God in the great outdoors

Below is the "Thinking Anew" column in today's Irish Times.

Michael Commane

It was probably September 1981 when a first-year pupil at Newbridge College, which was then a boys' boarding school, sat on the bank of the Liffey and began to cry. It was his first week in the school and he had come from Donegal.

He simply could not believe that there was not a mountain in sight. He realised he was in a foreign country and such a break from home was too much for him. 

He survived, managed and grew accustomed to flat Kildare.

I have said it before in this column how fortunate I am to have been introduced to the Wicklow Hills. As students at the Dominican Priory in Tallaght in the 1970s heading to the hills was one of the few great recreations we had. It has stood the test of time and whatever about any philosophy or theology learned and forgotten, the lure of the great outdoors has left a permanent impression.

Back then it was on the rarest of occasions that one bumped into other walkers. We had the mountains to ourselves, whether it was on Lugnaquillia, Scarr or Tonlagee. And then the exhaustion that followed.

On one occasion we cycled from Tallaght to Donard, climbed the Lug and did it all in one day. But even in the then-strict Tallaght Priory, we were dispensed from early Morning Prayer the following day.

Hill walking came to an abrupt end when my friend and fellow Dominican died 12 years ago of a heart attack. Fortuitously, through work, I have met up with a colleague who knows the hills like the back of his hand and I'm back roaming about in the Wicklow and Kerry mountains. He does all the navigating.

These days Ireland Inc. uses the hills, rivers and natural beauty of the place to sell the country as the ideal place to come on vacation. It's working. More and more people are out and about discovering the beauty of the place.

There is nowhere in Ireland more than a few short kilometres from natural beauty and it's simply crazy that we would ever let it pass us by.

In tomorrow's Gospel (Mark 6: 30 - 34) Jesus suggests to his apostles that they take off to a quiet place to get away from the "madding crowd".

The attraction of the message of Jesus is so persuasive that it is almost impossible for him and his apostles to get away to a quiet place.Is it possible to get any sort of "total picture" of the world if we are not someway or other in touch with the beauty of the world about us? That beauty is powerfully evident in the hills, valleys and rivers which surround us.

The most uneducated glimpse of the world, will make us aware of the importance of protecting it.

Pope Francis in his encyclical  "Laudato Si" speaks about the environment as a relationship between nature and the society which lives in it. "Nature cannot be regarded as something separate from ourselves or as a mere setting in which we live. We are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it." (139)

Discovering the beauty and wonder of our natural environment gives us a great opportunity to get a glimpse of the greatness of God's creation. It also gives us time and space to relax and take some time out.


But maybe most of all it gives us an appreciation of the importance of the challenge we have in protecting all that is good about our environment.

Whether in Kildare or Donegal, Rome or Berlin, the world is the cherished creation of God.

German claim for hegemony in Europe - Habermas

German philosopher Jürgen Habermas writes in today's Guardian on the Greek crisis.

Below is an excerpt.

"Forcing the Greek government to agree to an economically questionable, predominantly symbolic privatisation fund cannot be understood as anything other than an act of punishment against a left-wing government. It’s hard to see how more damage could be done.

"And yet the German government did just this when finance minister Schaeuble threatened Greek exit from the euro, thus unashamedly revealing itself as Europe’s chief disciplinarian. 

"The German government thereby made for the first time a manifest claim for German hegemony in Europe – this, at any rate, is how things are perceived in the rest of Europe, and this perception defines the reality that counts. 

"I fear that the German government, including its social democratic faction, have gambled away in one night all the political capital that a better Germany had accumulated in half a century – and by “better” I mean a Germany characterised by greater political sensitivity and a post-national mentality."

US right-wing influence

The right-wing media in the US is relentless in its attack on President Barack Obama. Its attacks are rude and demeaning. Also simplistic.

The Iran agreement signed this week is currently coming under sustained criticism.

Patriot Radio is non-stop in its Obama opposition.

There seem to be parallels with  the modus operandi of  the right-wing media and that of the right-wing Catholic Church.

It's intersting to observe. Frightening too.

Has the Irish Catholic Church been unduly influenced by right-wing US Catholicism?

Dominicans in Drogheda

The lead story in this week's Irish Catholic is about the Dominicans leaving/not leaving the priory and church in Drogheda.

No friend or admirer of The Irish Catholic, nevertheless it's a sad tale.

One might ask how such decisions are made and what actually is the level of communication within the organisation.

The old adage, one reaps what one sows.

Best bus shelter

It must be one of the nicest bus stops/shelters anywhere. And at the left side there is a pane of glass to allow the passenger to see when the bus is coming.

The bus shelter is in Camp, Co. Kerry. It comes with a seat, flowers and a current timetable. Perfect.

Camp records high levels of rainfall.

The bus shelter at Upper Camp, Co Kerry

Lord protect and save us from unintelligible 'Collects'

The Opening Prayer or 'Collect', as it is now called in the new Missal, in yesterday's Mass was almost unintelligible.

It's worth counting the number of words in the opening sentence.

How many people at Mass yesterday understood that prayer, no matter how well it was read and prayed?

Can the people who gave the English-speaking Catholic Church the new Missal be held responsible for this disaster?

Is there an Irish bishop who is honest and intelligent enough to stand up and say it is a failure?

Well done to the German bishops for 'postponing' a new translation.

How much did it all cost and who paid for it? Not a word from a bishop or a provincial.

System that debases and kills

Meeting with an international gathering of grassroots activists, Pope Francis not only encouraged, but tried to add fuel to their fire for "standing up to an idolatrous (economic) system which excludes, debases and kills."

Addressing the World Meeting of Popular Movements in Santa Cruz on Thursday, Francis acknowledged he did not have a "recipe" for a perfect economic-social-political system, but he said the problems with the current system are obvious and the Gospel contains principles that can help.

(National Catholic Reporter)

Irish Rail's website

Booking a ticket with Irish Rail how is the passenger/customer expected to know the meaning of the different symbols. It could well be a good platform for a game of charades.

Booking a seat seems completely chaotic.

This surely must win a prize for confusion. From beginning to end the site is close to impossible to understand.

Gauck comes to Ireland

German President Joachim Gauck begins a three-day State visit to Ireland tomorrow.

Gauck was born in Rostock in Nazi Germany, spent most of his adult life in the German Democratic Republic and is now President of a united Federal Republic.

He ministered as a Lutheran pastor in his home town of Rostock on the Baltic Sea.

In an interview with The Irish Times last week when speaking about the Irish marriage referendum he said:

" I thus hope that Germany can also have a stronger debate in which people are not overwhelmed by a feeling that equality between themselves and others is taking something away from them or posing a threat to their own way of life."

Germany introduced civil partnerships for gay couples n 2001.

Eamon Casey in Kerry

Two elderly Kerry priests when asked whom they would consider was the finest bishop in the diocese, during their time of ministry, immediately and spontaneously said 'Eamon Casey'.

Both men recalled that before Casey came to Kerry curates were treated like vassals by their parish priests.

One man said: "It was terrible. We lived in bed-sit style accommodation and the pp could be as tyranical as he wished. Eamon Casey came and so too did freedom."

Bible is foreign territory

How is it and why is it that so few people know anything about the Bible?

Why is it that so many liturgical prayers are said so quickly and almost in a meaningless fashion.

Read a Psalm to a group of people and they will look on in awe, wondering what it is.

And this didn't happen today or yesterday.  What exaclty is the Catholic ethos in Catholic-run schools?

Cycle rail bus combo

Before the arrival of Michael O'Leary's Ryanair it was possible to take a bicycle free on most airlines. Those halcyon days are long gone.

But there are still some great 'offers' available, if not in the sky.

The three CIE companies allow passengers to take fold-up bicycles for free on all their vehicles, bus and train. It's a fabulous facility.

If one is a PAYE employee she/he can avail of the Bike2Work Scheme. Up off and you're away.

The scheme was introduced in the last Fianna Fáil Green Coalition.  Your employer pays up front for the bicycle and then they deduct it from your monthly/weekly salary. You end up paying the total cost of the bike minus tax, which depends on whether you are on standard or upper tax rate.

There's a downside to everything. The scheme means that there are far too many crazy cyclists on the roads. Ask any Dublin Bus Driver. One such driver was overheard saying to a customer that there are now nine million cyclists in the capital.

Fold-up bike on Irish Rail InterCity train.

David Quinn misses the point about seminaries

In this week's Irish Catholic David Quinn writes an opinion piece on concerns expressed about the national seminary, Maynooth.

The piece follows a news story in last week's edition.

He cites a controversy as to whether one should kneel or not kneel, Quinn also says that a great deal of theological training in Ireland seems to stray from the fundamentals of Cathoic theology.

He makes this statement without giving one single example to back up his argument.

But the problems of 'priestly formation' are never honestly discussed. And the issues are as clear as the nose on one's face.

The real issues are never openly and properly discussed. And so it goes. On and on.

A homeless man sits out three-month prison sentence

Known by some as Jack, by others as Mad Jack, Thomas Coleman regularly sits in the porch of the Three Patrons Church in Rathgar on weekday mornings before, during and after the 07.30 Mass. He cycles an old bicycle that certainly was not bought under the Bike2Work Scheme.

He is in his early 60s, 62 to be precise. He has been homeless for over 20 years. On occasion he can shout and criticise aspects of Irish and EU political life but he is also a gentle and kind man, a man of learning too.

Suddenly he was gone. No sign of him for a full week. People missed him. The place was not the same without him. No chat before or after Mass.

Jack is serving a three-month prison sentence in Mountjoy Jail.

I visited him yesterday. We had a great chat. His eyes lit up when he saw me as did mine. Sitting down talking and laughing with him was a moment of grace, certainly for me.

Around the world in speed

This blog is read in the countries marked in blue.

Craziness endured and great people encountered

Forty one years ago today the Germans beat the Dutch in the World Cup in Munich.

Also on that day Martin Boyle and I were ordained Dominican priests in St Mary's Priory, Tallaght.

We often meet, talk and laugh about it all, the experiences we have gathered, the nonsnese we have seen, the craziness we have endured and the great people we have encountered.

Martin is well known across the city as a counsellor. A man of kindness and wisdom.

Vatican's pot of gold

The Vatican is considering, but is not committed to, divesting its holdings in fossil fuels. The comment was made by a Vatican official at a press conference to discuss Pope Francis' encyclical.

The Vatican has approximately €6bn in management funds.

Naomi Klein has said that the Vatican is considering a possible divestment policy.

German troops to Ukraine

It was announced in Berlin today that German troops - Bundeswehr - will carry out exercises in Ukraine later this summer. They will be part of a Nato operation.

But surely it can't be a wise PR move for German troops to set foot in Ukraine?

It's worth noting that Ukrainian troops played an important role in the Red Army's rush to Berlin in spring 1945.

A letter from the President

Copy of letter to Lally Lawlor on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

Lally resides at Ocean View Nursing home in Camp, Co Kerry.

Mrs Lawlor is the mother of Mary, Tom, Paul and John Lawlor. 'Nidge' of Love/Hate fame is her grandchild and her son Paul is a Dominican, who ministers in the Islamic Republic of Iran's capital, Tehran.

The despised prophet

Today's Gospel reading (Mark 6: 1 - 6) might tempt us to give ourselves a chance to listen to what the 'other side' is saying.

Are we all brainwashed to think in a particular way? How much of our doing and thinking is influenced by those around us?

It must be almost impossible to go against the 'flow'.

In yesterday's 'Irish Times' Miriam Lord writes about the famous/infamous Fianna Fáil Galway Tent. She is commenting on Cowen's and McCreevy's remarks to the Oireachtas banking inquiry during the week.

Great last lines to the piece:

"Access. Influence. Word in the ear. Contacts forged. Networks strengthened. All very convivial. That's how it goes."

It fits.

Pope Francis adds his voice to protecting the earth

Papal encyclical On Care For Our Common Home is a great read.

"We know that approximately one-third of all food produced is discarded, and 'whenever food is thrown out it is as if it were stolen from the table of the poor'." (No 49)

Think of that the next time you are pushing food off your plate into a waste container.

Again.

"When media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously." (No 47)

"The deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people of the planet..." (No 48)

Saying hello and well done

At 06.15 today a Dublin City Council employee jumped out of his van to empty a rubbish bin in Rathgar. I said good morning and complimented him on the job that he and his colleagues do in keeping the place clean. His face lit up: "That's what we want to hear, thank you." And he said it with a great smile on his face.

When last did a bishop or a provinical simply compliment or even say hello to one of his 'foot soldiers'?

Indeed, they may well 'praise' their cronies and sycophants but communication skills within the institutional Catholic Church simply don't exist.

When last did a bishop or a provinical pick up his phone and say hello to one of his priests? Just to say hello and suggest meeting for a cup of coffee?

It's all worse than shocking.

Next time you are talking to a priest, a 'foot soldier' ask him when last did his bishop or provinical even say hello to him.

It was all so different at 06.15 on a summer morning in Rathgar.

It sure is a funny-old world.

Shallow fundamentalism

An interesting discussion happening on yesterday's blogpost re excerpt from 'The Tablet'.

Posts by Michael (not the writer of this blog), Thomas G McCarthy and Francis Hunt are all worth reading.

A sense of humour

From the current issue of Catholic Voice.

Hilarious.

Thomist vision of natural law is not acceptable

The current issue of The Tablet  carries an interview with Olivier Roy, who according to the blurb, is one of Europe's most original analysts of Islam and religion in the West. Starting in 2011, his team of researchers from around Europe began studying controversies about faith in the secular public sphere.

Below is an excerpt from The Tablet article.

"Today's secular culture is no longer founded on common values, neither with those of religion nor of Christian anthropology with its conception of the fmaily, life and freedom.

"The laws on same-sex marriage show we are in an anthropological change. The Thomist vision of a natural law that both believers and non-believers can accept is finished.

"The Irish referendum was a prime example of this. It was not only a reaction of the sexual-abuse scandal. That certainly played a part in the church's loss of credibility. But the majority of people who voted for same-sex marriage did so because they approve of the anthropological change. They don't see any problem with homosexual marriage.

"The fact that abortion remains quite restricted in Ireland does not contradict this trend. Abortion is not popular. It's a lesser evil, not a value. But same-sex marriage is seen as a value. This is what the church has not understood well. It's a cultural change and the Catholic Church is not in phase with the dominant culture."

Later on in the article Roy points out that the Catholic Church has always said faith should be rooted in culture.

On Berlin's Spree with a West Kerry family

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

Michael Commane

At the beginning of June I spent a week on holidays in Berlin. In so many ways it was a-once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I went with a family - mum, dad and three school-going children. They kindly invited me along. I had lived in Berlin before the Wall came down, so they thought that I might be able to show them around and maybe even do some interpreting for them if it were ever necessary.

I’m sure I was more of a nuisance than a help. But it turned out a great week, one of the best holidays I can remember.

We did all the touristy things, a jaunt on the river Spree, took the ever-so-fast lift to the top of the television tower at Alexander Platz. We spent over three hours at the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, which was a shocking experience. 

We saw Angela Merkel’s office and a fine building it is too.

Train anorak that I am I took great delight in showing them around the architectural delight, which is the central rail station right in the heart of Berlin. It’s on the site of old Lehrter Station and is a magnificent structure with its glass panes. Spotting the Warsaw Express I thought of Patrick Kavanagh taking great delight in seeing barges on the Grand Canal coming from far off places. We took a day trip to Frankfurt-an-der Oder and walked into Poland.

It so happened that we were in the city the day of the Champions League final and were under strict instructions from one of the family members to travel out to the Olympic Stadium to get a feel of the atmosphere. In my innocence I made some enquiries about buying tickets for the game. On the day they were selling tickets on the street for €900. But we did get to see a ticket and indeed, the footballer in the party managed to hold one in his hands.

The new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport has not yet been opened. It’s been dogged with all sorts of problems, design issues, political cock-ups and simple inefficiencies. When flying in and out of Schönefeld passengers can see the new unopened airport. In the meantime Aer Lingus and Ryanair have been using the grotty Schönefeld, though it seems Aer Lingus is moving, on a temporary basis, to the posher airport at Tegel later in the year.

I’m home now, back at work. I’ve been thinking about the holiday, wishing I were back clowning about, maybe even showing off, in the German capital.

Something has struck me about the week’s experience. I know one can never generalise, it’s always dangerous to come up with universal principles based on short experiences.

All during the week, living in close quarters with three young children and a mum and dad, I was simply struck with their native goodness. Just good kindly people.

It set me thinking about the Ireland I inhabit. It set me thinking about the doom and gloom merchants, who might lead one to believe that we are on the road to perdition. It stopped me in my step when I began to think about the whole notion of priests ‘preaching’ to people. It confirmed for me the nonsense of priests doling out lists of dos and don’ts on how people should live their lives.

A priest has a greater chance of becoming selfish than a man living with his children, supporting and loving them.

Marlene Dietrich sings a song about leaving a bag in Berlin – it means she has to go back to the great city. “Ich hab’ noch einen Koffer in Berlin”.

Preach the Gospel always and if necessary use words

From the NCR

Pope Francis gave a forceful message to the world’s newest Catholic archbishops today, telling prelates who had travelled from around the globe for a special Mass in their honor that they should live lives “coherent” with what they preach to Catholics in their dioceses.

In a homily in St. Peter’s Basilica to 46 new archbishops installed in different global cities in the past year, Francis told them bluntly: “The church wants you to be men of witness.”

“There is no witness without a coherent life,” the pontiff continued, quoting St. Francis of Assisi’s admonition to his followers: “Preach the Gospel always and, if necessary, use words.”

“The thing is so easy!” said the pope. “The most effective and authentic witness is that of not contradicting, with your behavior and your life, what is preached with the word and taught to others!”

“Teach prayer by praying, announce the faith by believing; offer witness by living!” Francis exhorted the prelates.

The pope was speaking Monday during a solemn Mass celebrating the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, the Catholic liturgical event that recognizes the martyrdom of the two apostles and the foundation of the Roman church.

A centerpiece of the Mass was the pope’s blessing of a liturgical vestment for each of the new archbishops, a long piece of woolen cloth called a pallium that signifies their role as shepherds and their ties to each other and the pope.

Two of the 46 new archbishops present for the Mass were Americans: Chicago’s new archbishop Blase Cupich and the new leader of the church in Santa Fe, N.M., John Wester. Among others were archbishops recently named from every part of the world, including: Greece, Spain, the Philippines; Japan, Niger, Haiti, Mexico, and Slovenia.

Francis offered his message to the prelates by speaking to them directly at the end of his homily for the occasion, which focused on how the Christian life is a call to prayer, faith, and witness.

The pope was reflecting on the Bible readings of the day, the first of which sees Peter freed from prison and certain death by an Angel of God. The Gospel for the day, taken from Matthew, sees Jesus tell Peter: “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church.”

Addressing them as “dear archbishops,” Francis first told the prelates the church wants them to be “men of prayer, masters of prayer” that teach their people they are liberated by God from every form of imprisonment. He also asked: “For those most in need, may you be angels and messengers of charity.”

“The church wants you to be men of faith, masters of faith, that teach the faithful to not have fear of the many Herods that afflict them with persecutions, with crosses of every type,” the pope told the archbishops.

“No Herod is able to extinguish the light of hope, faith, and love of the one who believes in Christ,” he said.

Earlier in the homily, Francis again called for a church that is always going forth. He said that being at prayer is to be always be moving ahead, being assured of the protection of God.

“The community of Peter and Paul teaches us that a Church in prayer is a Church on her feet, strong, on the path!” said the pope. “Indeed, a Christian who prays is a Christian who is protected, guarded and sustained, and above all, who is never alone.”

The pontiff also asked for a church that is always giving testimony to the Christian life.

“A church or a Christian without witness is sterile: A dead person who thinks they are alive, a dry tree that does not give fruit, an empty well that does not give water!” said Francis.

Monday’s Mass was marked by a change in ceremony for the pope’s yearly gift of the palliums to the new archbishops, signifying the emphasis Francis puts on decentralizing church authority.

Where in past years the pope vested each archbishop with the liturgical cloth during the Mass, this year Francis only blessed each of the palliums. The archbishops will instead be vested with the cloth at a ceremony in their dioceses by the apostolic nuncio to their country.

The pallium is one of the oldest liturgical vestments, believed to date from the fourth century. It is a 12-inch-long band of wool decorated by crosses worn by archbishops over their vestments during Masses in their archdioceses as a sign of their authority, particularly over dioceses in their ecclesiastical provinces.

Cupich has been leading a delegation of pilgrims in Rome from the Chicago archdiocese for his receiving of the pallium. The archbishop also had a private meeting with the pope, the first personal encounter between the two, on Friday afternoon.

Also attending the Mass Monday was a representative of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas. At the end of the ceremony, John and Francis prayed together at the tomb in the Basilica believed to be that of Peter.

[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is jmcelwee@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]

Ali's No to Vietnam

On June 28, 1970 Muhammed Ali, formerly known as Cassius Clay, stood before the United States Supreme Court regarding his refusal of induction into the US Army during the Vietnam War. 

Back then, while considered the world's greatest heavyweight boxer, he was looked upon as something of a political illiterate.

He was anything but. A wise and brave man. Had thousands of others taken his example the lives that could have been spared.

Seven Sleepers Day (Siebenschläfertag)

Tradition has it in Ireland and England that if it rains on St Swithun's Day, July 15, it will rain for the next 40 days.

The Germans have a similar tradition. Whatever the weather conditions are on Seven Sleepers Day (Siebenschläfertag) today June 27, those conditions will last for seven weeks.

It's overcast in many parts of Germany today. And the sun shines, at least early morning, in Dublin today.

An old boy's network that needs urgent change

The piece below is from the  US Catholic publication, NCR. It's well worth a read and certainly applies to leadership in the Irish Catholic Church.

How much of the current dysfunction within the Catholic Church finds its genesis in Pope John Paul ll's management of the church?

Certain Catholics love to repeat ad nauseam that the church is not a democracy, especially when it comes to decision-making and the selection of leadership.

And thank God it is not.

Nor should it aspire to be if the democratic model is the dysfunctional political and electoral system at work in places like the United States.

But that doesn't mean all is well with the way the Roman church makes its pastoral-administrative decisions, discerns the call of the Spirit, or chooses its bishops.

Quite the contrar. The inadequate leadership displayed by too many bishops in the United States and other parts of the world the past couple of decades has made that point painfully clear. One wonders how some of these men were ever put in a position of such weighty responsibility.

The most recent case that has American Catholics scratching their heads is that of Archbishop John Nienstedt.

The 68-year-old Detroit native resigned June 15 after seven disastrous years as the head of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese. (He had an extra year there as the coadjutor archbishop.)

Some may think it uncharitable, but, no, it is not unfair to call his time in the Twin Cities a true disaster. And one that ended even worse.

Just about anyone in New Ulm could have predicted this. That's the smaller Minnesota diocese where the Vatican sent Nienstedt in 2001 to prepare him for promotion to the state's major see. His task was to "clean up the mess" (a favorite expression of conservative American monsignors in the Roman Curia) that Bishop Raymond Lucker left behind.

Lucker was a St. Paul native and was auxiliary bishop in the Twin Cities when he was appointed to New Ulm in 1975. Lucker was named when Belgian Archbishop Jean Jadot was apostolic delegate to Washington, and he came to be seen as one of the leading Second Vatican Council progressives in the U.S. hierarchy.

But within a few years after the election of John Paul II in 1978, he and other so-called "Jadot bishops" were being replaced by a more conservative crop of priests.

During Jadot's tenure (1973-1980), the tendency was to appoint "homegrown" bishops; that is, men who were natives of the diocese or area they were sent to be ordinary.

But when Archbishop Pio Laghi followed him as papal delegate (and then nuncio), that trend was gradually reversed. With all but rare exceptions, new bishops were appointed to dioceses that many of them had never even visited before and in states in other parts of the country.

It was a deliberate and, some say, cynical policy decision made by the cabal of cardinal-members and other officials of the Congregation for Bishops to keep the new "shepherds" more loyal to their masters in Rome than the unknown people they were sent to rule as if on a foreign mission.

Only a tiny minority of the priests and an even more miniscule section of the people in these dioceses were ever consulted about the candidates to be their new bishops. That trend has continued right up to the present. Who in New Ulm had ever heard of John Nienstedt? He was from Detroit, in a totally different ecclesiastical region, where he had been auxiliary bishop since 1996.

"Imported" to New Ulm and then to the Twin Cities, he was typical of most of the bishops in the United States.

In fact, only four of the 32 Latin Rite metropolitan archbishops in the country are "homegrown." The situation is similar in other parts of the world. Pope Francis was one of those who actually led his home diocese when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In any case, this is only one and perhaps the least bad feature of a very problematic episcopal appointment system.

While the apostolic nuncio is supposed to make discreet inquiries among a representation of the diocesan clergy and respected laypeople when he draws up the terna (or list of three names) of candidates that he submits to Rome, the process is extremely subjective and arbitrary.

There is an old boys' network of current bishops that tends to act as a self-preservation dynasty by promoting their protégés and friends to the episcopacy. Cardinals, especially those who are members of the Congregation for Bishops, are fundamental in pushing forward a candidate, especially for promotion to major posts.

Cardinal Edmund Szoka, for example, was largely responsible for making Nienstedt (his former secretary) a bishop. The late cardinal was known to have catapulted a number of other Michigan priests into the episcopacy, as well, including the current archbishops in Detroit and Hartford.

When Nienstedt resigned last week, the Vatican appointed Archbishop Bernard Hebda as temporary administrator of St. Paul and Minnesota. The mechanisms surrounding this appointment make it problematic, too. Hebda, a church centrist with degrees in both civil and canon law, not even two years ago was named coadjutor to the embattled Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J. With some sort of acrobatics, he evidently intends to make frequent three-hour flights each way and do both jobs.

Perhaps Hebda, who was bishop of Gaylord, Mich., from 2009-2013, has become the Vatican's new troubleshooter to sort out problematic situations. But is he the only and wisest choice?

It certainly follows the same familiar pattern of the old boys' network.

Hebda, 55, is a priest from Pittsburgh, where he was personal secretary to then-Bishop Donald Wuerl (Rome classmate of Myers, who is originally from Illinois). Well aware that loaning a priest to the Vatican is an investment for a future dividend, Wuerl sent Hebda to Rome, where he worked for more than a dozen years at the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Incidentally, Myers was a member of that council.

And Wuerl is now Cardinal Wuerl, the latest (transplanted) archbishop of Washington and a member of the Congregation for Bishops.

How many priests and other baptized faithful had a voice in any of these appointments? Where are the concerns of any of them listened to seriously? The "election" of bishops (that's what the Holy See calls such appointments, underlining the more ancient practice) need not be done by widespread popular vote. In fact, that would be disaster.

But there should be a more serious and involved process that involves a significant representation of the entire community in identifying the most qualified and gifted leaders. And it should be the rule, not the exception, that the choice (or recommendation) of candidate generally be from the local clergy, especially in long-established dioceses.

Such an "election process" needs to be re-established, albeit with provisions for changed modern-day situations. While it is true that the church is not democracy, neither is it an oligarchy.

[Robert Mickens is editor-in-chief of Global Pulse. Since 1986, he has lived in Rome, where he studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University before working 11 years at Vatican Radio and then another decade as correspondent for The Tablet of London.]

Party at the Áras

President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina hosted a garden party at Áras an Uachtaráin yesterday for multi cultural groups.

The house and gardens were open and a buffet was served in a marquee in the garden.

In an address to the group the President spoke of how important it is to welcome the stranger.

He spent some time talking about the present global movement of so many refugees.

The President referred to the small but important work that the Irish Navy is doing in the Mediterranean and that shortly the LÉ Aoife will replace the LÈ Eithne.

Concern Worldwide staff at the Áras. From left:
Gearoid Loibhead, Anne O'Mahony, Angela
Whyte and Michael Commane.

Reminder of another era.