US Defence Secretary first openly gay man in the job

The new United States Secretary of Defence, Eric Fanning is the first openly gay man to be appointed to the position.

The honesty surrounding sexual orientation must surely be admired.

All the dishonesty that goes on and then the ensuing anger, frustration and fear when people hide their orientation.

It is a chronic problem within the churches. And the damage that's done.

Whingeing seems to be Ireland's best small industry

This week's INM Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Last Friday week a young woman knocked at my door. It was clear she was agitated. She quickly told me that she was worried about a man living in a house across the road. She explained that she had looked through the stained glass window in the hall door and thought she saw a figure lying in the hallway.

I went over and yes, it seemed as if there were someone on the floor. Another neighbour called the emergency services.

Within five to eight minutes a fire tender arrived. Gently and kindly they asked one or two questions but with great speed they had the door open within seconds and yes, inside, on the floor of the hallway my neighbour lay dead.

Quickly a Garda car arrived followed by a doctor and then the body was removed to hospital.

The man had lived in that house most of his life. After school he had gone to university, where he studied Spanish, English and history. He taught in Ireland and Spain for a few years. 

As a boy he enjoyed playing football. But over the last many years he has lived a solitary lifestyle. He was in his late 50s and was regularly seen out walking. He seldom if ever acknowledged a greeting when one passed him on the road.

He was a kind man and was generous to anyone who called to his door looking for help.

It was my first time to see at close range the emergency service in operation. I was amazed and flabbergasted at their modus operandi.

They were at the scene within minutes and they did everything so quickly, so gently and so kindly. They used a battering ram to break down the door but they did it in such a professional way that little damage was caused to the door and hardly a sound to be heard.

There must have been four or five of them on the job and each one knew exactly what to do. And then when the Garda arrived they complemented one another with such ease.

A garda sat me down and asked me about the man. I was struck by her kindness and gentleness but all the time so professional.

It was a highly efficient operation. Impressive.

I was in a state of shock for the next day or two. As it happened two days later I had to officiate at a tragic funeral service, which meant I may have been more tired than usual when I turned on the radio to hear a person moan and groan about some particular aspect of Irish life. And then a large number of complainers called into the show. It sounded as if they were feeding off one another.

That's what's great about the radio. You can turn it off, which is exactly what I did.

I began to think of the Garda and the firemen and the great job I saw them do.

Of course there's much to complain about in Ireland but is there not a surfeit of complaining at times. Is it possible that it has become a small industry? Are we living in an era of entitlement?

I'm not slow to criticise. Maybe I've learned a lesson.

I consider myself most fortunate to be able to write this column and say thank you to our fire service and our Garda, whose members I saw do a great job. Thank you. It was that mix of efficiency and kindness that impressed me. And all done without any sense of fuss.

John O'Reilly OP RIP

Dominican priest John O'Reilly died yesterday at a nursing home in Claregalway.

John was born in 1929, joined the Dominicans in 1957 and ordained a priest in July 1963.

Before coming to the Dominicans he was a primary school teacher. His skills in teaching came to his aid when he was later teaching in Newbridge College.

John was a brilliant teacher. He had that great gift of being genuinely interested in his pupils which complemented his art and skills in his subject. And Irish was his 'thing'. He was the perfect Irish teacher. Always thoroughly prepared and always totally on top of his subject.

In my first year teaching in Newbridge College I was given a first year German class and John taught that same class Irish. The boys loved him but they also knew that they were there to learn. Yes, good fun in class but never a hint of a second of indiscipline. And they knew that too.

After their Junior Cert we compared results. Top grades in Irish.

The previous year, academic year 1979/1980, I was a probationary teacher in Newbridge College, doing my H.Dip in Maynooth. It had been 13 years since I had looked at a word of Irish.

In order to qualify as a registered post-primary school teacher it was necessary to pass an oral examination in Irish, the Ceard Teastas.

John was my tutor/mentor. It meant a few walks around the bog. Job done. I passed. Entirely due to John's assistance. And the laughs we had walking around the bog.

In the 1970s John was a memebr of the Dominican community at St Mary's Priory, Tallaght. While there he spotted those who were interested in music and he set about teaching them how to play the organ.

According to a well-respected musician, John O'Reilly was the finest organist with whom he ever worked and the most outstanding organist of his generation in the Irish Dominicans.

He was always there for people. 

His funeral Mass is at midday on Wednesday, May 18 at the Dominican Church, The Claddagh, Galway. Burial at Rahoon cemetery.

A good priest. A great school teacher. A kind man.

Peter McVerry SJ on RTE

Fr Peter McVerry was guest on Gay Byrne's The Meaning of Life on RTE One television last evening.

He spoke about his work and his attempt at understanding God.

It was excellent television and McVerry was superb, inspiring. And not the slightest hint of pious gobbledegook.

A Jesuit talking sense and a source of inspiration.

Well worth watching on the RTE player.

Karl Lehmann retires

Cardinal Karl Lehmann has retired as bishop of Mainz.

Lehmann is a former chairman of the German Bishops' Conference.

He was ordained a priest in 1963 by Julius Döpfner and was an assistant to Karl Rahner.

He is considered a leading German theologian and over the years has had 'quarrels' with the Vatican.

On one occasion he was critical of how 'anonymous' people had influence in the appointment of bishops.

Jürgen Klopp, manager of Liverpool FC, paid tribute to Cardinal Lehmann on this evening's ZDF news.

Lampooning commissioner Hogan and minister Ross

Irish Times' Miriam Lord has a clever name for new Transport Minister Shane Ross - Shane, South Dublin's Winston Churchtown.

And she quotes from the French daily Liberation to tell readers that Phil Hogan is no friend of French farmers:

Hogan's office is a caricature with five of its eight members from Ireland but no French.

Johnson's despicable words

In today's Telegraph.

Insulting and absurd and such an insult to so many victims of  the Holocaust, the millions killed. Shocking and sublimely distasteful. And he will most likely get away with it. The right wing always does.

Also, well worth reading this: http://gu.com/p/4j88m/sbl

"The European Union is pursuing a similar goal to Hitler in trying to create a powerful superstate, Boris Johnson says.

In a dramatic interview with the Telegraph, he warns that while bureaucrats in Brussels are using “different methods” from the Nazi dictator, they share the aim of unifying Europe under one “authority”.

But the EU’s “disastrous” failures have fuelled tensions between member states and allowed Germany to grow in power, “take over” the Italian economy and “destroy” Greece, he warns."

Right left split

The division between left and right seems at times to be close to becoming violent.

Listen any day to US radio stations; Bazil; the Brexit debate and now they are mentioning Hitler; the churches; the Catholic Church; religious congregations.

Palpable hatred.

Polish Foreign Minister dismisses EU concerns

Derek Scally interviews the Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski in today's Irish Times.

The foreign minister dismisses EU criticsm of the conservative reform agenda of his government.

Waszczykowski expresses concern about Russian "activity under the Baltic Sea and in the air, as well as in the militarised Russian exclave (sic) of Kaliningrad".

Kaliningrad/Königsberg is Russian hence surely not the concern of Poland?

But is there such a word as 'exclave'? Yes, there is, and it is that portion of a state geographically separated from the main part by surrounding alien territory. Exactly what Kaliningrad is. It was named Kaliningrad in 1946 after the Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin.

A Jesuit talking sense

On RTE 1's Sean O'Rourke programme today a priest was talking about the housing shortage in Limerick and what it must mean to be homeless and the trauma it causes.

He was articulate and sounded wise and kind.

Not a word about God or any of the 'holy stuff'. No navel gazing, nothing about the importance of belief, the meaning of life or why he was a priest.

But he is a Jesuit and he happens to be the parish priest in Moyross. Fr Tony O'Riordan SJ.

A breath of fresh air and so far removed from the pious gobbledegook.

Fr Simon Roche OP

Fr Simon Roche died in Limerick on Monday and was buried in Cork on Thursday after Requiem Mass in St Mary's Priory, Pope's Quay Cork.

Simon was born into a famous milling family in Limerick in 1934, joined the Dominican Order in 1953 and was ordained a priest in July 1960.

He spent many years working in the Dominican-run seminary in Nagpur in India. From India he moved to Dominican HQ in Rome where he was an assistant to the Master of the Order, Irish man Damian Byrne.

At that time two other Irish men, Flannan Hynes and the late Malachy O'Dwyer were on the general council of the Order, supporting the Master of the Order.

It meant four Irish men were working at the Dominican curia in Santa Sabina. They became known as 'La Murphia irlandese'.

On completion of his term in Rome Simon returned to Ireland taking up residence in Cork, living in both Pope's Quay and in Ennismore.

He worked in the Dominican-run parish in Ballybeg in Waterford from where the Dominicans have now walked away. Simon was also novice master.

He died in a nursing home back in his home town, Limerick.

He was a tall, stooped man, patrician in style. His years in India added an almost 'guru' touch to his character. He had a great sense of humour, could be a rogue too. He was a man devoted to speaking the truth.

Simon Roche was a wise and kind man.

As cute as an American fox

From the National Catholic Reporter

Fox News Philadelphia reports that a pastor in the Camden, N.J., diocese is spending a lot of time with a woman friend. (Full disclosure: I am a former director of communications for the diocese.) 

Seems like a parishioner didn't like the situation so he called up the television news station. They responded with a full stakeout. 

Wonder what the story conference was like at the Fox station to justify the hours put into this story, as well as the amount of time devoted to it on-air. The diocese is said to be investigating.

A woman talking sense

From Global Sisters Report: 

"The future of religious life will be decided on the peripheries where Christ is in agony," said Sr Mary Sujita in a plenary address to a triennial meeting of the International Union of Superiors General. 

"It will not be decided on the number of sisters we have. Let us be clear on this."

Another earth?

NASA's Keppler telescope has found more than 1,200 new planets.

Ellen Stoffon, NASA's chief scientist said yesterday:

This gives us hope that somewhere out there, around a star much like ours, we can eventually discover another earth.

And the things we talk about, get excited about, fight about, the things that end up killing millions.

Fr Tony Flannery talks at Féile na Bealtaine in Dingle

This week's  INM Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane
Dingle was a busy place over the May bank holiday weekend.

It was the venue for the 23rd year of Féile na Bealtaine festival.The organisers told me that every event was close to full.It was the brainchild of the late Mícheál Fanning, who was a local GP and a poet.

I had the good fortune to meet his daughter Ruth with her three-week-old baby daughter Orla at the festival.Ruth was at the door of the courthouse on Saturday with babe in arms welcoming guests, who were attending the interview with  Redemptorist priest Tony Flannery.

The festival authorities had asked me to conduct the interview with Fr Flannery.

The courthouse is an old forbidding building and I certainly would not like to be heading there to face justice. I was nervous enough about the interview ahead.

I had familiarised myself with Fr Flannery's case and had read his book 'A Question of Conscience'.Fr Flannery is one of a number of priests in Ireland who has run into trouble with the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) for views he has expressed on a myriad church issues.

Fr Flannery would be the first to say that he is not a professional theologian. Over the years he has written in various church publications, including the Redemptorist magazine 'Reality'. The row with Rome began over an article he had written in 'Reality' concerning the origins of priesthood.

But that row has now developed into a full-blown war between Fr Flannery and the CDF. He has been 'silenced' by the Holy See. He is not allowed administer the Sacraments.

There are always two sides in a row. But there are aspects to this row that throw up all those issues which seem to alienate so many people from the Catholic Church.
When the dispute first erupted Fr Flannery was more or less treated like a small boy. The Vatican dealt with the Superior General of the Redemptorists in Rome and reading Fr Flannery's account of things the Redemptorist boss handled the case badly.

And then there is all the silliness of anonymous complaints going to the Vatican.  Fr Flannery says that he received letters, which were not written on headed notepaper from the CDF.

During our interview Fr Flannery was critical of the Irish bishops and the current papal nuncio. He said that there has been no communication between any of the Irish bishops or the papal nuncio, who is the Holy See's ambassador to Ireland.

He has a good relationship with the Irish Redemptorists, who support him.

During question time former Senator Brendan Ryan pointed out that over 100 people had paid €10 to attend the event. He said that people were interested in their faith and church and that if change were to happen in the church then it would have to come from the people.

Four days later I was in a church and spotted the different titles on the nameplates on confession boxes.

But I was struck with the titles. After one man's name was CC, after another OP, CC. One man had nothing at all after his name. Two had Fr before their names and  two others had Rev. in front of their names, with one of them giving himself the title V Rev. and then PP, VF after his name. In case you may not know, VF stands for Vicar Forane.

Journalist Vincent Browne wisely said that once we give people titles we give them power over us.

I keep saying to myself: the church just doesn't get it. Does it?

Politician talks nonsense

On Prime Time this evening politician Stephen Donnelly spoke about Ireland having an almost unique situation. Subject matter was water.

Important his politics is better than this nonsense.

Austrian Chancellor resigns

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann resigned today.

What's happening?

Public holiday in Russia

Seventy one years ago today Marshal Georgii Zhukov accepted from Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel the unconditional surrender of the German Army.

Today is a national holiday across the Russian Federation.

The Western allies signed the surrender protocol in Reims on May 8. Stalin felt somewhat upstaged by the signing so the Soviet Union organised a second signing, which took place at Red Army HQ in the Berlin suburb of Karlshorst. It was signed late on the evening of May 8, which meant it was after midnight in Moscow, hence May 9.

Most trains travelling between Berlin Schönefeld Airport and Berlin stop at Karlshorst. The museum is well worth a visit.

“

ACT OF MILITARY SURRENDER We the undersigned, acting by authority of the German High Command, hereby surrender unconditionally to the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force and simultaneously to the Supreme High Command of the Red Army all forces on land, at sea, and in the air who are at this date under German control. The German High Command will at once issue orders to all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations at 23.01 hours Central European time on 8 May 1945, to remain in all positions occupied at that time and to disarm completely, handing over their weapons and equipment to the local allied commanders or officers designated by Representatives of the Allied Supreme Commands. No ship, vessel, or aircraft is to be scuttled, or any damage done to their hull, machinery or equipment, and also to machines of all kinds, armament, apparatus, and all the technical means of prosecution of war in general. The German High Command will at once issue to the appropriate commanders, and ensure the carrying out of any further orders issued by the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force and by the Supreme Command of the Red Army. This act of military surrender is without prejudice to, and will be superseded by any general instrument of surrender imposed by, or on behalf of the United Nations and applicable to GERMANY and the German armed forces as a whole. In the event of the German High Command or any of the forces under their control failing to act in accordance with this Act of Surrender, the Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force and the Supreme High Command of the Red Army will take such punitive or other action as they deem appropriate. This Act is drawn up in the English, Russian and German languages. The English and Russian are the only authentic texts. Representatives: Soviet Union: Marshal Georgy Zhukov on behalf of the Supreme High Command of the Red Army United Kingdom: Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur William Tedder, as Deputy Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, United States: General Carl Spaatz, Commanding United States Strategic Air Forces, as witness France: General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Commanding First French Army, as witness Germany: Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel as the Chief of the General Staff of the German Armed Forces (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) and as representative of the army (Heer) General-Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg as Commander-in-Chief of the navy (Kriegsmarine) Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff as the representative of the air force (Luftwaffe)

”

More rounding up than down

Keep your shopping receipts for one month. You will discover that the rounding up/rounding down is in favour of the store.

A member of staff at a large supermarket chain has admitted that the rounding up/rounding down system is in favour of the company.

How to avoid the system, pay with your debit/credit card.

A comment posted which contains serious content

A reader has posted a comment to this blog. The origin of the comment is anonymous.

It has become grudgingly custom and practice for some time to publish comments attrirbuted to anonymous contributors on this blog.

The comment received today is of serious matter and needs consideration before publication.

If the person who sent the comment identified his or herself it would make it much easier to publish the comment.

The author of the blog is sympathetic to the comment and is also interested in publishing the downloaded article,which accompanies the comment.

Pious gobbledegook

A Catholic priest on a religious website says that friendships of their nature are shortlived.

What terrible nonsense and what an insult to people.

Daniel Berrigan

This blog made no reference to the death of Fr Daniel Berrigan on Saturday, April 30.

Today's Irish Times carries an obituary on the great man. He was 94.

The obit cites what he said of his father: "an incindiary wothout a cause," a subscriber to Catholic liberal periodicals and the frustrated writer of poems of no distinction.

"We grew inured, as the price of survival, to violence as a norm of existence. I remember, my eyes open to the lives of neighbours, my astonishment at seeing that wives and husbands were not natural enemies."

He believed the church condoned his father's treatment of his mother.

He was a Jesuit priest, who played a significant role in changing US policy on the Vietnam war.

A shining light. A great man.

Margot Honecker is dead

Margot Honecker died yesterday in Chile.

She was education minister in the GDR between 1963 and 1989 and the wife of Erich Honecker.

Margot Honecker was born in Halle an der Salle in 1927, joined the Nazi youth organisation, Bund Deutsche Mädel (BDM) and in 1945 became a member of the Communist Party (KPD).

As a 15-year-old girl she met Erich Honecker, whom she later married.

She was critical of Gorbatchow and Solidarity in Poland. Held fast to her Communist beliefs and argued that those who were shot while attmpeting to leave the GDR should never have attempted to escape.

She was not the favourite person of many teahcers in the GDR and was indeed ridiculed by the ever-growing opposition to the East German State.

Some years ago she gave an interview to German television in which she expressed her regret for the demise of the GDR.

'Endapendents'

A new word for some of Ireland's new TDs.

Endapendents.

Clever.

Nigel Lawson for Brexit

Former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson was a guest on BBC 1's Question Time last evening.

He is campaigning for Brexit. He argues the EU favours the rich and powerful and he lives in France.

Confusing.

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary was also on the programme and he was on the Remain side.

Rebuilding those fences

BBC'S Newsnight programme last evening aired a short film on what's going on now in the EU. It was one of a series, which will be continued this evening.

It interviewed a Hungarian border guard who was on duty on the Hungarian Austrian border the day the first snippets were made in the wire that was the Iron Curtain. On that day he made the decision that no shots were to be fired at the approaching crowds.

He is now a retired man and believes it is time for borders to be re-erected.

It made for profoundly sad viewing.

There is Brexit looming. A far-right person is in contention to be the next Austrian President. France and Le Pen, the AfD in Germany, it's happening everywhere.  What's Vladimir Putin thinking?

Donald Trump might well be President Trump next year.

On a rightwing US radio station yesterday the presenter said that it does not matter who is the Republican candidate to defeat Hilary Clinton. He said that the Rebulicans had only one objective and that is to defeat Clinton. And there was a violence in his tone.

All the retrenchment, a return to ways that brought such pain and suffering are also evident in the churches. Maybe churches simply monitor the mood of the times. The self-importance.

The ideals of the EU are being so attacked from so many sides with such ferocity it seems almost impossible that the centre will hold.

A sense of Weimar happening all over again?

Priests and their titles

Name plates on confession boxes in St Conleth's parish church in Newbridge, Co Kildare.

Surely a powerful metaphor.

David Quinn on just war

In an article in the current issue of The Irish Catholic journalist David Quinn argues in favour of the church maintaining a just war theory.

In the article he writes that had Britain and France not declared war on Germany when Hitler invaded Poland, Nazi Germany would not have invaded France in 1940. Instead they would have been free to head east and would most likely have defeated the Red Army.

There is no maybe, no probably, David Quinn clearly states that Hitler would not have invaded France.

How can he be so sure? How does he know what Hitler would  or would not have done?

Is David Quinn also an expert on the Red Army and the Soviet Union? Does he know what happened on the Volga?

It sounds preposterous.

If all the ifs and ands...... but had the leaders in State and church worked for the genuine good of the people in the Weimar Republic would Hitler have been given the oxygen to be who he became.

Sean Heuston's walk from Richmond Barracks in 1916

Sean Heuston, along with a number of other leaders of the 1916 Rising, was executed on May 8, 1916.

To mark the occasion there will be an event in Richmond Barracks on Sunday, followed by a walk from the barracks to Kilmainham Gaol, where the executions took place. The walk will retrace the steps of the executed men on May 8, 1916.

Refurbished Richmond Barracks is due to open to the public next month.

The Christian Brothers used the building as a school fro many years.

The text below is placed on one of the school desks in a room, which has been restored to its classroom conditions.

Pot calls kettle black

The current issue of the freesheet 'Alive!' carries an article on how the EU wastes money with no one knowing where the money is going.

Is that not a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black.

The money the church wastes, the money religious congregations waste.

Does anyone know anything about the finances of 'Alive!? Does anyone know anything about the finances of the church and religious congregations and how they waste money?

What tax does the freesheet 'Alive!' pay to Revenue? It runs an ad on page five looking for contributions. Is tax paid on this money?

Reading the May issue of the freesheet 'Alive! is a horrible experience and it is difficult to understand how church authorities stand over the freesheet? Or is it that this is the real colour of the Catholic Church?

The crass bigotry of the editorial, the freesheet's denuncation of Irish Catholics are just some of the articles in store for the reader this month.

How it insults individuals and organisations is shocking.

The President of Ireland is referred to as Michael Higgins, also as Higgins.

The Catholic diocese of Limerick published a card-sized promo on the 'Year of Mercy'. On the front there is a quote from Pope Francis:

"No one can be excluded from God's mercy'.

Careerism and sycophancy breed incompetency

This week's INM Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

Say a particular class in a school does badly every year in the Leaving Cert in some subject, which is taught by one specific teacher. It wouldn't be long before the school authorities and parents would be questioning the competency of the teacher. 

It would be most unlikely that the students in that particular class were weak students every year.When I hear church people bemoan the state of the church in Ireland I can't help but ask myself if there be a problem, why has it happened.

Okay, church attendance has seen a decline right across the developed world.

Church people will argue that 'secularism' has extended its 'nasty fangs' and people have walked away from church practice.

There will be those who will say we have lost our sense of God. If so, why? Is it as simple as that? I don't think so.

Before I write another word I have to come clean and say that I have never been in a position of authority within the hierarchical church.

Secondly, when  my late father would hear me criticise the management class within the church he would turn to me and say: "Michael, they can't all be getting it wrong."

He had a point but from where I stand, there is good reason to think that there is a chronic problem within the leadership of the church, and not just in Ireland but right around the world. That's some statement to make. It sure is.

Of course it's not just in the church that there are cases of inefficient and incompetent managers. It happens everywhere but within the church there doesn't seem to be any checks and balances.

Who are the people who manage and control the Irish church? At top are the archbishops and bishops.

What sort of management training and skills do they have? Who appoints them? To whom are they answerable?

Within religious congregations there are provincials, some of whom are elected and others appointed from a higher authority.

Since the election of Jorge Bergoglio three years ago I have been fascinated how church leaders seem to quote so easily the words of Pope Francis.

But before his papacy the same men were quoting in the same euphoric terms the words of Pope Benedict and before Benedict it was the words of Pope John Paul. Something suspicious there.

No doubt all good and wise popes. I can't help but smell a tad of sycophancy in the tone emanating from all those princes of the church.

I can't help but suspect so many of them have come from the school of careerism, an art in which they are so well versed. And it's the same within religious congregations.

Has it really been possible for a man, who thinks for himself, to be elected or appointed to a senior job in the church in the last 50 years?

It would seem that during the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict there was a tendency to appoint 'yes-men' as bishops around the world. It was as if they did not want strong independent bishops, who might question things. They wanted nothing to do with subsidiarity. And we are paying the price for that today.

Where there is an indulgence of sycophancy and careerism in an organisation there is always the danger that incompetency and inefficiency will have a greater chance of gaining a foothold.

And to add to that it would seem that jealousy is never too far away from the mindset of the cleric.

But then there is the Holy Spirit. At least Alleluia for that.