The ugliness of Donald Trump in word and deed

From The New Yorker

Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric is part of a much larger offensive against any form of immigration that would make the United States resemble the ethnic diversity of his native Queens. 

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/tracing-the-racist-roots-of-donald-trumps-obscenities

The Eighth Amendment

There has been discussion in recent days how Peter Sutherland tried to stop the Eighth Amendment.

Dominican priest, Fr Michael Heuston strongly opposed the Amendment. He said that we would rue the day.

Fr Heuston was a brother of Sean Heuston of 1916 fame. 

Trump's lawyer said to have paid hush-money to porn star

Online Der Siegel is reporting today that President Trump's lawyer paid money a month before the presidential election to a porn star to keep quiet.

According to the Wall Street Journal Trump's long-standing lawyer Michael Cohen paid Stephanie Clifford, alias 'Stromy Daniels' $130,000 to stop the publishing information about the alleged sexual encounter.

Nasty right-wing 'religion'

Nothing surprising about this.

From the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/10/vatican-catholicism-peru-pope-francis?CMP=share_btn_link

An encounter

We bump into people on the street, we meet people in different places and at different times.

We have lasting friendships, occasional encounters. We know some people for all our lives. There are people we like, people we don't like and then the bevy of people who may not like us.

Some people impress us others just pass by and then those we find annoying or difficult.

All part of the mix of our daily lives.

In recent days I have had the great good fortune to meet a wonderful human being and it so happens he is a priest of the Dublin Archdiocese.

He stands out, gentle, kind, smart. I imagine the last thing he would want to hear is a pious word.

He brings into relief the sillyness of the holy jargon, all that stuff and nonsense that seems to be trotted out in pious tones.

I have always been suspicious of the 'holy stuff' but these days I can't help but think it is one big fraud, a self-indulgent game played out to massage  and satisfy the egos of people who try to control and bully.

Standing for something

Jesuit priest Joe Brennan died earlier this week.

He had a long association with Gonzaga College in Dublin.

He had a famous one-liner, which all his students knew:

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."

Speaking with authority

The Gospel reading at yesterday's Mass talks of how the people listened to Jesus because unlike the scribes he taught them with authority.

Albert Einstein while living in Switzerland as a young man wrote to Professor Jost Winteler: ‘Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth’.

Three children and their granny having great fun

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

Michael Commane

Sunday December 31 was the feast of the Holy Family in the liturgy of the Catholic Church.

Over the years I have heard priests and bishops use the occasion to preach on the family and family life.

Certainly, it can never be said that Jesus lived in the perfect family. To say such a thing sounds silly.

Surely there is no such thing as a perfect family. Every single family is different and no-one ever knows what goes on behind the door of any family.

Some families have charmed lives, others experience hell on earth. In the last 20 or 30 years we have seen a glimpse of some of the horror that can take place in families.

These days there is a myriad family styles. To talk about the perfect family is absurd, indeed, it's a great oxymoron.

The day before the feast of the Holy Family I was on a train from Mallow to Dublin. It was surprisingly busy and at Limerick Junction an elderly woman boarded the train with her three grandchildren and they sat beside me. I like travelling on quiet trains so I was irritated that I had lost the free seats beside me. Awfully cheeky of me, but that's the way it is.

The granddaughter, who was 17, asked me if they could take the seats. I half-jokingly, half-seriously said I'd prefer not but yes they were free.

She smiled, said nothing and they sat down in the seats. The other two children, a boy and a girl were probably 13 and 15 respectively.

The train pulled off. The young boy put on his headphones and granny asked the 15-year-old for the pack of cards. 

The granddaughter was stylish, nail varnish, eyelashes, a smartphone and long blonde hair. Her grandmother was small and probably in her 70s.

The train had hardly cleared the station when granny and the 17-year-old were playing cards. A while later the other girl, who was sitting across on the other side, joined in the card-playing. It's an hour and 34 minutes from Limerick Junction to Dublin Heuston and for the entire journey the three of them played cards.

That in itself was great to see but there was far more to it that that. I'm not sure I have ever seen people so kind to each other and relax in each other's company as they did. The gentleness and kindness, the 17-year-old showed to her grandmother was astonishing. It all came so natural to them. I couldn't work out what card-game they were playing but they were enjoying every minute of it.

About 10 kilometres out of Heuston I asked the young girl how old she was, so that's how I knew her age. Putting on my coat I asked her what class she was in and she told me fifth year. I was hoping she was doing German but no, French. When I said to her that she was a great advertisement for the young generation she graciously smiled, seemed embarrassed and whispered, 'thank you'.

Over the Christmas I read some of the seasonal greetings from political and church leaders. Some of it sounded hollow and cliched and probably written by their press advisers.

This granny and her three grandchildren who annoyed me at Limerick Junction taking 'my free seats' were a Christmas tonic for me.

I have been thinking about it, thinking about faith, religion, liturgy, the state of institutional churches in Ireland but I have no doubt 'God's favour' was with my 'seat takers'. Also, wherever they go and with whom ever they engage they will inspire and impress.

Young priests are often strong Francis opposers

The excerpt below is from an article by Italian journalist Marco Politi in the current issue of The Tablet.

THERE ARE MANY reasons for the resistance to Francis’ reforms. Some bishops are simply committed theological conservatives, and others stick to tradition because of a temperamental preference for “how it always was”; they are puzzled by rapid changes in society and feel safer keeping to the road that they know. 

The same is true of the junior clergy; young priests are often the firmest in their resolve to resist Francis’ reforms. Together, these bishops and priests create a sort of marsh, hampering the Pope’s progress and slowing down the work of the new bishops he appoints.

At his annual pre-Christmas meeting with members of the Roman Curia in 2016, Francis complained about the “hidden resistance, born of fearful or hardened hearts, content with the empty rhetoric of spiritual window dressing, typical of those who say they are ready for change yet want everything to remain as it was before”.

Even more trenchantly, he denounced the “malicious resistance, which springs up in misguided minds and comes to the fore when the devil (often cloaked in sheep’s clothing) inspires ill intentions”.

Last month, at his 2017 meeting with them, he spoke of the existence within the Curia of an “unbalanced and debased mindset of plots and small cliques”, of a real “cancer” leading to self-centredness.

On top of that, he emphasised the danger of traitors, persons chosen to support and implement reforms who instead “let themselves be corrupted by ambition or vainglory”. His harsh words were met by a sullen show of obedience

The terror of TV providers

The behaviour of some of the TV/broadband/phone companies is close to tyrannical.

If one decides to close, say their television account, the methods used by one of these companies to recover its equipment is appalling.

Maybe all these companies behave in a similar manner.

They threaten, demand and then break their word.

What can the customer do?

If a State company behaved in a similar manner there would be public uproar.

Experiencing an epiphany in our everyday lives

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times on Saturday, January 6.

Michael Commane

Today is the feast of the Epiphany. It's part of the great Christmas festival. In some countries, the Epiphany takes precedence over Christmas when it comes to celebrating and exchanging gifts.

Jesus, through the guidance of a star, is made manifest to the Three Wise Men, or Magi, and they in turn 'falling to their knees did him homage'. (Matthew 2: 11)

The story of the Magi, their meeting the infant Jesus and how they outwitted King Herod through the help of a dream is one of the age-old stories of Christianity that never loses its sense of wonder.

Today's feast gives us an opportunity to think about how God is made manifest in the world.

I have known 'Jack' for approximately five years.

He is unkempt, has a great long shaggy beard and carries with him all his earthly possessions on his broken-down bicycle. How he rides it with his black sacks on board is both mysterious and an act of genius. Most times both brakes are missing.

'Jack', who is in his 60s, parks himself, his bicycle and possessions in the porch of a Dublin church most mornings close to six o'clock and stays there until the end of the 07.30 Mass.

Every morning he is there we have a chat about what's happening. 

But on some occasions, we cross swords. The same 'Jack' can be rude to people and shout nasty and unprintable obscenities at people.

Over the years, I have visited him in Mountjoy and Clover Hill prisons.

 'Jack' can be a nuisance and indeed terrify and frighten people. His loud rasping voice is commensurate with his large stature. He is well over six feet tall and wears size 10 shoes. 

More than two years ago he got to know a young woman, who occasionally attends the church. She was involved in an environmental group attached to the parish. She has now completed her studies and is working abroad. Like most of her generation, there is not much about the institutional Catholic Church that inspires her or makes sense to her. 

Before Christmas she contacted me inquiring if ‘Jack’ were still around and if so would there be any possibility for her to meet him. I told 'Jack' she wanted to see him and 'warned' him to be in the church porch on an agreed day. Jack has no address, nor does he email nor have a mobile phone.

It happened and they met. And on that day the three of us had a great chat and laugh. I saw 'Jack' smile, talk and laugh in a way that I never saw him laugh before. His face lit up, this was a metamorphosis. 'Jack' knew that this young woman respected him, had time for him and she treated him with dignity.

Every Christmas there is discussion about how we have commercialised the festival. But every year the manic buying and preparation continues. Every year people talk about being exhausted while admitting it's a great time for children. The usual 'stuff' is spoken and written by political and church leaders. Sometimes the words are inspiring, other times they are clichés, trotted out year upon year.

The highlight of this Christmas for me was to see the beaming smile on Jack's face when he was treated with respect and kindness.  If I ever saw God being made manifest in a tangible and real way it was on that cold winter morning in a porch in a Dublin church.

The liturgy of the Epiphany reminds us of God being made manifest in the world. It seems that liturgy and so much of the life and vocabulary of institutional religion is failing to inspire, call or nudge people to God.

Manifesting Jesus in the world is an exciting project. There is nothing staid or boring about the message of God and that message turns up where we least expect it. It can be in a church porch, anywhere, an epiphany.

Signs of poor HR

There has in recent weeks been ongoing discussion at Irish Rail concerning a €500 tax-free voucher, which could only be used at one retailer.

But there has also been annoyance or unease that in order to access the voucher employees had to sign up to an Irish Rail email account.

Siptu organiser Paul Cullen said: "This is indicative of the dire state of industrial relations within Irish Rail."

The idea that employees or members have to sign up to a company or organisation's email account to receive 'goodies' or news is not exclusive to Irish Rail.

Some religious congregations carry out a similar practice. Not wise or helpful.

Forgotten abuses

The Irish Times 'Health Family' supplement this week carries a piece on sibling bullying.

In a small online survey carried out at UCD 31 per cent of participants considered they had been bullied by a sibling.

Sibling bullying is significantly more prevalent - as much as three times - than school bullying

According to Professor Mark Kiselica of Cabrini University, Pennsylvania it remains 'a forgotten abuse'.

Has there ever been a study done on abuse within priesthood or in religious congregations?

Certainly another 'forgotten abuse'.

A world turned upside down

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

Michael Commane

At this time of year newspapers and television look back on the last year, they also review the State papers of 30 years ago, which are now released for perusal.

It's fascinating how differently people dressed and spoke just a  short 30 years ago. For anyone now in their teens or 20s, indeed even 30s it is an eternity away.

My father died at 95, was swimming in the Atlantic at 92. We'd often discuss the changes he had seen. He drove his father's car when he was 15 and spent 80 years behind the wheel. Never had a road accident. That's some record.

I can still remember when we got a landline in the early 1960s. Back then we didn't call it a landline. Most phones in the country were on a table in the hall. Like Henry Ford and his black cars, phones were black.

My Dad used a cordless phone but he never managed a mobile phone, nor indeed, did he get to deal in euro. And there's a funny story about the money; for a long time after we moved away from pounds shillings and pence to pounds and pence, Dad still called the 10p coin 2/-, or a two-shilling-bit. To younger readers that's 'double-dutch'. Another world from Bitcoins.

I have seen four currency changes. I was born into a world of pounds, shillings and pence, in 1971 we changed to decimal currency. The punt arrived in 1979 and then the euro in 2002.

The first time I went to Germany, which was 1972, I had a stamp in my passport stating how many German marks I was bringing with me.

When I hear columnist Mary Kenny tweet how her mother cherished her green Irish passport I find myself getting a pain in the pit of my stomach. Listening to Nigel Farage talk about the significance of the return of the 'Blue passport' and how important it is, I look forward to the day when Mr Farage is left standing in an endless airport queue for non-EU citizens. 

While my parents saw a lot of changes in their lifetime, my generation has seen its world turned upside down.

On Sunday I was washing strawberries to put on my porridge. Strawberries in January were unheard of when I was a child and a young man.

This Christmas close to one million  people used Dublin Airport. When I was a teenager I cycled out to Dublin Airport with cousins, walked into a hangar and got on board a DC3 and Viscount aircraft. If we managed to do that today it would be an item of news and a top-level security inquiry would be launched.

In the 1960s computer companies constructed large buildings to house their data-inputting machines. Our mobile phones hold more data than those monsters.

Where and what next? Who knows? But one in seven on the planet does not have enough to eat.

One third of the food produced in the world for human consumption, approximately 1.3 billion tonnes, is wasted.  In the developed world €573 billion worth of food is wasted every year and in the developing world it works out at €261 billion.

We have come a long way in my lifetime, well, at least some have. And at whose expense?

It's not exclusively the people in the developing world who are hurting. And no one knows that better than Donald Trump, who has his finger on the pulse of those left behind in rust-belts all over the developed world.

There's something amiss and it needs fixing, and fast.

Happy New Year to all. 

'Constant violence' at Benedictine-run school

THIS is from yesterday's Guardian.

It's worth noting the perpetrator later worked in the Benedictine HQ in Rome.

It's a familiar story. Shocking.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/01/london-catholic-school-abuse-survivor-speaks-of-constant-violence-st-benedicts?CMP=share_btn_link

Nor has May a whistle

Great quote from the Guardian's  Hugh Muir.

May trying to reshuffle her cabinet is like a referee without a whistle.

UK railways

On this day 70 years ago the railway network in the United Kingdom was nationalised and British Railways came into being.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn promises that if Labour is returned to power the party will begin the process of renationalising the rail network.

Bob Talty OP

Irish Dominican, Fr Bob Talty celebrates his 95th birthday today.

Congratulations to the nonagenarian.

He has spent the last 50 years in the Dominican Priory in Pope's Quay in Cork.

Bob is a Cork man, who must suffer greatly with the current poor performance of the Cork county hurling and football teams.

He joined the Dominicans in 1954 when he was in his early 30s.

Bob is a man of total dedication and committment, an honourable man, who says what he believes and believes what he says. A no-nonsense man, who uses the turn of phrase 'ground-hurling'. And when he says it one knows exactly what he means. A person of great kindness with a profound faith.

Bob was my contact with the province before I received the Dominican habit in Pope's Quay, Cork in September 1967.

The perfect oxymoron?

Today is the feast of the Holy Family in the liturgy of the Catholic Church.

The feast is about the family into which Jesus was born.

It's a day when sermons might focus on the perfect family.

Is the term 'perfect family' the perfect example of an oxymoron?

One million over-65ers

Irealnd's over-65s are expected to double within the next 20 years bringing the totoal number of people over 65 to one million.

Ireland's population is ageing faster than the EU average.

There has been a 34 per cent increase in  people aged over 65 since 2008.

A million people with the Travel Pass in 2038?

Our health

Cancer survival rates are lower in Ireland than the EU average inspite of the fact that we spend more on health than the EU average.

Clinton Bush interview

The link below is a Jon Snow interview with Bill Clinton and George W Bush.

The 47-minute chat makes for great viewing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hUOUNZrbBg&sns=em

Barack Hussein Obama

President Barack Obama talks to England's Prince Harry.

It's a great interview and not to be missed.

The man inspires.

Close to the end of the interview Harry asks him a silly/vulgar question, which President Obama refuses to answer.

The interview, which was prerecorded earlier, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 this morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukbb5Zkvu5w&sns=em

Road-rage is too polite a word for what I experienced

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

Michael Commane

Earlier this month an aggravated burglary took place a short three kilometres from where I live.

A woman and a man smashed the window of a house and forced a man in his 60s to go to an ATM to withdraw money. Later in the morning they made him go to a bank and withdraw a larger sum.

Fortunately, two people were arrested. Imagine the terror and trauma caused to that man.

A day hardly passes when we don’t hear about a violent act done to a person. In mid-December a 78-year-old widow, who lived on her own, was murdered in Limerick.

All crimes are heinous but when they are done to vulnerable people there is a gasp of horror from the collective national conscience.

We read it in the newspapers and see it on our television screens. But when it does not impinge on us I think it’s true to say that we easily move on to the next item of news.

When it touches us at a personal level it is a different story.

In early December I was cycling on a narrow Dublin street. It was 5.45pm. I was well lit up and it would have been impossible not to see me. A car passed me but alas it was far too close for safety and certainly for my comfort. I got a real fright so my immediate reaction was to beckon to the driver to move out. I simply waved my hand suggesting he give me more space. There was no rude gesture, nothing like that from me.

Nervously I continued cycling. Because of the heavy traffic I managed to pass the motorist, so some minutes later I spotted a car pull up beside me and the window coming down. It dawned on me what was happening. My motorist friend was not happy with me. I was expecting a roar or two, a short exchange of words and that would be it.

It was nothing like that. He launched the most aggressive and frightening tirade that I have ever experienced. He screamed at me, using violent and obscene language. I was so frightened there was no way I was going to argue with him. I tried to explain that he drove too closely to me. He was having none of it.

He so frightened me that I was stuck to the ground. Why did I simply not jump up on the footpath and cycle away at speed? The answer is that I was terrified. Does he behave like that at home?

This was small stuff in so many ways. What must it be like for people who have to live with such behaviour? How must it be for women, children, vulnerable people, who are confronted with intolerable violence on a daily basis?

Later that evening I phoned a Garda station. I got chatting to a friendly garda and explained what happened. He told me that the general public has no idea how society is changing and how violent people are becoming.

What is it about us that can make us violent? Nature of nurture?

Since that incident happened me I’ve been thinking of the words of Levin in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: ‘We must live for something incomprehensible, for God, whom no one can know or define’.

There’s a line in Psalm 41 which reads: ‘By day the Lord will send his loving kindness.’ 

I like to go for that.

Goodness and kindness surely are the hallmarks of strength. We need a gentler world. There’s more to us than nastiness and violence. It should never be tolerated.

Last day of Soviet Union

On this date, December 26, 1991 the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union met to dissolve the Soviet Union.

It came into being in 1922. In 1917 the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin overthrew the Provisional government which had replaced the Tzar.

The population in 1991 was approximately 293 million and the  Soviet Union covered a landmass of 22.4 million square kilometres, spanning 12 time zones.

It's highpoint was the Red Army victory over Germany in World War II. Over 20 million Russians lost their lives in that war.

It is generally agreed that the victory of Zhukov's army at Stalingrad was the turning point in the defeat of Germany.

The graphic below shows the size of the Soviet Union in 1945.

Betjeman's Christmas

The last verse of John Betjeman's poem Christmas.

Betjeman was UK Poet Laureate in 1972. In 1941 he was press attache in Dublin.

No love that in the family dwell,

No carolling in frosty air,

Nor all the steeple-shaking bells

Can with a single truth compare -

That God was man in Palestine

And lives today in bread and wine.

Pope Francis on faith

Pope Francis speaking to the Roman Curia last week.

"Christmas reminds us that a faith that does not trouble us is a troubled faith. 

A faith that does not make us grow is a faith that needs to grow. A faith that does not raise questions is a faith that has to be questioned. 

A faith that does not rouse us is a faith that needs to be roused. A faith that does not shake us is a faith that needs to be shaken. Indeed, a faith which is only intellectual or lukewarm is only a notion of faith. 

It can become real once it touches our heart, our soul, our spirit and our whole being, once it allows God to be born and reborn in the manger of our heart, once we let the star of Bethlehem guide us to the place where the Son of God lies, not among kings and riches, but among the poor and humble."

Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh on mind and body illnesses

Henry Marsh is a neurosurgeon, who has written two bestsellers about his work, Do No Harm and Admissions.

Now retired from his full-time job with the NHS, he continues to ply his trade in Nepal and Ukraine.

These days he is reflecting more deeply about what 40 years spent handling the human brain has taught him.

The excerpt below is taken from Admissions.

My life as a neurosurgeon was to teach me that the distinction between physical and psychological illness is false - at least, that illnesses of the mind are not less real than those of the body, and no less deserving of our help.

The passport nonsense

Mary Kenny, who is a columnist in right-wing Catholic newspapers, tweets that one of her mother's proudest possessions was her 'little green passport. She valued the symbol of Ireland's independence'.

The current Irish passport is smaller than the older more bulky green Irish passport. The Irish passport carries the harp, the symbol of Ireland.

Has Ms Kenny not spotted the harp on the Irish passport.

The columnist  is forever at the margins criticising so many aspects of living in the European Union. She comes across as Nigel Farage lite.

Green and pornography

An interesting article in yesterday's Guardian  by Martin Kettle.

Damian Green’s fall shows that politics needs cleaning up, but so does the web.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/21/damian-green-parliament-cleaning-up-porn?CMP=share_btn_link

'The Tablet's' Damian Green

British politician and first secretary to the cabinet Damian Green resigned yesterday evening.

He is a lifelong friend and colleague of Theresa May.

Green has been embroiled in alleged scandals for sometime, including downloading pornography on his House of Commons computer.

Again, the words of Enoch Powell come to mind - all political careers end in failure.

Some weeks ago The Tablet listed Damian Green as one of Britain's top influential Catholics.

It was an odious exercise.

Far too often the church seems to court favour of people in high office. Then again, it gives anachronistic titles to its own managers.