English grammar a la RTE

RTE's Katie Hannon, reviewing yesterday on RTE Radio 1's Drivetime the year of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said,  "..... he had not rang."

She was talking about Leo's gaffe when he was talking with President Trump about his golf course in Ireland and plannig permission.

RTE should give a course to its employees on the use of the past participle.

It's interesting how middle class Ireland will sneer at 'I done' but they seemingly have no issues with misusing the participle with other verbs.

The last day of bituminous coal mining in Germany

Today in Bottrop the last piece of bituminous coal was brought to the surface.

After 200 years Germany no long mines bituminous coal.

President Hans Walter Steinmeier was on hand to receive the final piece of  German coal. He spoke about the role coal has played in German history, stressing its importance in rebuilding post-war Germany.

Present at the ceremony were representatives from the unions, politics, church and state. 

Canterbury versus Rome

This from The Times today.

It is reporting on a meeting in Downing Street between Mrs May and some of those who voted against her last week.

“She was supremely relaxed,” one of the guests said. “We had an hour. It was an eclectic mix of people.” At one point the prime minister remarked that the difference between her and Mr Rees-Mogg was that she paid her allegiance to Canterbury as a member of the Church of England while his was to Rome as a Catholic. He replied: “Only in matters spiritual, prime minister.”

Patrick Kavanagh's Advent

The first verse of Patrick Kavanagh's poem Advent deserves mention in the run-up to Christmas.

We have tested and tasted too much lover  - 
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul,we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

'Mothers of Invention'

Join former Irish President Mary Robinson and comedian Maeve Higgins in a new podcast, celebrating amazing women doing remarkable things in pursuit of climate justice.

​

Each episode features the Mothers of Invention driving powerful solutions to climate change – from the grassroots to the court room, the front lines to the board room – all over the world. 

At home

Irish Dominican Thomas McCarthy has been writing the weekly Advent reflection this year in The Tablet.

This is his reflection for the Third Sunday in Advent.

It makes for an interesting read.

Our eyes welcome only as much light as we can bear. They develop as we grow; they open gradually wider, seeing further and in more and more detail. The heart, responding to what is seen, comes to love, hope and believe. Some know only pain, abandonment and disillusion: for them the eyes grow dim. 

Those who suffer acutely can be forgiven for not wishing to see any more, or to be seen. As night falls, they seek shelter in doorways, their wintry plight a mirror of the weather they endure. Hope ebbs from their heart’s shore. They are truly the homeless in our society.

But there are others, who may live quite near us, perhaps in material comfort, whose pain remains largely unseen. I mean those who seek to “keep the bright side out”, if only to avoid questions about their well-being. Yes, they have a roof over their heads, but, inside, they are homeless, despite their bland, dismissive assurances: “I’m fine, thanks.”

They include wonderful souls whose marriages have soured, leaving them lonely even in the middle of a family. And among them too must be counted priests burnt out by the stress of their beleagured profession, and Religious sisters and brothers no longer at ease in the communities they joined. 

Some may have found an inner “eye” that reaches further, or a zeal that outstretched anything currently evident in the cloister: a generosity of spirit frustrated when the image portrayed by the order they joined has become little more than a façade. Such hearts, too, are homeless.

There is homelessness also in a soul that is impatient. “Be vigilant and pray – this is how to live this time from today until Christmas,” Pope Francis said at the beginning of Advent. These four weeks are “a time to open our hearts and to ask ourselves concrete questions about how we spend our lives and for whom.” We need time to enable a fruitful change of heart. 

The growth and flowering of life takes time. Life is best not rushed. The rate of adjusting our behaviour can depend on how much light the eyes of faith can bear at any given moment. Unless the homeless soul can learn the grace of waiting it may not discover that, as Hermann Hesse wrote, “Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.” 

It is not a purse or a wallet that is needed to alleviate the pain of the homeless soul. A listening ear is more apt, and the alertness that senses unease in a sister’s or brother’s “living and partly living”. As we “go forth” when Mass is ended, we are summoned to seek out the lost, including those sheltered under the same roof as us.

What can sometimes inflame the eye and inspire the heart is the image of dreams coming “one size too big” for us. The challenge is often to be patient, to “grow into them”.

One step at a time. In the spiritual life, questions are easily posed, of ourselves and of others. The provision of the “correct” answers does not guarantee a quick fix. The process is best not rushed. Perhaps we need to be “still and still moving”.

Jesus, who, while still very young, is depicted by Luke as having being discovered by his anxious parents to be asking questions in the Temple, later challenged disciples who were no doubt as “full of years” as those Temple doctors likely were. They could not be expected to imagine it, but in fact the young visitor was more at home in that Temple than they were.

Trump has an ally in EWTN

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

Michael Commane

Every day we see and hear something new, usually outlandish, about President Donald Trump.

In early December Rex Tillerson, who was President Trump’s first secretary of state, said in a talk in Houston, Texas, that Mr Trump was undisciplined, did not like to read and did not respect the limits of his office.

Donald Trump immediately got to his Twitter account and said of Rex Tillerson:

‘Tillerson didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell.’

I can’t imagine a major company such as Exxon Mobil would have appointed someone as ‘dumb as a rock’ as its CEO, where Tillerson was 10 years in the top job.

These days it’s news when Trump is not in the news. And that surely is the way he wants it. In many ways he is a class act in getting attention. Indeed, the world seems to focus on him and his words every day.

The Mueller investigation is closing the net on him and his shenanigans with Russia, Putin and other autocrats and autocratic states.

These are not normal times.

If you or I said what Trump has said about women we would be summarily dismissed from our jobs. And certainly, in my case, I would be immediately removed from ministry. Yet millions of people voted for Trump, a large number of evangelical Christians support him and large swathes of right-wing Catholics cast their vote for the then Republican presidential candidate.

The conservative religious television station EWTN, the Catholic version of Fox News, is gentle and kind to him, even more than that, it makes it clear that it supports many of his policies.

Trump is no fool and it would be absurd to dismiss him as some sort of jester. He is far from it.

The President of the United States has an uncanny ability of appealing to the lowest and darkest sides of our humanity.

He is clever in how he attacks defined enemies, he knows he can ridicule the weak and the fragile. Do you remember that time when he mimicked a person with special needs? He has genius quality in creating scapegoats.

He can say whatever he likes at his mass rallies and his adoring fans will scream and howl in support.

There are now the regular chant lines: ‘lock her up’ or ‘build that wall’. They are clever one-liners, which are used as a response to his stream of nasty consciousness.

When any of us is hurt, feels alienated or unwanted, there is always the temptation to lash out and say or do nasty things. And it is this aspect of our being that Trump seems to touch and cultivate with an uncanny precision.

Anytime he meets with other world leaders he frowns and pouts and that must be because he is not at the centre of attention. It was clear at the funeral of George HW Bush that he was uncomfortable. 

While the eulogies delivered at the funeral were of course about the dead president, there was always the sub plot, pointing out the rudeness and vulgarity of the current president.

Editor of ‘The New Yorker’, David Remnick commented how the words spoken about the dignity of Bush compared with the vulgarity of Trump. He said: ‘One man speaking the truth, another man incapable of speaking the truth.

And the big question; what does former KGB spy in East Germany and now Russian President Vladimir Putin have on Donald Trump?

Happy birthday Pope Francis

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires on this day in 1936.

He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1969.

Elected pope on March 13, 2013, taking the name Pope Francis.

Ryanair now flying Dublin Frankfurt-am-Main

That Ryanair operates a new route is certainly not newsworthy. 

But what is newsworthy and indeed surprising is that the carrier is now flying between Dublin and Frankfurt-am-Main international or main airport, in other words, the real Ffm airport.

And that they have done it all so quietly and fanfare-less is most unusual.

Up to now they have been flying to Hahn, calling it Frankfurt Hahn.

That would be similar to landing in Thurles and calling it Dublin Thurles.

Ryanair continues to fly from Dublin to Hahn and uses the former US airbase as a hub.

Cardinal Pell found guilty of sex abuse by Melbourne court

Cardinal George Pell has been found guilty by a Melbourne court.

In one of the most closely watched trials in modern Catholic Church history, after nearly four full days of deliberations, a jury rendered unanimous guilty verdicts on five charges related to the abuse of two choirboys in 1996.

Pell, who is 77, is currently on a leave of absence from his post as the Vatican’s Secretary for the Economy.

In June 2017, Pell was charged by Australian police with “historical sexual assault offences,” forcing him to leave Rome and return to Australia vowing to “clear his name.”

During the four weeks of testimony, the jury heard from the former master of ceremonies of the cathedral, its former organist, and other choirboys during the same period of the alleged incident.

Much of the testimony centred on whether or not it would have been possible for Pell to have been alone with the members of the choir and whether it would have been physically possible for Pell to engage in such actions while wearing his Mass vestments.

Pell has been a key point of reference in English-speaking Catholicism for at least the last two decades, and he was appointed by Pope Francis to his “C9” council of cardinal advisers from around the world in 2013. 

On Wednesday, the Vatican announced that at the end of October, Pope Francis had removed Pell, along with two other cardinals, from his council of advisers.

He served as the Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996 to 2001, then as the Archbishop of Sydney from 2001 until his appointment to his Vatican position in 2014.

The Australian media is prohibited from printing Pell's name.

The piece below is from The Sydney Morning Post

https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/why-the-media-is-unable-to-report-on-a-case-that-has-generated-huge-interest-online-20181212-p50lta.html

Ireland joins UN

On this date, December 14, 1955, Ireland, along with a number of other countries, joined the United Nations.

Louis Michael O'Halloran OP, RIP

Dominican priest Louis Michael O'Halloran died in Glendonagh Nursing Home, Dungowney, Midleton, Co Cork yesterday morning.

Louis, known in the Order as Lou or indeed, 'The Lou' was born in Cork in 1925, joined the Irish Dominicans in 1950 and was ordained a priest in July 1956.

He went to the famous CBS North Monastery secondary school. In his young days he was a keen tennis player. His parents owned and ran a general grocery shop on the Commons Road in Cork city.

Before coming to the Dominicans he studied engineering at University College Cork, graduating with a degree from the National University of Ireland.

After priestly ordination he did further studies, obtaining his Higher Diploma in Education, subsequently spending sometime teaching mathematics at Newbridge College in Co Kildare.

He also taught mathematics at the then Dominican-run Holy Cross College in Trinidad. He is remembered as a no-nonsense teacher.

Lou was teaching in Holy Cross during the emergence of the Black Power movement and on one occasion spoke critically of the behaviour of a number of students, which did not endear him to those involved in the new political development.

While in Trinidad among the many practical jobs he did was to label all the cabling, sockets, fuses and terminals at Holy Cross Priory, which over the years proved most helpful especially later when extensions or modifications were made to the building.

After Trinidad Fr O'Halloran moved to the United States of America where he worked as a prison chaplain and also ministered in parishes in California.

While spending many years outside his native Ireland he was to his core a Cork man and so proud of it.

In 2014 he returned to his beloved Cork and was living at the Dominican Priory, Ennismore, Montennote, Cork until he moved to the nursing home in Midleton.

May he rest in peace.

Far too many patients on trolleys

In November there were 9,679 patients on trolleys in Ireland.

This is an increase of 11per cent on November 2017.

Figures supplied by INMO.

According to a report in The Irish Times on Saturday there is a €655 million hole in the State's health budget. 

This is due to overspending, increased GP and legal costs, and a failure to achieve €15 million in savings.

Some good tips on using social media

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

Michael Commane

Have you ever sent an email or text message in a hurry?

Before we had smartphones and internet facilities we wrote letters. We had to go looking for an envelope, find a stamp, then post it. That was a long operation. But it stopped us in our step and gave us plenty of space to think exactly what we wanted to put down on paper.

The nonsense and drivel we see on social media surely is the result of the facility of being able to fire off instantly the madness that is the result of that quick rush of blood to our brains.

Social media can be a dangerous business. I had the good fortune two weeks ago of attending a talk on the dangers of social media and how we can protect ourselves against some of its dangers.

The young man who gave the talk was excellent, articulate and well-briefed. It was in the context of my work that I was at the talk. 

I was struck with how quickly everything to do with social media is changing.

He began his talk by pointing out that just 11 years ago, 2007, a smartphone was unimaginable. When he told us that Bebo died in 2009 one could sense a feeling in the room how far we had come in such a short time. And then someone mentioned the Blackberry. Looking for a Blackberry today is something like searching for a steam kettle.

But in the midst of all the change and its speed he kept stressing that the rules for staying safe online never change.

Today in Ireland 95 per cent of children have access to the internet at home. The average age of children having a smart phone is 10.

There are 2.2 billion people on Facebook and Snapchat records 10,000 snaps per second.

Children are going online younger and for longer and according to the latest statistics one in four children are victims of cyber-bullying.

The lecturer pointed out the importance of teaching people how to communicate over the internet. In face-to-face communication it’s not just a matter of what we say but how we say it. To demonstrate his point, he wrote the following sentence on the board: ‘I never said she stole my money’. He pointed out how that sentence as a text message could have seven different meanings, which makes it so dangerous. It depends on where the stress is put to give it its specific meaning. And that’s not possible in a text message. There is little or no nuance or subtlety in social media.

There is the added dimension of anonymity, which dramatically changes everything but especially bullying.

There are some basic social media rules: if you would not say it to a person’s face then don’t put it online, if you don’t know how something works, then find out, once you put something up on the internet you lose control of it. It can’t be undone. Never reply to abusive or bullying messages and always keep a copy.

He told some harrowing stories of how people have been duped on the internet. Never make friends with strangers and never give out private details across the web.

Where is it all leading, no-one knows. But one thing is sure, be constantly on your guard when using social media. Indeed, the very term social media has now unfortunately become an oxymoron.

Remember, once you press that send button, whatever you have posted, text or picture, it’s there for ever.

Trump rubbishes Tillerson

President Donald Trump on his former Secretary of State and ex Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Tillerson was Trump's first Secretary of State:

Tillerson didn't have the mental capacity needed.

He was dumb as a rock and I couldn't get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell.

On first reading it sounds daft. It's what we have grown accustomed to from the President of the United States of America.

But it's dangerous to underestimate Trump. He has that demagogue factor. He knows how to touch millions of people with angry nasty words. He enunciates what many people think in their darkest thoughts.

How many people when they fall out with friends, colleagues and relatives, when they don't like people, say such nasty things against them?  People get hunches and ideas on those they may never have met or with whom they may never have spoken and then they say terrible things about them.

Trump appeals to the dark side of human beings.

With all his right-wing baggage, his vulgarity, his rudeness, he is a dangerous man.

And millions of people voted for this man, who has spoken vile words against women, jeers at people with special needs.

Trump is clever to attack defined enemies.

He promises to make America great again.

Samuel Johnson on pious men

Wise words of Samuel Johnson. Does anything ever change?

A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.

Mary and her #MeToo placard

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

Michael Commane

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. It is a major feast in the Catholic tradition. It is also celebrated as a 'Lesser Festival' in some Anglican provinces.

The Eastern Church celebrated the feast of the conception of the Most Holy and All Pure Mother of God perhaps as early as the fifth century in Syria.

Like all Christian feasts it has a long historical background. The first moves to refer to Mary as being immaculately conceived were in the 11th century, and the day was made a 'Holy Day of Obligation' in 1708. That term 'Holy Day of Obligation' may sound alienating to our ears in the 21st century.

With the current state of affairs within Irish Christian communities there is a belief among some that young people are not being taught their faith as was in the past, hence the fall off in religious practice.

The following observation puts paid to that thinking.

Some years ago, there was a heated discussion in a newsroom about the meaning of today's feast. One side said that it celebrated the belief that Jesus was immaculately conceived; the other group got it right and said the feast was about the Christian tradition that Mary was born free of original sin.

It is not an apocryphal story as I was there and witnessed it. And the majority of people involved in that discussion grew up in 'old-fashioned' Ireland, when as some would have you believe, religion was taught properly!

We must ask what sort of teaching or catechesis have we ever had about the tradition, faith and history of the religion into which we have been born? History, our life stories, our perceptions are constantly evolving. Change is a central theme to the development of human beings.

I can imagine that many who have been born into the Christian faith in Ireland will not pay any attention to today’s feast day. Maybe the common perception of the unreal “piousity” as distinct from piety, surrounding the life and times of Mary have not just touched a chord with 'ordinary people' but indeed alienated them from getting to grips with any sort of faith that has meaning in their lives.

In today's Gospel we read: "Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you." (Luke 1: 28) Every time I see women speaking, writing and carrying banners supporting the #MeToo campaign I'm prompted to recall the great privilege that God bestowed on Mary.

And as a result of Mary's special role in being singled out to be the mother of God, anyone who infringes on the dignity of any human being but especially on the dignity of a woman, be she my mother, your mother, sister, lover, that person is flying in the face of God.

There is often good reason to criticise the Catholic Church for its patriarchal stance, but it should never be forgotten the special role Mary has played in the Christian tradition.

I can well imagine a modern Mary would be out there carrying her #MeToo placards. Because at the core of Christianity is the idea of liberation from all evil, wrongdoing and enslavement. And we all know how women have been enslaved in front of our eyes and continue to be so treated in many places and in many and various ways

Tomorrow is the second Sunday of Advent and in the Gospel reading we read that famous passage from St Luke how “A voice cries in the wilderness:/Prepare a way for the Lord,/make his paths straight.” (Luke 3: 4)

A prophet cries in the wilderness. Often prophets are not appreciated or made welcome. The job, the challenge of the prophet is to nudge us towards God. Just as Mary is considered highly because the Lord is with her, we too should consider ourselves highly favoured. We need to appreciate our closeness to God. Maybe in the times we are living there is far too negative an attitude to the power of God and how he loves us. It's not for us to tamper with or try to limit God's love.

Every day in my work as a hospital chaplain I see first-hand the evidence of God's love in the people I meet and with whom I work.

We have every reason to believe that we too are highly favoured as was Mary.

An appalling headline in 'The Irish Catholic'

This appears in the current issue of The Irish Catholic.

Is it not a silly piece of writing and is not the heading in the poorest of taste?

It is a shocking headline, especially when the silly story is about a young person.

This is an appalling story. But it does give one an interesting insight.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer elected CDU leader

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has been elected in Hamburg by a slim majority the  new leader of Germany's largest political party, the CDU, Christian Democratic Union.

She is from Saarland, Germany's smallest federal state, where she was once minister president. Her home town is closer to Paris than Berlin.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, because of her unwieldy name is generally known as AKK. She studied at Saarland University and the University of Trier.

She is a member of the Central Committee of German Catholics.

AKK has been general secretary of the CDU since February. She is Chancellor Merkel's anointed one, the reason why she was appointed general secretary earlier this year. 

After 18 years at the helm of the CDU, Angela Merkel has handed over the CDU leadership baton to AKK but she stays on as German Chancellor until the next general election, at least that's the plan.

Spoken English à la RTE

RTE's Drivetime presenter Mary Wilson at 16.47 today:

".....how is that going to affect you and I."

Ouch.

'Impeccably responsible'

From the current issue of The Tablet.

“Pope says gay priests must be ‘impeccably responsible’” is the headline in our correspondent Christopher Lamb’s news report from Rome this week. 

Well, sure - but at a time when, as Pope Francis is well aware, there are voices trying to pin responsibility for the sexual abuse crisis on gays in the priesthood, it would have been wiser to point out that all priests, gay or straight, are called to chastity. 

Shelagh Fogarty writes that callers to her radio show were adamant that if the Church had a “no gays in the priesthood” rule it would be simple homophobia.

One might well add if there were 'no gays in the priesthood' it would indeed be a 'skeleton service'.

David Remnick on President Bush

On CNN's Amanpour programme last evening David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, gave a stellar performance expressing his views and opinions on the life and times of Gerorge HW Bush.

He recognised President Bush's strong points but he also thought it was impotrant to note his weaknesses and failures.

He noted how there were many strands to the tributes that had been paid to the dead president and how they quietly but clearly compared the dignity of Bush with the vulgarity of Trump, one man speaking the truth, another man incapable of speaking the truth.

Remnick also stressed that obituaries are never hagiographies. 

I'm reminded of the various obits that have been penned on Dominican priest Lambert Greenan.

Facebook and taxes

Facebook has paid €38 million on €251 million profit.

What Irish worker pays 15 per cent tax on their earnings?

As Facebook pays 15 per cent tax on vast sums, the 60,000 Irish people who have deferred paying their property tax due to hardship, are forced to pay an extra four per cent as a penalty for the deferment.

This Christmas thing has got out of hand

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

Michael Commane

Will I, won’t I? I’ve been uttering these words to myself over the last few days. And then in the middle of my procrastination I saw someone referring to the word in this manner: ‘Chr*s*m*s’. The journalist was on a campaign not to mention the word Christmas during the month of November. He was having great difficulty. I understand what he is saying, sympathise with him and wish him well.

This Christmas thing has got out of hand. Once Halloween is over and the pumpkins are cleared out of the shops all the Christmas tinsel appears.

Surely it’s as clear as the noses on our faces that it is all about seducing customers to empty their pockets and hand over their money to retailers. In simple plain language Christmas has become one gigantic con job where we are all being fooled to hand over our money for stuff we don’t want or need.

Add Black Friday and Cyber Monday to the mix and you would not need to be too smart to realise the madness that Christmas has become.

There is a number of aspects about the Christmas frenzy that makes it all so strange, crazy and yes, ironic. The further we move away from any appreciation or belief system in the birth of Jesus Christ, believing that he is the Son of God, the more we seem to be seduced by Christmas. How can that make sense? It probably doesn’t and is another reason to realise how odd human behaviour can be.

I have a Martyn Turner calendar hanging on my kitchen wall. For the month of November, the cartoonist quotes two psychologists who have observed that we are all a miasma of bias and prejudice that it is almost impossible for anyone actually to declare a truth or have a genuine, accurate memory.

Turner uses the idea to throw some light on the Trump phenomenon and how people can easily be persuaded to believe in someone or something, irrespective of the person’s worth or the value of what is being said.

But the quote set me thinking about what sort of freedom do we really have. How easy it is to plant some idea into our heads and then we run with it as fast as we can. Have you ever been simply gobsmacked by crazy ideas you have heard from people? And so often the more the person is so convinced in her/his opinion or belief, the zanier is the idea.

Most of us have been seduced into believing that in order to enjoy Christmas we have to buy X, Y and Z. We also have to go places and do things because if we don’t we might be missing out on something. The pressure keeps mounting.

It’s as mad as that. But it proves an amazingly winning formula for people who are trying to divest us of our hard-earned money.

So now you might be saying that I remind you of Dickens’s Christmas Scrooge.

Not at all. Christmas is a great time of year to remind ourselves of the extraordinary belief in the incarnation, God becoming human. The belief that points to a resurrection, an after-life, that has already tenuously begun, is in process and reaches a perfection beyond our understanding in communion with God.

Surely Advent is a far finer lead up to Christmas than the hysteria of Black Friday or Cyber Monday, all that frenetic shopping and driving into intolerable traffic jams.

Peace be with you this Christmas season.

Justice and peace

Sixty five per cent of people around the world want to work for an organisation with a powerful social conscience

Maulin on December 1

A misty, darkish December day in the Wicklow Dublin area but in many ways a perfect day to spend in the hills, especially after a break of some weeks. But the downside to the walk, Tess, the labrador was not with us. She's now too old for such adventures.

Maulin, just inside the Wicklow border, north of Djouce and east of Tonduff North was a great destination for a Saurday afternoon walk.

We parked the car at Crone Wood car park and made our ascent through the forest to Maulin. It stands at 570 metres.

From time to time the clouds disappeared and we could see out to sea, the Sugar Loaf, Enniskerry and Bray.

The descent was steep and we managed to walk the last 500m in the dark.

We walked seven kilometres in two hours 20 minutes, our moving time being one hour 45 minutes.

We climbed 406 metres.

The best place to be.

Lambert Greenan OP, RIP

Irish Dominican Lambert Greenan died in Irondale, Alabama, US on Thursday.

He had reached the noble age of 101. He was born in Newry in January 1917, made his first profession as a Dominican in 1934 and was ordained a priest in 1940.

To many in the Dominicans he was known as Larry, which was his baptismal name.

He was a larger than life character. He taught canon law and theology in the Dominican studium in Tallaght but spent many years living in Rome, where for a number of years he edited the English edition of L'Osservatore Romano.

When Mother Angelica set up EWTN Lambert was called on to offer canonical advice. The story goes that even Lambert was not sufficiently right-wing for the good mother and they subsequently parted company.

There are enough stories to fill a book on the life and times of Lambert Greenan.

I lived with him in the Irish Dominican priory at San Clemente Rome in the mid 1970s. I was a newly ordained 'young fella' out from Ireland, studying at the Angelicum.

We lived in different theological, philosophical, social, ecclesial worlds.

While I was out on the streets celebrating the victory of the Vietnamese over their American aggressors, Lambert was a staunch supporter of US imperialism. 

We managed to disagree on almost everything.

He loved his Cuban cigars and despised Castro while I despised Cuban cigars and supported Castro. And so it went.

His brother Clement was also a priest in the Irish Dominican province. He died in 2016 at the age 98.

May Lambert rest in peace.

Lambert Greenan as seen by the 'Birmningham News'

From the Birmingham News.

Father Lambert Greenan was born Laurence Greenan on January 11, 1917, in that part of Newry that is in County Armagh. He was educated first by the Mercy Sisters. One day, when he was seven years old, his family attended the first Mass of Fr. Norbert Barry, OP. As they left the church, he said to his father, "Someday I will be a Dominican priest, and I will say my first Mass at that altar, and I will be wearing those same vestments." 

And that is precisely what happened. He was then educated by the Irish Christian Brothers. On receiving his senior leaving certificate, he entered the Dominican order some months later on September 30, 1933. 

On October 14, 1933, he was clothed in the Dominican habit and given the name Brother Lambert. At the end of the novitiate year, he made his first profession on October 15, 1934. On January 12, 1938, he made his solemn profession. He was ordained a priest on September 29, 1940, at the age of 23 after having received a dispensation from Rome from the required age of 24. 

He did his philosophical and theological studies at the Dominican House of Studies in Tallaght, Ireland, obtaining his Lectorate in Theology on June 21, 1943. This is the examination which qualifies a Dominican to teach within the Order. 

He then taught for three years until 1946 when he was sent to Rome to study Canon Law at the Angelicum University. He received his Licentiate in Canon Law in 1948 and began doctoral studies, but was recalled to Ireland at the end of 1949 to teach Canon Law and various other subjects. 

He taught for ten years until 1960 when he was made head of the retreat house in Tallaght for two years. In 1962, he was appointed superior of St. Malachy's Dominican convent in Dundalk where he remained as superior until the beginning of 1968. 

In January 1968, the Apostolic Nuncio in Dublin came to visit him and told him that his name was among four given to him as candidates for the founding and editorship of the English language edition of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. 

He was eventually chosen for the position, and he went to work at the Vatican on February 12, 1968. On July 29, 1968, he was present at the press conference for the presentation of Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae. 

Because of the widespread rejection of the Pope's teaching, he defended it by publishing articles every week for several months that upheld the Church's traditional teaching. He remained with L'Osservatore Romano until he was three years over the age limit, and he retired on January 15, 1990 at the age of 73. After that, he was a confessor at St. Mary Major basilica during the summer months of 1991 and 1992. It was then that he met some of the nuns of Mother Angelica's community and also some of the Sister Servants. 

Eventually Mother Angelica invited him to come to Birmingham to present the English edition of the new Catechism of the Catholic Church on EWTN in 1993. When he arrived at Mother Angelica's monastery, he had found that the English edition of the Catechism had been recalled due to inclusive language. 

During the month of April that year, he appeared each week on EWTN with Mother Angelica to discuss a subject of her choice. On July 8, 1997, Mother Mary Gabriel invited him to come to Casa Maria for a year at the age of 80 to help the Sister Servants in the editing of their Constitutions. 

In 1998, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Since there was an excellent cancer center here in Birmingham, his superiors allowed him to stay indefinitely after receiving successful treatment. During his time in Birmingham, Bishop Foley invited him to submit his suggestions for the revision of the Ordo Missae for the new English translation of the Roman Missal. 

He fought hard and succeeded in having the words "chalice" instead of "cup" and also "for many" instead of "for all" inserted in the words of Consecration. In the translation of the Nicene Creed, he succeeded in retaining "for us men,"which had been inserted by the Council of Nicea in condemnation of the heresy of Origin who taught that Christ's sacrifice was effective not merely for mankind but also for the fallen angels in Hell. 

Fr. Lambert resided at Casa Maria with the Sister Servants for 21 years, celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, and offering spiritual direction to those on the retreats and in the Birmingham community. Father Lambert was predeceased by his parents, Thomas Joseph and Agnes Greenan, as well as his four brothers, Fr. Clement (Tommy), Kevin, Seamus, and Joe. He is survived by his sister-in-law, Jean Greenan, and many nieces and nephews. 

The visitation will take place at Casa Maria, 3721 Belmont Rd, Irondale, AL 35210, on Tuesday, December 4, from 4-8 pm. 

The rosary will be recited at 7 pm. The Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at the Cathedral of Saint Paul at 10 am on Wednesday, December 5. 

The interment will take place immediately following at Elmwood Cemetery, 600 Martin Luther King Jr Dr, Birmingham, AL 35211. Immediately following the interment, there will be a reception at Casa Maria. In lieu of flowers, please have a Mass offered for the repose of the soul of Fr. Lambert.

Published in The Birmingham News on Dec. 2, 2018

Cohen explains how Trump is a liar

It really is scary.

President Trump behaves like a buffoon, Michael Cohen's evidence in New York yesterday explains how Trump is a liar.

Mr Cohen was President Trump's right-hand man and fixer par excellence.

One moment the world is told that Donald Trump will meet Vladimir Putin at th G20 meeting in Argentina, the next moment meeting is cancelled.

And all the while the Russian navy patrols the Kerch Strait, playing its cat and mouse game with Ukraine.

Piece below is from The New Yorker

The timing is extremely significant. It seems that the special counsel’s team delayed the plea until after the President had submitted his written answers to Robert Mueller’s questions.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-legal-perils-that-michael-cohens-guilty-plea-pose-for-donald-trump

The scandal of the milk we waste

According to a report in yesterday's guardian one in six pints of milk produced around the world is lost or wasted, according to research conducted at Edinburgh University for the Guardian.

Sixteen per cent of dairy products – 116 million tonnes – is lost or discarded globally each year, according to Prof Peter Alexander, a member of the newly formed Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security. He calculated that retailers, distributors and consumers are responsible for half of this waste, throwing away roughly 60m tonnes of dairy a year.

About 55 million tonnes are lost before they even reach a store – during production and distribution – due to spoilage and waste at the farm, or while the milk is being distributed and exported abroad.

However, some analysts believe dairy waste figures could be as high as 30 per cent if further inefficiencies such as flooding foreign markets, using milk as animal feed and overconsumption, are taken into account.

Dangerous Dublin

Anyone who has eyes to see will now realise that the road infrastructure in Dublin is at breaking point.

It can't be far away before there is a catastrophic disaster in Dublin city, the outer suburbs or the commuter belt.

Drivers of cars and lorries, cyclists, all road users are growing angrier and more aggressive.

Far too many cyclists are not keeping the rules of the road, are cycling aggressively and far too fast. When passing other cyclists they come far too close. Similarly with cars, drivers skim past cyclists.

Cycle lanes come under the heading, an Irish solution to an Irish problem.

The arrival of the cross city Luas has made cycling in Dublin far more dangerous.

The city is close to a serious major accident.

Dublin Bus drivers, Dublin Fire Brigade staff are aware that the city is on a knife-edge. 

What's being done about it?