subsequent comments.

So much of the story in the detail

In the General Instruction of the Missal in paragraph 135 'reader' is spelled with a lower case 'r' but 'priest' is spelled with an upper case 'p'. Why?

'Homily' is with upper case 'h' but 'cantor' with lower case 'c'.

And 'faithful' with lower case 'f'

It reminds one of the Cork joke about the woman walking along the Lee, who shouts out; "help, help, my son the engineer is drowning".

As silly as that.

There is a story behind everything.

Timothy Radcliffe talks in Killarney

Author, poet and journalist Breda Joy files the following.

Breda was a colleague of mine when we both worked at The Kerryman.

The piece below appears in the current issue of Kerry's Eye.


 A Dominican priest, who said the ‘whole thing’ was a waste of time if Christians were not marked by joy, captivated an audience of about 500 people in the Malton Hotel, Killarney, last week.

 Amost twice as many people as were expected turned out to hear the international speaker, Fr Timothy Radcliffe, address the question, ‘Why Be a Christian’ on Wednesday night.  The partition in the hotel’s conference centre had to be rolled back and extra seating provided.
 
The English Dominican was in Killarney from Tuesday to Friday to address about 80 priests from the Diocese of Kerry during their annual retreat in the Malton.

 Fr Padraig Walsh, PP, Saint Brendan’s, Tralee,  said they had enjoyed his humour, insights and theological understanding. Fr Walsh quoted the Archibishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who praised the Dominican as ‘one of the most lively and creative preachers of Gospel in the Catholic Church today’.

 Posing the question why be a Christian, Fr Radcliffe said, “First of all we should be marked by joy. If you don’t see joy, the whole thing is a waste of time.”

 “The most joyful people know what sorrow is,” he said. “Joy should not be incompatible with sorrow.
 
Asked by a member of the audience what was the source of that joy, he replied, “The knowledge that you are accepted totally as you are. This is the deepest part of joy - we are loved as we are.”

 Fr Radcliffe based his talk on the theme of living the Gospel as the face, ears, mouth and hands of Christ.
 
“When you love someone, the most important thing is that they smile at you,” he said. “When we smile at someone, we show their value to everyone else.”

“So that is our first mission, to offer God’s loving look,” he said. “We must learn to be the face of God rejoicing in people.”
 
Stressing the value of listening as ‘one of the greatest arts in the world’, Fr Radcliffe said Christians were not sales people marketing God as the answer to everything.

 “We start where people are and with what they want,” he said. “Sometimes we are afraid to listen because we are disturbed by what they
say.”

 He quoted Pope John Paul 11 who said, ‘If the heart is open, the mind understands’.
 
“And the biggest moral issue is this: do we offer people life-giving words that build them, that value them and cherish them. Or do we offer nasty words that accuse and undermine, that denigrate people?” he said.

 “So if we are to be the mouth of Jesus today, then we first have to speak words that cherish and reverence people, expecially the people whom others rubbish and who feel on the edge and despised for it is these are God’s friends.”

 An interview with Fr Radcliffe on the Radio Kerry programme, ‘Horizons’, can be listened to on the website, www.dioceseofkerry.ie.

GLENCAR CONNECTION WITH ACCLAIMED PREACHER

 Memories of summer holidays spent as a young Dominican student in the Climber’s Inn, Glencar, were recalled by Fr Radcliffe at the opening of his talk. The students spent a week every summer in the bar and hostel in the heart of the Ring of Kerry.
 
“We enjoyed huge pints of Guinness, walks in the mountains and hours talking theology,” he said. “We could stay on these bunk beds for 50p a night. It wasn’t like the Malton Hotel.”
 

New verb in the German language - wulffen

A new word has appeared in the German language. It is a verb - wulffen. It means to say something which is not the full truth or a total lie. It has another meaning, to be deceitful.

This verb has evolved from the current controversy concerning President Christian Wulff.

Seventy years after Wannsee

Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference. It was there that Heydrich oversaw the final plans for the annihilation of European Jewry.

German writer Hans Fallada refers to 1942 as the year of unimaginable shame.

Anyone who ever expresses the slightest of anti-Semitic views is doing great dishonour to the millions of Jews killed by the barbarism of Nazi Germany.

German President Christian Wulff said yesteerday it was the darkest hour ever in their history.

To express anti-Semitic views in the context of religion is an unspeakable crime.

Death of TP McInerney OP

TP McInerney, an Irish Dominican, died in Mount Carmel Hospital today.

Since August Tom has been a patient most of that time in the south Dublin hospital.

I have had the grace and good fortune to visit him most evenings.

His patience and kind spirits have greatly impressed me.

Last evening, on my asking, he told me he had not had too good a day.

It's seldom in my life I have seen such bravery and fortitude.

I shall miss him. My daily visit had become part of my routine.

May he rest in peace.

From new missal to a closed door

Two weeks ago this blog published a piece on the new missal. The piece later appeared on the website of the Association of Catholic priests.

It received close to 30 comments, some favourable and some unfavourable. The conversation/comments moved from a discussion on the missal to the new door building proposals at Maynooth and then on to seminarians being 'closed off' from their fellow students.

In ways the comment development on the missal piece on the ACP website has been bizarre.

Or is it?

Cloistered seminarians

Letter in today's 'Irish Times'

Sir, – I was disappointed to read in Noel Whelan’s column (Opinion, January 14th) that the few seminarians in Maynooth are to be locked in behind newly erected doors, seemingly on foot of a recommendation of the apostolic visitors that Pope Benedict sent to Ireland last year.

Today’s seminarians are usually so rigidly pious and theologically conservative that, I reckon, they require regular exposure to secular reality rather than incarceration in a spiritual ghetto, even if that is where they prefer to be. Should these seminarians be eventually ordained, they will have to minister in a complex world, not in an incense-filled cocoon. – Yours, etc,

Fr KEVIN HEGARTY,

Carne, Belmullet, Co Mayo.

Sodano, the nephew and the money

The story on Cardinal Sodano and his nephew's company in yesterday's Irish Times seems a long distance off from what the Gospel might be about.

If the story is true, can church 'officials' be happy with this type of behaviour?

Worldwide penetration

This blog is now read on a daily basis on every continent on earth.

Nasty tricks of State and telephone company

This column appears in this week's Independent News and Media Irish regional newspapers.

By Michael Commane
Some time back in this column, I wrote about the German writer, Hans Fallada, and his book 'Alone in Berlin'.

Another of his books is 'Little Man, What Now', a brilliant account of what life was like for the ordinary person in Berlin before Hitler came to power. It’s a great read.

These days, I’m forced to think about the fictional characters created by Fallada in a frightened and depressed Germany. All the time the dice was clearly stacked against the small person. The person, who had little. Those ‘little’ people were scared and behaved accordingly.

I received my telephone bill from my mobile phone provider last week. The bill was issued on January 3.

On the first page it gives me an overall breakdown.

Then down on the bottom I read VAT at 23 per cent

It wasn’t until the next day it dawned on me: the phone bill was for December 2011. Why was I being charged VAT at 23 per cent when the rate changed from 21 only on January 1?

I jumped through all the automated voice hoops and eventually got through to ‘customer service’. All that call did was annoy me. To the company, it all is a fait accompli. That was that.

I was mad. I called the Revenue Commissioners. Eventually, I got through to a nice, apparently kind, man. He is surprised I have been put through to him as it is not his area of competence. But he takes my details, assures me he will make some enquiries and get back to me.

True to his word, within two hours he calls back and explains to me that my bill is correct. The ruling is that bills issued after January 1, the day the new VAT rate came into operation, charge the new rate. He cited some rules and regulations explaining why the VAT charge works like this.

He seemed like a good man and I got the impression he was embarrassed explaining the ruling to me.

I don’t care what the rules and regulation are. I firmly believe that the Irish State has stolen money from me and all those thousands like me. With the VAT charge it has behaved in a deceitful, even fraudulent way.

If I was billed for services provided when the VAT rate was 21 per cent, then sure under natural law, never mind common sense, why should I, or anyone else, be charged at the new, higher rate?

It’s not fair. But much worse, it makes the ordinary person feel powerless and alienated.

This is a crass rule and I, as a citizen, don’t like it. In so many ways it demoralises me, especially when I see what the wealthy get away with – usually the ones who make the rules.

The kind Revenue man told me that if the VAT had gone down then I would have availed of the reduced rate. When last did VAT decrease by two per cent?

The various telephone providers offer myriad deals to customers. My package gives me one gigabyte of data plus ‘free’ calls to subscribers who use the same provider. In addition, I have 100 ‘free’ text messages and 100 ‘free’ minutes to subscribers of other networks.

I monitor it like a hawk, constantly checking how I stand as the month progresses.

On December 31 at 13.26 my telephone provider tells me via an SMS that I have 17 any-network minutes and five free SMSs. Yet, when my bill comes I am charged for four text messages, although I have five to spare.

I telephone them. They agree with me and credit my account for four text messages. I forgot to check if the VAT they added was the 23 per cent!

Okay, this is all about a few cent.

How many people are as crazy as I and check their bill in such detail?

What chance has the little woman/man got?

What in God’s name must it be like for the close to half a million people who have no jobs?

There’s something wrong and tinkering with the edges ain’t going to work.

Whatever is done, the little man has to feel important. At least more important than she or he does right now.

People come first and the Gospel tells us the little woman/man should be a key player.

Much comment to the missal column on ACP site

The piece on this blog about the new missal is now on the website of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).

So far 20 people have responded to the column.

Again it is interesting to read the tone and style of the anonymous comments.

Major plans at Maynooth - to close a door

This week's 'Irish Catholic' carries a story about reforms at the national seminary in Maynooth.

According to the story, doors are being closed in Maynooth as a result of the papa visitation.

This is the lead story in this week's 'Irish Catholic'

A mix of canonical snobbery and holy lore

The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.

By Michael Commane
If you’ve been at Mass anytime in the last six weeks you will most likely have noticed changes in many of the prayers.

It’s often said that it is not a good idea to write down one’s thoughts in time of anger. And that indeed is a wise sentiment. But there are always exceptions to rules and I’m going to avail of that exception in this week’s column.

I’ve been using the new missal since its introduction on the first Sunday of Advent. And before I say another word I want to stress that since my priestly ordination in 1974, I’ve always celebrated the liturgy as prescribed.

Celebrating Mass on the first Sunday after Christmas, which was the feast of the Mother of God, I used the new missal.

Though it was not my first time to use it, it was my first time to use the first Eucharist Prayer.

Who is responsible for this change?

By trade I’m a teacher of English, German and religious knowledge. Also I write this column, and I am a contributor to a daily national newspaper. I spent six years working as a sub editor at a newspaper. At present I work as a press officer with Concern Worldwide. So I think it’s fair to say, I have a certain competence when it comes to the English language in both written and spoken form.

While I have no special expertise in liturgy, I do have a post-graduate degree in theology.
But I am at a loss to know what prevenient grace is. And I have to think twice before I understand what ‘oblation’ means.

Many of the opening prayers are simply unintelligible. Reading this arcane language one gets lost and simply has no idea what it’s about. It is impossible to pray these words. Sometimes there are up to 50 words in a sentence.

The opening prayer, which they now call the ‘collect’, regularly contains unwieldy long sentences where it is almost impossible to spot the main verb.

The new missal breaks the rules of English. It seems to set up its own rule-book when it comes to the use of capital or upper-case letters. Why should, for instance the word ‘angel’ be uppercased when it is after all a common noun?

By the way, how many people attending Mass know what the word ‘Collect’ means?
Some of the responses that have been introduced are so insignificant, they are silly. Yet, it means people have to familiarise themselves with the changes. It looks like change for the sake of change.

Has it been spotted that the new missal has been printed in Italy. Wonderful. How much money has left Ireland so that this new book is forced down our throats?

But what worries me most of all is something far deeper and more far reaching.

As I have already said, I was ordained a priest in 1974, that’s not far off 40 years, not a short time in anyone’s calculations. And in that time I have been made aware of a ‘culture’, an ‘attitude’, ‘a way of thinking’ that causes me great concern.

I believe that there is something profoundly unhealthy about a ‘piousity’ that seems to give the impression that some people are ‘closer’ to God in the words they use and a particular lifestyle that one might perceive they are living. Sometimes a type of piousness seems to give people the idea that they have special privileges.
More needs to be written and discussed on this subject!

The missal is trying to create some sort of ‘exclusive show’, some sort of canonical snobbery. God love us.

For instance why not call her ‘Mary the Mother of God’ rather than ‘Holy Mary the Mother of God’, as the new missal does?

Harsh to say, but all this ‘holy stuff’ gives me the creeps. And that’s partly from my lived experience as a priest and the nonsense that I have seen. I’d prefer to use the word ‘unhealthy’. I’ll leave it at that for now.

I am flabbergasted that not a single Irish bishop has said a word about the poor quality of living English in the new missal.

Have any provincials or congregational leaders expressed opposition to the missal?

This new missal is making an attempt to introduce the ‘holy lore’. My prayer is that it will fail. Perhaps, more constructively said, I hope it will be re-visited and next time printed in Ireland.

Lidl PR creates its own myths

This evening German television station ARD screened a programme on Lidl.

It examined the store under four headings.

The idea that Lidl is cheapest is exaggerated.

Shoppers do not experience any inordinate stress when shopping in the stores.

Quality is more or less okay.

When it comes to fairness, Lidl has much to do. It buys products in countries such as Bangladesh where factories, which produce for Lidl pay their staff €30 per month.

The programme accused Lidl of sharp practices in its relationship with staff.

Any chance RTE could produce a similar style programme?

Demonstrations outside Berlin's Schloß Bellevue

There were demonstrations outside the residence of the German President in Berlin today.

President Christian Wulff now seems to be in an untenable situation.

It's how we treat one another that matters

The 'Thinking Anew' column that appears in today's Irish Times

Again this Christmas, Christian churches around the world were filled to capacity as people celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ and their belief in the incarnation.

With Christmas over for another year, the numbers attending will dwindle and churches will have more free space, in some cases it will be a matter of handfuls attending liturgical services.

There has been some discussion of late as to how one decides whether or not a person can call himself or herself a Christian. Once baptised, can we claim life-long membership to a particular faith? When can a person say they are Anglican, Catholic, Episcopalian, or indeed any of the various Christian denominations?

German writer Heinrch Böll observed that once a person is born a Communist or Catholic, they die a Communist or Catholic. But it probably is not as simple as that. Equally, how often a person attends church is an unreliable guide to their faith. It is also not helpful to speak of à la carte Catholics or Anglicans.

Does one have to believe categorically in every dogma of faith in order to say one is a believer in a particular religion? If that were so, our churches would be even more sparsely attended than they are at present. Such a doctrinaire viewpoint can't be healthy and indeed, would force us to relegate so much of our history to a nonsense.

Tomorrow the western Christian churches celebrate the baptism of the Lord.

On one hand, it might sound an odd sort of feast. Why should God made man be baptised?

Tomorrow's feast is a clarion call to all Christians to realise the importance of living out belief in God made man in the community in which we find ourselves in the here and now.

Jesus Christ, God incarnate, is baptised into the community and once that happens, Mark tells us a voice comes from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you". (Mark 1: 11)

Of course there are many aspects to Christianity, as there are to everything else in life. But Christianity can only be lived in the context of community. And the baptism of Jesus puts that great stamp of authenticity on living the Christian life in community. Jesus is a member of the community and lives his life in the community. Ultimately some sections of the community reject him and put him to death.

Close to 15 per cent of our population is unemployed. According to a survey carried out for the Samaritans, 70 per cent of the population are worried about what's in store for them and their families in 2012.

People are nervous, very little is secure. So much of what we thought was as safe as houses is falling through our hands like sand.

But whatever happens we are part of/members of a community. And as Christians, we belive that the favour of God rests in a very special way on those who give themselves to their communities.

Liturgies, dogmas, hierarchies, all play their role in living Christian communities, but it is when people behave in a just and charitable way towards their fellow human beings that it is then really possible for all of us to see in such clear terms God's favour shining down on top of us.

Of course church attendance, our prayer life, our acceptance of dogma, play significant roles in the living out of the Christian life, but the real hallmark of the woman or man is how she or he treats fellow human beings, bringing about the presence of God in the here and now. Sometimes it takes difficult and challenging times to make us focus our attention on the real priorities.

The months and years ahead may well reveal aspects of Christianity that have very little to do with church attendance or what words we use to express our faith.

Of course we will be surprised and God's favour will shine in places least expected, just as it did at the river Jordan on the occasion of the baptism of the Lord.

But the women and men, who will carry their cross and shine a light of hope on all of us, will be people, who speak of justice and charity and act on it, no matter what the cost.


Michael Commane OP

German President in deep trouble

German President Christian Wulff was interviewed on television last evening in connection with the 'loan affair'.

Today Bild Zeitung newspaper questions the veracity of what he said in the interview.

They have asked President Wulff if they can publish the message he left on their answering machine.

The President has asked that the publishing of the information appear after his return from the Gulf States.

Real terrorists are the powerful - Rose Dugdale

This morning the John Murray show on RTE Radio 1 carried an interview with Rose Dugdale.

Ms Dugdale spoke of her time in the IRA.

Right through the interview she kept repeating that the real terrorists in our world are the rich and powerful, who plunder and steal from the poor and marginalised.

She referred to the drone attacks on Afghan innocent people.

It made for great radio.

TG4 are screening a documentary on Rose Dugdale at 22.30.

No cheap bank holiday rates with UPC

People who use UPC telephony be aware that their cheap rates apply from 19.00 to 07.00.

They charge a connection fee on every call, which is €0.06.5c.

Their weekend rate is from 19.00 on Friday to 07.00 on Sunday morning. They do not give cheap rates from bank or public holidays

Pope's people share tricks with Kim Jong-un team

Today's Irish Independent caries a story on Vatican silence on the appointment of new bishops in Ireland.

A spokesman for the Catholic Communications Office said: "It is the sole decision of the Holy Father when a new bishop will be appointed."

This type of language is not helpful. One is forced to draw parallels between the nonsense of what we hear about Kim Jong-un and the pope.

Are people asked to believe that the pope singularly knows every priest in the world?

It really is silly and time the church stopped speaking this crazy language.

In response to dog column

The letter below appeared in last week's Wicklow People and Bray People.

Dear Editor,

It was with great hope and admiration that I read the article by Fr Michael Commane in last week's Bray and Wicklow People, December 14.

I don't usually read religious articles but the photograph of the caged dogs drew my attention.

The article was full of compassion and caring and has gone some way, I hope, to highlight the plight of the many abandoned and unwanted animals in our country today. It is also in complete contrast to the dreadful images of priests blessing hunt dogs and horses whose masters force them to hunt and destroy peace-loving creatures in our countryside.

Every creature has a right to life and no animal should be used or abused by anyone. It is hard sometimes to reconcile that we 'humans' are the superior beings, but then someone like Fr. Commane comes along and reaffirms that noble conviction.

Hopefully the compassionate humans will outnumber the uncaring and cruel ones.

Puppy farming is another industry in this country that we should be thoroughly ashamed of. People who breed and sell pups just to anyone with no regard to the suitability of either dog or owner ought to be ashamed.

How many people have bought a pup when there are thousands being put to sleep in Irish pounds every year? Most by the very organisation that purports to protect and prevent cruelty to animals.

The ISPCA destroy about 50 per cent of the dogs that come into its pounds. Compare this with 27 per cent of dogs that go into local authority run pounds. There has to be something seriously wrong there.

Please don't ever buy a dog. If people refused to do so there would be more homes for unwanted animals. Most people do not realise that what they are told by most breeders and what is the actual truth about the conditions these unfortunate animals are kept in are often miles apart.

Please listen to the words of Fr. Commane and re-home a dog or cat rather than perpetrate a life of misery on 'puppy farm' dogs. Always neuter your pet, they would thank you for it if they could.

God bless all the caring people out there who do their best for animals everywhere.
Happy Christmas and keep up the good work.
Yours faithfully,

Fiona Gammell
Wicklow Animal Welfare
Ballinaclash
Rathdrum

Mixing God's name and prayers with credit cards

One of the US provinces of the Dominican Order is sending out begging letters.

One or two of the sentences in a letter posted on December 29 are worth quoting.
"I recently shared with you a detailed reporting of how God has used your gifts in 2011 to help the Dominicans sustain the 'Springtime of Renewal' in the Church."

What exactly is the 'Springtime of Renewal'? Is not a terrible retrenchment the church is experiencing?

At the end of the mailing there is a PS: "When making a credit care donation on our safe online giving form, don't forget to share your prayer intentions in the 'Special Request' box.

Should there not be some authority within the Dominican Order that prohibits this mix of tomfoolery,nonsense, maybe simony, from being disseminated?

Salmon sites on river bed

Salmon spawning on the Dodder near Donnybrook Garage. A fox at the Nine Arches in Milltown.
And a significant additional five minutes of daylight in the evening.

Happy New year.