Archbihop Dermot Farrell remembers the Stardust tragedy

Archbishop Dermot Farrell celebrated Mass today in St Joseph the Artisan, Bonnybrook as a mark of respect to all those affected by the Stardust tragedy, which happened 40 years ago.                                 

 

In today’s gospel we have the story of a ‘leper’ who comes to Jesus. There are many such stories in the gospels, and indeed all throughout the Bible.   In the ancient world, just as in ours, people asked, why: Why me? Why this?  It was all too easy to blame.  It was easy to link disease, or suffering, or some injustice to some cause in the person afflicted.  But life is not so black and white.   And Jesus constantly broke through such a mistaken and facile view of the world. 

 

Today, in the gospel, we see Jesus “stretch out his hand and touch” the leper. His healing touch crosses the boundary imposed on this person.

Like the leper, we come before Christ bearing the wounds gathered in life: the let-downs, the insecurities, the emotional scars, the physical weaknesses, the senseless tragedies with all their attendant trauma, pain and suffering.

 

Mark tells us that Jesus was moved with pity, with compassion; he was moved by those who appealed for his healing touch.  Time and time again Jesus was moved by compassion for all kinds of human infirmity.  Today, we might say, my heart goes out to you.

 

Who could fail to be moved by the suffering, the weight of hurts and memories, festering for forty years now, of the families who lost 48 loved ones in the Stardust disaster, and of the more than 200 who were injured?  So many families have endured enormous suffering, and today are re-living the horror of that night which is seared into the hearts and memories of a generation.  A whole community was traumatised in the horror of that dreadful night.   The lives of so many have been blighted by the loss of those young people, who were so full of hope and promise. That grievous loss has been compounded by their long quest for a full account of the tragedy that satisfies their need for truth.

 

But that is only one side of the coin.  The other side: when touched, how did Jesus respond?  When touched, he touched.  He moved with compassion, he reached out.   The Church in Dublin has accompanied this grieving community over these long years.  This community of faith is here today as a sign of our continuing solidarity with them, as a sign of the healing presence of Jesus, who is close to all who suffer, who carry the scars of the legacy of that tragic event.  As your bishop, I come here this morning to stand in solidarity with you in your inexpressible grief and sadness, to pray both for the victims of this awful tragedy and for healing for the families who suffered such loss. The loss of life is always tragic.  But the loss of young and innocent life is beyond tragedy.

 

It is a custom for the Inauguration of the President of the United States, to ask a prominent American poet to compose a poem for the occasion, and to read it at the ceremony.  Jill Biden, President Biden’s wife, suggested asking a young African American Poet—the twenty two-year old Amanda Gorman, who grew up in St Brigid’s parish in Los Angeles.  This is what happened, and this young woman’s poem of hope, born out of the shock and dismay of the storming of the US Capitol on January 6^th captured the imagination of the world.   In her poem, “The Hill We Climb”, she proclaims, “When day comes, we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade?”

 

In a real way this young woman captures what so many affected by the Stardust tragedy have been looking for these last 40 years: the events of that night 40 years ago have cast a long and deep shadow. To continue with Gorman, this is a “loss we carry, a sea we must wade.”

 

After such a long time, the temptation is to seek solace elsewhere.  But that would be an illusion.  It is into the shade that the light must shine. In the end, the journey to peace, is a journey we ourselves must make.  Nobody can make that journey for us.

 

The First Reading from the Book of Leviticus and the Gospel seem very relevant to our world that right now trying to cope with a very infectious disease.  It should be noted, however, that this section of Book of Leviticus is not concerned with what we know as Hansen’s Disease, but with various ailments of the skin.  The Gospel reminds us to treat all people, especially the sick, with dignity, care and respect.   Shaming or humiliating the afflicted is never acceptable.   Furthermore, even if isolation or social distance is required to avoid the spread of COVID-19, our sisters and brothers, especially the elderly should not be forgotten.  Jesus’s openness and compassionate touch are excellent examples for everyone, especially those who care for the sick, of how to interact with people in need of healing.  To be a Christian is to compassionate.  But that is one side of the coin: When I am moved with compassion, how do I respond?

 

There is always someone in the community who needs to be healed, who needs the kind of touch that brings healing and peace.  The touch of Christ. To be effective it does not have to be a physical touch.  That is not crucial; what is crucial it that you are reaching out.  It is hearts that must touch, even when hands do not.   Very often that involves listening with empathy to a problem we cannot solve.  To reach out you only need the compassion God gave you when he made you.  

 

What do we do?  Lent starts on Wednesday next.  With it the recurring Catholic question:  What will I give up for Lent? The drink or sweets, binging on ‘Netflix’ or taking to social media to vent our grievances?  The waistline penance, fast for the new swimwear, the Costa del Sol look.  Not too bad, but not particularly Christian, hardly in the image of Christ.  This Lent do not think just about giving up something; simply give.  Not something; someone.  Give yourself.  Imitate the compassionate Christ.  Be honest and humble before with one another.  Listen when someone asks you for a few minutes of your time, for the compassion in your heart.  If you hear that plea, try not to ignore it. It just might be Christ.

Parents mystified gardaí did not link missing body with son

A most interesting story in The Irish Times yesterday.

It is difficult to understand how the gardaí did not make the link between the missing man and the body that was washed up off Inis Mór.

The piece is tinged with a profound sadness.

Well worth a read.

David Raleigh

As Easter Sunday, April 7th, 1996, drew to a close, the evening’s sun cast a shadow over Inis Mór, off Galway Bay, as the ocean tide carried the body of an unidentified young man onto the island’s rocky shoreline.

The unclothed remains were recovered by gardaí near Kileaney on the largest of the three Aran Islands shortly after 5.15pm, after they were alerted to the shore by a female tourist who had been out walking.

The body was no longer fully intact. Some parts were missing and others were decomposing. Without clothes, ID documents or tattoos, there was little to help gardaí identify the body.

There are just two press cuttings about the grim discovery of a man with “neatly cut brown hair” – one in the Tuam Herald (April 13th, 1996), and another in the Evening Herald (April 9th, 1996). Besides that, there was little publicity.

Last week, two gardaí called to Denis and Mary Walsh’s home, in Caherdavin, Limerick, informing the elderly couple that the remains belonged to their son, Denis jnr, who had gone missing a month before the grim find.

The couple’s immediate shock was soon coupled with confusion. Denis Walsh jnr (23) had been reported missing to gardaí at Mayorstone, in Limerick, on March 9th, 1996, less than a month before the find on Inis Mór.

The couple had travelled to Galway the day before. For all of the false leads they followed in the years since, it is this journey to Galway on April 6th, 1996, that pains most.

“We had been travelling around again with the flyers and we decided we’d pull into Gort Garda station [that day], so I dropped in a flyer. They asked me for a few extra ones because they were covering four other outlying stations,” says Denis Snr.

The couple returned with flyers to Galway little more than a month later, the day before Limerick gardaí appeared on the RTE Crimeline programme, appealing for information about their missing son.

By then, his body had been in the mortuary of University College Hospital Galway (UCHG) for weeks: “There was no connection made, as far as we can see,” the dead man’s brother, Paul, says today.

“How come the gardaí at the time did not join up the dots sooner? Did no garda in Galway check what people were reported missing around that time, and was no garda in Limerick aware of a body being found in Galway? I’m not satisfied,” Denis Walsh snr says.

Denis Walsh jr (23), Caherdavin, Limerick, who had been missing since 1996. Photograph: Liam Burke/ Press 22 Described as sensitive and kind, Denis Walsh jnr was a skilled sportsman

A Garda letter to the family this week has explained that the remains were “taken by boat to the mainland” on April 8th, 1996 “and brought to the mortuary at University College Hospital in Galway for a postmortem”.

DNA samples were checked three times in the years since by the forensic science laboratory – in July 2008, March 2011 and June 2017, but with no success. However, they were checked again in recent weeks.

Due to advances in DNA science, this time a match was made with samples taken years before from Denis’s parents. On February 5th, Mayorstone gardaí in Limerick were notified that a match had been made.

His body remained at the UCHG mortuary until 2014, “when the coroner gave permission for the burial of the remains in a communal grave in Bohermore Cemetery in Galway”, the Garda letter explains.

Separate to this, a Garda spokeswoman told The Irish Times: “The burial, in a county council graveyard, was arranged by University Hospital Galway following consultation with the coroner.”

Galway west coroner Dr Ciarán MacLoughlin says, “There will be an inquest and relevant information will be available then”, but that it was “a matter for the gardaí first to prepare a file”.

Denis Walsh pictured on his First Holy Communion day.
Limerick garda acknowledge the Walsh family have been left with lots of justifiable questions on how it took so long to identify Denis

Now, the Walsh family want to know whether or not Limerick gardaí were aware at the time that Galway gardaí had recovered a body and had Galway gardaí known that a Limerick man was missing. And if not, why not?

Gardaí have yet to respond to these queries. On Thursday, the Walsh family met gardaí and asked to see the file on the recovery of Denis’s remains. However, a fire in Salthill Garda station some years ago destroyed some documents.

The Garda letter, signed by a senior Limerick garda, acknowledges the Walsh family have been left “with lots of justifiable questions on how it took so long to identify Denis”.

A retired garda who was called to the scene at Kileaney in 1996 has passed on his contact details to the Walsh family should they wish to speak to him, the Irish Times has learned.

The body of Denis Walsh was “treated with dignity, the body was blessed, and a doctor attended the scene”, the family have been assured.

The family have sought the postmortem report, and are in the process of seeking permission to exhume Denis’s remains, in order to lay him to rest in his native Limerick.

Gardaí said “foul play was not suspected” and that “with all sudden or unexplained deaths, a coroner’s inquest must take place”. However, this could take up to seven months because of backlogs caused by the pandemic.

Described as “sensitive and kind”, Denis Walsh jnr was a skilled sportsman, his family say, once called up to the Munster U- 19s rugby squad, and lining out for Shannon RFC, Na Piarsaigh GAA, and Caherdavin Celtic.

However, sport and college ambitions fell away after he returned “a completely changed person” from a post-Leaving Certificate working holiday in Holland, after suffering a psychotic reaction when experimenting with drugs for the first time.

Diagnosed with bipolar in 1991, he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital after suffering an episode at a music concert: “It was like talking to someone else. Before he went away he had a very calm personality, but when he got very ill it was hard, we were always wondering what was Denis going to do, we had no control over it,” said Denis’s mother, Mary (82).

“We were very close, and he would come into the house at night and he would look for me to have a chat and he would tell me he was struggling. He tried so hard, he really did try hard, but he would end up crying when he was not on his medication, he was looking for help.”

The family did their best to cope. There were brief periods when calm was restored and the boy who was once there returned, but such moments were short lived.

Speaking to The Irish Times at their home in Caherdavin, Mary, Denis snr, and their sons Mike (50), and Paul (57) remember a day in 1995 when Denis jnr had to be pulled back from the brink from the sea at Salthill.

More psychiatric hospital admittances followed. “It was a constant strain,” Denis snr says, his voice trembling with grief. The loss has broken their parents, say their sons, as they try to organise a visit now to his Galway grave.

Previously, his father had gone to every Limerick hurling match, but he stopped: “I used to go to all the matches, but then I was going into town five nights a week scouting around looking for Denis,” he says.

Holidays were stopped, lest he come “walking back in the door” while they were away: “We haven’t put up the decorations since Denis left because he used to love doing that and dressing up the tree,” says his mother.

Remembering that there was “something strange” in her son on the day he went missing, she says he “went out and then he came back in and he just said goodbye, and he never said it like that before, it was very ‘final’. I told him I was making his favourite dinner – bacon and cabbage. I haven’t made it since.”

© 2021 irishtimes.com

Let's make it our business to respect others

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

Michael Commane

I still have childhood memories of teachers telling us about lepers and how they were ostracised by their communities. The expression leper colony rings in my ears.

In tomorrow’s Gospel St Mark tells the reader how Jesus stretched out his hand, touched the leper and cured him. In the first reading from the Book of Leviticus we are told that a leper is unclean and must ‘live apart’. And then in the second reading – from his first letter to the Corinthians  – St Paul tells us: “Never to do anything  offensive to anyone - to Jews or Greeks or to the Church of God; just as I try to be helpful to anyone at all times…” (1 Corinthians 10: 32 - 33)

There is such a wealth of wisdom in those readings. 

The reading from Leviticus sounds harsh but it is dealing with regulations dealing with legal purity. 

And like all writing, it has to be taken in the context of the time in which it was written.

Both New Testament readings concentrate on healing, using words and actions to reveal the way in which we should deal with each other. They are about showing genuine respect to our fellow citizens.

Imagine how our world, our society, our lives would be transformed if we all made it our business to respect the other person. If we are open-minded and honest important truths are revealed to us. 

Take last Saturday’s Tommy Tiernan show on RTE 1. 

There were three guests, an actor, a retired judge and  a former international rugby player. Yes, I have seen Stephen Rea on screen, I’ve seen Brian O’Driscoll play rugby and I recall once before seeing retired judge Gillian Hussey being interviewed on television.

I found myself listening to every word the three guests said. Three very  different people speaking openly and honestly about their very different jobs and lives, yet they all had the same thing to say. I sat up in my chair when actor Stephen Rea spoke about his late wife Dolours Price, who was a prominent IRA member and suffered from alcoholism, and he then went on to talk about his relationship with his two sons. Stephen spoke with great warmth about Samuel Beckett. 

Rugby star Brian O’Driscoll told Tommy how he was affected by the suicide  of a close friend. He also told a lovely story about organising a ‘sleep-over’ with his two girls in their car one night and how he waited  in the car until after 10pm and they were fast asleep before carrying them back up to their beds. 

Gillian Hussey recalled how she had helped a young woman, who appeared before her in court, to change her ways and leave the world of crime behind her. 

The young woman got her act together and blossomed. The woman later  invited the judge to all the big moments in her life.

When Hussey, Rea and O’Driscoll were asked to name  the most significant moments in their own lives they all cited reaching out to another person and being able to help. And that could be in their professional work or in their personal lives. 

Of course they spoke about job satisfaction and how privileged they were to have jobs that they cherished and liked. But it was clear to see that the real highlights were those moments when they were doing something for other people, giving a helping hand to the other person.

And isn’t that exactly what healing and curing is all about. It’s being present, offering the helping hand, saying the wise and uplifting word to the other person. It’s about being kind.

I was captivated watching that show last Saturday evening. There was little or nothing said about God or religion. But all three people were beacons of great inspiration for me. 

Without any fuss or any illusions of any sort of pomp or grandeur they were speaking and doing exactly what St Paul is advising us to do in his letter to the Corinthians and they were also mirroring the kind, healing act of Jesus to the leper, who asked to be cured.

The fear of Covid makes it easier for us to understand the plight of the leper. Living through these, the strangest of times,  surely has made us extra aware of the importance of reaching out to the other person, offering a helping hand, which might even be a friendly smile.

Names can exert control and shape identity

There was  a sub-heading in The Irish Times yesterday which ran: Whether given by parents or imposed by colonisers or captors, names can exert control, shape identity and even obliterate history.

People of a certain age will remember the adage: Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.

It made no sense in the past and it makes no sense today.

On a somewhat related topic, retired journalist Vincent Browne one evening on one of his shows said: When we give titles to people we give them power over us.

Wise words.

A reader recalls Dominicans working in Trinidad

This is a comment made by a reader. It also appears on the blogpost of April 21, 2019.

Thank you so much for answering re Joe Bergin. 

Yes, I did know Ino Ryan left years ago and had a family. I also know he died. [Transport Minister is a nephew of Ino Ryan]

I do recall with fondness Fr Foley and one or two others from Trinidad. I am from the West Indies and met some of the Dominicans through University. 

Sometimes people become a part of your heart and it stays that way though so many years pass. I wonder if folk with dementia are still doing their souls work just like those in the community of saints. 

It just seems so amazing that I found your blog and JB's [Joe Bergin] re his leaving. I appreciate your blog and your willingness to connect. Thanks again for answering. Joyce2

The day the man from Germany's Marktl resigned

On this day, February 11, 2013 the Vatican confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI would resign the papacy as a result of his advanced age.

If he had not resigned on that day he would now be an elderly pope.

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927 in the Bavarian town of Marktl in the Germany of the Weimar Republic. 

The official name of the State was Deutsches Reich or German Kingdom. It was also called  Deutsche Republik or German Republic. Before that it was the German Empire. From 1933 to 1943 it was known as the German Reich and then from 1943 to 1945 the Greater German Reich.

When post-war Germany was divided, one Germany was called The Federal Republic of Germany and the other Germany was The German Democratic Republic.

Today the official name of the united country is The Federal Republic of Germany or shortened to Germany.

Words carry great meaning and so much history.

Missing Labrador found on Lugnaquilla Mountain

This certainly is a heart-warming story in The Irish Times yesterday. And then the picture of the poor mite. 

Well done to the two doctors.

It’s certainly one of those pieces you are forced to read to the end.

I presume from the word ‘bolt’ both dogs were on leads.

Last year approximately 4,000 sheep were killed by dogs in Ireland.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/dog-lost-for-two-weeks-found-in-wicklow-mountains-1.4478977#.YCJ7tYHH5Wo.mailto

 

What is it that makes a powerful speech

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

Michael Commane

Do words ever grab you? 

What about the people who turned up to listen to Donald Trump? 

He’d spend an hour simply haranguing, insulting and demeaning people. At least to me it all sounded vile and appealing to  our worst instincts. Millions are greatly impressed with him. The people who turned up at his rallies genuinely believe he is the man to lead the United States to greatness.

What makes for powerful and persuasive  oratory? Has it something to do with narcissism?Narcissism is a personality disorder, whereby people have an inflated sense of their own importance. They fall in love with their own reflection but somehow or other they are constantly craving approval. Their outward show is a fragile mask.

Hitler was a great orator. They thronged to hear him. He fooled millions of people and they rushed to their deaths for him. He was the quintessential narcissist.

Over the years I have heard many speakers. Two stand out. 

A Dominican Sister, who had spent her life teaching deaf children, wrote a book about her experience. The book was launched in the early 1990s and I went along to the launch.

Sir Anthony O’Reilly, aka Tony O’Reilly, who was a friend of the Dominican Sister, launched the book and spoke on the evening. 

He was over 30 minutes late arriving, which I found annoying, but once he began to speak, all was forgiven and I found myself totally captivated by him. It was an amazing speech. He was funny, smart, intelligent, bold but all the time brilliant and charming. And so reverential to the author, whom he knew. He had everyone in the palm of his hand. 

Thirty years on I have no idea what he said but I can still say that he completely bowled me over.

In 2018 I had the good fortune to attend Concern Worldwide’s 50th anniversary conference in Dublin Castle. Bill Clinton was the star speaker at the event. 

And just as with Tony O’Reilly, I was glued to every word he said. He was a class act. His pauses, his occasional jokes and then the content of what he was saying. Add to that, I got the impression he was actually talking to me.

Both O’Reilly and Clinton are star performers, at least they were for me. But why? Was it that I agreed with what they were saying but there is something far more to it than that.

What’s that special quality they have?

Might it be that most great orators are narcissists? At least with Trump it’s clear to see that he is, but is it possible that others, who are far more polished and refined are also steeped in narcissism?

And then how do we handle the demagogues, how do we protect ourselves against those who use words to manipulate and lead us to violent deeds?

How do we know whom to believe?

Maybe that’s why words fascinate me.

Mark Twain’s words are ringing in my ears: “I know all about audiences, they believe everything you say, except when you are telling the truth.”

Minister Darragh O'Brien looking for fortune tellers

This morning on 'The Claire Byrne Show' Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien said this:

We need connectivity into the future. 

Does the minister mean that he and his government are looking for fortune tellers?

Bringing dogs where they don't belong has to stop

In the current issue of The Kerryman journalist Tadhg Evans reports on the damage that dogs are doing to sheep.

One farmer in west Kerry said that that four or five ewes have broken legs every time he collects his sheep.

A farmer who has sheep on Mount Brandon saw two walkers let their Labrador loose on the mountain.

"They drove about 10 of my ewes to the edge of a cliff. Six of them jumped off. Nobody came around after to apologise or pay the damages - but it's not about that: it's seeing what's happening," John Joe MacGearailt said.

West Kerry sheep farmers are threatening to lock their gates until the matter is dealt with.

They have contacted their politicians and TD Michael Healy-Rae has pledged to raise the matter in the Dáil

Every year approximately 4,000 sheep are killed. by dogs in Ireland.

All those new words in our medicine chest

All the new words we are using and using them as if they were always part of our vocabulary.

The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are mRNA vaccines. 

Then there's the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, and don't forget the Sputnik V vaccine.

Add to the list the Janssen and Novavax vaccines.

At first it was called SARS-CoV-2, then Coronavirus, moved to Covid - 19 and it now appears we are back to Coronavirus.

Earlier they were talking about vaccination, but now we are about to be inoculated.

And who had ever heard of Wuhan before March 2020?

Bishop Baetzing says Cologne crisis was not well managed

This is from a press release yesterday from Associate Press.

Cardinal Woelki was an auxiliary bishop in Cologne when Joachim Meisner was archbishop.

It is extremely unusual for a bishop to criticise in public a fellow bishop  within the same bishops' conference.

BERLIN (AP) — The head of the German Bishops’ Conference has criticized the handling by one of Germany’s most prominent Roman Catholic archbishops of a report on past child sexual abuse by clergy.

Cologne Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki faces mounting discontent in his diocese over his decision to keep under wraps a study he commissioned on how local church officials reacted when priests were accused of sexual abuse. Woelki has cited legal concerns about publishing the study conducted by a law firm.

The head of the national bishops’ conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, criticized Woelki at a news conference on Thursday.

German news agency dpa quoted Baetzing as saying the “crisis that has arisen because the report is not now public was not well-managed, from my point of view.” 

The law firm that prepared report has offered to publish the document on its website and to take sole responsibility for it, but the diocese has rejected that idea.

Woelki has drawn fierce criticism from Catholics in Cologne. The local diocesan council called last month for “full transparency” and said the confidence of the area’s Catholic faithful in church leaders had been damaged.

“After years of secrecy and denial, people in our diocese finally expect plain talk and concrete steps of responsibility,” the council said. “That is always possible. And it is high time.”

Woelki said Thursday he was “painfully aware that confidence had been lost” and acknowledged that he had made mistakes.

He pointed to the planned March 18 publication of a new report he also commissioned, and said that “after that, those affected and then everyone who is interested will get an insight into the first report.”

Bishop Baetzing hints that Cardinal Woelki should go

The president of the German Bishops Conference Georg Baetzing criticised all those, clerical and lay, who have in any way not acted in a proper and correct manner in matters dealing with clerical child sex abuse.

Baetzing, who is bishop in Limburg, was speaking at a two-day zoom conference of the German Catholic Church.

He also said said that any sort of covering up might well demand resignations. And he said that applied to bishops too.

It was a sensational intervention by a bishop in the ongoing controversy in Cologne concerning an alleged coverup by the Archbishop of Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.

Ahmady's escape from Iran and Navalny's jailing in Russia

Links to two interesting articles in yesterday's Guardian.

Kameel Ahmady, with UK and Iranian citizenship, smuggled himself out of Iran through a mountainous border route after being sentenced to nine years

His intrepid escape and the jailing of Alexei Navalny is a reminder of how fortunate we are to live in a democracy, which is based on the rule of law.

It is expected Navalny will serve his sentence in a penal colony far from Moscow.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/kremlin-tries-downplay-navalny-jailing-thousands-arrested-riot-police

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/03/academic-jailed-in-iran-pulls-off-daring-escape-back-to-britain-kameel-ahmady

RTE's Tommie Gorman to bid farewell to Northern Ireland

Tommie Gorman in a chat with Ryan Tubridy on last Friday's 'Late Late Show' gave a most insightful portrait of his time working as RTE's main man in Northern Ireland.

Tommie is retiring from the broadcaster in April and is looking forward spending more time with his family in his home town of Sligo.

His parents were regulars at the Dominican church in the town.

Talking about his many experiences in Northern Ireland and referring to how situations can get out of hand he said: 

"When anger is in flood people do awful things to one another."

A young man's courageous stand against the darkness

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

Michael Commane

Last Wednesday was a special anniversary that reminds the world of unspeakable evil. On January 27, 1945 an advance group of scouts who broke away from their unit in Oswiecim in Poland, arrived at the gates of Auschwitz.

It was the day that the advancing Red Army began the liberation of the remaining living skeletons at the German death camp. 

And these first days of February celebrate another important date in the history books. On February 2, 1943 the Germans surrendered to the Red Army at Stalingrad on the River Volga. 

It was that great victory that allowed the Russians to move west, eventually arriving in Berlin in May 1945.

The world is always a dark place when we lose our freedom. I have just read a powerful book about the impending doom of what it means to have our bodies and minds incarcerated by evil.

Robert Seethaler’s novel ‘The Tobacconist’ tells the story of young a man, who has the innate goodness and courage to stand up to the all-powerful invading German thugs who arrived in Austria in 1938.

Seethaler weaves a story of so many parts around 17-year-old Franz Huchel, who leaves his sleepy Austrian village and moves to Vienna to work in a kiosk that sells newspapers and magazines. It’s owned by Otto Trsnjek a former friend of his mothers. Franz grew to respect Otto. He listened to him, picked up tips of the trade  and began reading newspapers and magazines.

The world-famous neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud bought his newspaper and cigar at the kiosk. 

On one occasion Franz runs after him to give him his hat which he had left at the Kiosk and so begins a wonderful friendship between 17-year-old Fanz and 81-year-old Sigmund Freud.

Franz meets Anezka at a fair in the city and instantly falls in love with her, or at least so he thinks.

He turns to Freud to discuss his love troubles, who tells him that having worries about women are usually unwise but never unimportant.

 

In a letter he writes to his mother he tells her about his friendship with Freud and that it does not bother him that he is a Jew.

All the time in the background there is the ghost of the arrival of German troops in Austria. It’s not long before the Nazis turn up at the kiosk and take away Otto. It’s the last that Franz sees of him.

While most of Vienna is now giving the Heil Hitler salute, Franz refuses, indeed, lets people know his opposition to the growing darkness.

He is broken-hearted when he discovers that his old fragile friend Sigmund Freud is leaving for London. Unbeknownst  to Freud, Franz stands at the back of the  railway station the day that Freud is boarding his train for his journey to London.

Goodness and courage stay with Franz Huchel right to the end. In the midst of Austria’s overwhelming enthusiasm for the Nazis, the young idealistic man stays loyal to all that is good and right.

‘The Tobacconist’ is a great read. I strongly recommend it.

The 'untalented men' Grossman spotted on the Bug

Wishing all readers of this blog a happy and blessed feast of St Brigid. Today is traditionally held as the first day of Spring in Ireland.

Tomorrow is the anniversary  of the Red Army victory at Stalingrad.

On February 2, 1943 the battle at Stalingrad finally ended. Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus of the German 6th Army surrendered. It was the first time in German history that a field marshal surrendered.

There was no cameraman to film the capture of Paulus.

But for the Soviet victory on the River Volga what might have been the course of the war?

Three days earlier in Berlin, on January 30, which was the 10th anniversary of Hitler's coming to power, Goebbels read out a proclamation that included this nonsense: "The heroic struggle of our soldiers on the Volga should be a warning for everybody to do the utmost for the struggle for Germany's freedom and the future of our people, and thus in a wider sense for the maintenance of our entire continent."

On June 22, 1941 the German Army crossed the River Bug. Vasily Grossman in his historical novel 'Stalingrad' writes about that event on the Polish Russian border:

Many of those who were usually most timid and silent, seemingly untalented men whom nobody noticed, revealed a wonderful strength. And sometimes he glimpsed an unexpected void in the eyes of commanders who only the day before had seemed the loudest, most energetic and self-confident; now they seemed lost, crushed and pathetic. [page 112]

What a powerful observation. It was those seemingly untalented and unnoticed men, who changed the tide at Stalingrad and subsequently went on to Berlin.

The KGB spotted Donald Trump in the 1980s

An interesting piece, which argues that the KGB spotted Donald Trump as an asset in the 1980s.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

Gracioiusness is a wonderful gift

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

Michael Commane

In tomorrow’s Gospel St Mark shows that the words spoken by Jesus made a deep impression on his listeners. And a significant reason for that is: “because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority”. (1: 22) St Luke tells his readers that Jesus won approval of all: “And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips”. (Luke 4: 22)

There’s wonderful enthusiasm about that. The people listened to him because he spoke authoritatively and did so in a gracious manner. 

Graciousness is a supreme quality, a wonderful gift. And you know it when you meet it. It is seldom faked. Graciousness brings with it an air of authority; indeed I think it’s fair to say that it complements authority.

Two days after Joe Biden moved into the White House someone commented that he had spoken such gracious words and spoke them with authority. The person went on to say that often when we hear gracious words, we might well forget what was said but remember the graciousness of the person who spoke them. Surely, that’s a lovely thought.

There was a headline in the Guardian newspaper earlier in the month, which ran: “Trapped in a fantasy with no one to shout ‘cut’ ”. 

It was brought to my attention that you could well put so many words in front of that headline which would give it a great resonance. He suggested ‘religious life’. I added the words, priesthood or indeed church. Just as the headline captures the mood of our times, the added words give it an extra reality or vibrancy. It certainly makes for great debate and conversation.

We have just come out of four years listening to a world leader haranguing, insulting, ridiculing and demeaning those who did not agree with him. We are punch-drunk from it all. While Donald Trump may not be the cause of our fatigue and cynicism, he did reflect the confused state of millions of people around the world. 

In this newspaper last week there was an insightful article about QAnon, the deranged conspiracy theory that believes the world is run by a Satanic group of paedophiles and that Donald Trump has spent years leading a top-secret mission to bring these evildoers to justice.

Can you get anything madder than that? Yet it has millions of followers from right across society. Mike Rothschild, who researches conspiracy theories, says about QAnon that it appeals to anyone who is disaffected in any way. 

There is a void, a kind of emptiness affecting our world. Sadly there is precious little graciousness that speaks with authority. And that absence is  noticeable in the Catholic Church in Ireland, indeed, probably in all churches but my competency allows me to speak about the Catholic Church in the country in which I live and work.

Though there are people, who speak with grace and authority, the institution is diminishing in front of our eyes. There is some sort of blindness being perpetrated. And to add to that, there is a development of  cliques, many of which appear extremely right-wing in their views and beliefs.

Whom do we believe, where do we go to hear the truth?

Within the Catholic Church, and I imagine in all churches, there is urgent need for a real and honest discussion. It’s well beyond time when church leadership listened and indeed took a lead from its non-clerical membership. Our church has become crippled by a top-heavy management system, strangled by an unhealthy hierarchical command structure. And the result is that  the people on the ground have stopped listening.

In my job as a hospital chaplain I have the great privilege of being inspired by the faith of the people I meet, patients and staff. When last did the words of a bishop or priest genuinely inspire me? I cannot say. The words and actions I experience as a hospital chaplain are usually suffused with grace and a quiet and confident authority. 

They speak to me as the evangelist Mark describes. I  too am astonished. 

My hope is that when Covid regulations are lifted that I can invite the new Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell to come to the hospital, where I work, and accompany me on my rounds. I shall ask him to leave behind his episcopal ring and cross and experience for himself the lived faith of patients and staff. 

The wisdom and faith of people must be recognised. There is so much to be harnessed. So often there is a graciousness and authority in front of our very eyes.

We need to see it.

Funny money is no laughing matter

A staff member at a Starbuck's shop in Dublin drew a racist caricature on a customer's cup of coffee.

It cost the company €12,000.

In 2019 Ryan Tubridy's RTE salary was €495k.

The Starbuck's employee would have to draw over 45 insulting coffees before it would cost the company Tubridy's RTE salary.

And in the US it's reported that a convicted felon may have paid out $2 million for a Donald Trump pardon.

Rabbi Ephraem Mirvis warns against all forms of racism

The Irish Times yesterday carried an article by Oliver Sears, titled ‘Remembering Holocaust once a year is not enough’.

In the piece, Sears quotes Primo Levi, who said: “The Holocaust happened and it can happen again.”

He also quotes that famous line from Theodore Adorno: “…to write poetry after Auschwitz is an act of barbarism.”

 

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/the-holocaust-how-to-say-never-again-and-mean-it-1.4468455#.YBFx5BCp4io.mailto

 

Yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’ Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis gave an excellent talk on all forms of racism.

Here’s the link to the talk

Thought for the Day, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis - BBC Radio 4

 

Ephraim Mirvis is currently Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. He was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1985 to 1992.

 

International Holocaust Day

Today is International Holocaust Day.

On January 27, 1945 an advance group of scouts who broke away from their unit in Oswiecim in Poland, arrived at the gates of Auschwitz.

It was the day that the advancing Red Army began the liberation of the remaining living skeletons at the German death camp. 

Yesterday Richard Lutz the head of Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) admitted that today's German rail company is the successor to Deutsche Reichsbahn, and therefore bears a responsibility for the transporting of millions of people to the concentration camps.

Also yesterday the heads of Volkswagen and Daimler Benz, now known as Daimler AG, made a commitment to speaking out against anti-semitism and all forms of racism. 

They were among a number of companies who played a major role in supporting the Hitler terror.

In 2018 Holocaust survivor Salo Muller won a case against the Dutch railway company, whose predecessor carried him and his parents to a German death camp.

German Railways charged a railway fare to those they were transporting to their deaths.

Could there be anything more obscene and absurd?

Trust, like our health is a fragile gift

This week's Independent news & Media Irish regional newspapers' column

Michael Commane

There’s the often trotted out cliché that our health is our wealth. We all say it from time to time but I often wonder do we ever really appreciate what it means to have good health.

Fortunately, I’m relatively fit. I’m walking in the hills, swimming in the sea and cycling a bicycle. Of course a lot of it has to do with our good luck but I also get down on my bended knee to thank my parents for the good start they gave me in life.

But it really is like walking on a tight rope. Anything can happen at any time. It often occurs to me out walking in the hills how easy it would be to trip and break an ankle. 

During the Christmas season a 17-year old boy tripped and fell into the sea in West Kerry and lost his life. The unspeakable pain that must be for his family. An accident can happen at the blink of an eye. 

How many times have I listened to the stories of people recalling the first tell-tale signs of cancer, and then how it slowly but surely changes their lives dramatically. I am forever asking the question what at all is life about.

When our bodies are up and running and at full throttle we can easily think that we are indestructible. And indeed we act accordingly. It’s easy to understand how young healthy people have no conception of what it means not to be able to ‘float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,’ quoting those great words from Muhammad Ali.

It’s such a thin divide between being healthy and well and unhealthy and infirm. It’s as close as one gets to the toss of a coin.

It’s a similar story with trust.

Has it ever dawned on you how we take the notion of trust for granted? Only last week a young mother told me when she goes running she sometimes brings her two young children with her and leaves them at one end of the park, assuring them that she is close by. 

She was explaining to me how her children have absolute trust in her and know exactly that what she is saying is true. They take her word as certain.

And again, we have another cliché for that. We say my word is my bond. It’s a powerful expression. But what happens when it is broken?

Most times, in normal healthy circumstances we take trust as a given, it’s as certain as the air we breathe.

What do we do when we no longer trust a close friend. Indeed, what happens when we lose trust in another person, our boss, a community, an organisation, the place where we work?

 

Certainly, anonymity destroys trust and much of social media is no friend of trust.

Everything about our lives is so fragile. It all seems to hang by a thread. And what’s so strange about it all, we seldom if ever see it in such terms.

When we’re healthy we take it for granted and we take it as a given to trust people. 

But when we have serious health issues it requires great skills to bring us back to health. And so too with trust, when we lose it, it requires great skills to restore it.

Governing is ultimately about choices

Pat Leahy's piece in Saturday's edition of The Irish Times is well worth a read.

It includes a most interesting quote from Barack Obama's most recently published memoir.

Leahy argues that governing is ultimately about choices.

It's a great piece and the next time you are tempted to criticise the Government it might do no harm at all to think of the difficult job they have.

And especially in these uncharted waters, which appears in no text books, Government is constantly having to maker choices.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/school-reopening-the-first-of-many-tough-choices-as-covid-19-numbers-fall-1.4465410#.YA1tecQ1ul0.mailto

Reader enquires about Joe Bergin and Ino Ryan

A reader has enquired about Joe Bergin and Ino Ryan.

A comment giving information on both men has been added to the blogpost of Sunday, April 21, 2019.