Learning to trust the people

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

Michael Commane

On July 1, the People’s Republic of China placed a full-page advertisement in this newspaper. The text was written by the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland, He Xiangdong, to mark  the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

The publication attracted criticism as there were those who felt it was wrong for a country with a reputation such as China’s to be given a prominent space in a national newspaper. Opinions on this differ but I prefer to think that when the ambassador of a country with which we have diplomatic relations speaks to us, we are mature enough to make up our own minds to accept or reject what is said.

  

Early in his message the ambassador suggests that the Chinese government has the solid support of the Chinese people.

 

The word people plays a central role in the vocabulary of all politicians. Politicians like to show that they are representing the people. Whether in democracies or in tyrannies, that word people is writ large. 

In tomorrow’s Gospel, St Mark tells the reader how Jesus takes pity on the large crowds “because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length”. (Mark 6: 34).

Indeed, in the first reading in tomorrow’s liturgy the prophet Jeremiah quotes the Lord, the God of Israel, as saying: “Doom for the shepherds who allow the flock of my pasture to be destroyed and scattered.” (Jeremiah 23: 1)

There we have it again, the importance of caring for people.

In the current issue of ‘Reality', a magazine published by the Irish Redemptorists, the editorial is titled ‘God’s silence and the death of vocations’. The author, Fr Gerard Moloney, writes  about vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

In conclusion he writes: “We need to imagine a radical new way of being church in the 21st century. 

Even though it may seem like we are peering through a glass darkly, we need to trust that God will show us a way forward.”

I find it an inspiring piece of writing, which is very welcome, cutting as it does through much of the tired ‘pieties’ I have come to expect from so much of the religious press.

Fr Moloney suggests we trust in God. I suggest we should also trust far more in people. What has happened to the impetus of the Second Vatican Council, that threw open the doors and windows to make the church an open and inclusive community, where the voices of more and more people could be heard and indeed respected too?

Many Christian churches are in meltdown and instead of listening and respecting the views of all those who have been hurt and alienated there is this constant pull to return to old ways that have no contemporary meaning for so many good and noble people.

Any time I pick up the New Testament I am struck with the recurring  theme of how Jesus interacts with people. It’s his mission to serve and heal the people, and that involves listening  to them too. It’s perfectly clear that he respects and cherishes them. He is a true servant of the people. Jesus is the servant of the people because he is primarily the servant of God. It was his commitment to God that drove him to be the servant of the people.

What have we done? We have turned our faith upside down by  placing far too much importance on those who serve. There is too much reverence shown to office holders, be they political, titled or ecclesiastical. In the past we doffed the hat to the church leaders, but who are we genuflecting in front of today?

Now, as never before, there is  a serious need for a root and branch change in a church that has for far too long given an impression of being driven by rank and entitlement. This  has to go. Because if it doesn’t the church will become totally irrelevant to the people it claims to serve.

Boris Johnson’s battery made buses

British prime minister Boris Johnson was in Coventry yesterday where he was giving a talk on ‘levelling up’.

At one stage in his ramblings he spoke about the great new green buses made by batteries.

Has anyone seen a battery made bus?

Covid is a blip compared to sufferings of earlier generations

People are objecting to how Covid regulations are keeping pubs and restaurants closed. There are priests too, who are objecting to Covid regulations, restricting liturgical celebrations. Indeed, there are priests who flagrantly break the rules of the State and of their diocese.

Eighty years ago Germany invaded Mother Russia. Between 1941 and 1943 Soviet battlefield deaths numbered perhaps 10 million. Of the 5.7 million Soviet soldiers taken into captivity, 3.3 million died of starvation, disease, or in the case of at least 140,000 individuals, at the point of an executioner’s gun.

Fifteen million Soviet civilians died as a direct result of Germany's attempt to obliterate the Soviet Union.

It is embarrassing and annoying to  listen to people, including priests, moan, groan and break rules and regulations that have been put in place to protect us all.

In July 1941  Red Army soldier Dmitry Tkachenko wrote to his daughters Vita and Lyusya: “I am so far from you. Perhaps you have already begun to forget your daddy.

“Girls, so many children are here living in fear of air raids .... Please, I want you to help your mammy and look after her. Don’t be lazy. Anything can happen to me. Maybe I’ll never see you again. Perhaps you will be left just with mammy..

“I would love so much to be with you just for one day. To look at you and play with you. Please make sure the house is always clean, both the rooms and the kitchen.

Hugs and kisses, Your Daddy.

He was killed on October 30, 1941, four months and eight days after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union.

But the Red Army would turn the tables and rout the German aggressor.

RTÉ highlights scams perpetrated by county councillors

RTÉ’s Prime Time last evening aired a programme on how county councillors can easily abuse the system for their own financial benefit.

It included accounts of councillors claiming for expenses for attending two meetings taking place at the same time in different parts of Europe.

Councillors are allowed claim for expenses that are not vouched.

The programme highlighted the expense sheets of a number of councillors, which clearly show how they entered conflicting and contradictory claims.

A lot of public money swirling around in a large trough.

Ireland has an opportunity to speak for the voiceless

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

I put on a new summer shirt on Sunday and while unwrapping it I checked the collar to see where it was made. Bangladesh. I trust and pray that the people who made it are paid some sort of decent wage. 

But I suppose I looked at country of origin half expecting to see those five letters China on it. So much of what we buy these days is made in China.

 

On Thursday, July 1, ‘The Irish Times’ carried a full-page advertisement from the Chinese government. It caught my eye. I read all 1,500 words on the page. My first reaction was one of surprise, indeed, I was so surprised, that I commented on it the next day on my blog.

The text was written by He Xiangdong, the Chinese ambassador to Ireland. The ad marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The ambassador draws similarities between Ireland and China and writes in glowing terms of the current relationship between our two countries. He stresses the Chinese Communist Party is solidly supported by the Chinese people.

That same day on the lunchtime RTE Radio news I heard a report on comments made by the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, celebrating the milestone event. He said: ‘Anyone who tries to bully China will have their heads bashed bloody against the great wall of steel forged by more than 1.4 million Chinese people.’ 

That put a chill down my spine. And it certainly didn’t seem to gel with the soft words that his ambassador was writing in ‘The Irish Times’. They were indeed words similar to what Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong might have spoken.

 

The following weekend ‘The Sunday Times’ was most critical of the Chinese ad that appeared in ‘The Irish Times’. It ran a story on the subject and columnist David Quinn was critical of the paper running the ad. I carefully read both pieces in ‘The Sunday Times’ and they made some valid points but why did I keep saying to myself ‘The Sunday Times’ is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and naturally he would be strongly opposed to the philosophy and behaviour of the Chinese Communist Party?

I was reminded of author Jung Chang’s ‘Wild Swans’, which is a powerful account of the brutality the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong unleashed on the Chinese people.

Currently I’m reading stories of how China is incarcerating large numbers of Uighurs, Chinese Muslims, in the northwest of the country. The Chinese leadership is sabre rattling about Taiwan and have used tough versions of the jackboot in Hong Kong.

China is powerful. Ireland has a relationship of dependency with the country. How can I find out the truth? Who tells the truth? Dare I ask, what is truth? But people who suffer at the hands of dictatorships can quickly and clearly tell us what dictators really do.

Right now Ireland has a seat at the UN Security Council. I hope we are using it to the advantage of all the world’s citizens, especially those who are downtrodden and maltreated.

Irish save money and sell whiskey while Finance looks on

During the last 18 months of the Covid pandemic Irish households added €21 billion to their savings.

In 2020 137 million bottles of Irish whiskey were sold worldwide.

Two facts that surely must give some ideas to Department of Finance.

Jonathan Dimbleby’s epic account of Operation Barbarossa

Jonathan Dimbleby’s ‘Barbararossa - How Hitler Lost the War’, published this year, has to be considered one of the finest pieces of writing on the failed German invasion of Russia.

Martin Sixsmith writes of the book: ‘Jonathan Dimbleby’s epic account captures all the drama and magnitude of an event that determined not just the outcome of the war, but the future of the world.’

In November/Decemebr 1941 as the Red Army was beginning to turn the tide as the German attack on Moscow began to fail Alexey Surkov’s  popular prose poem ‘A Soldier’s Oath' captured the mood:

Mine eyes have beheld thousands of dead bodies of women and children, lying along the railways and the highways.

They were killed by German vultures .... The tears of women and children are boiling in my heart.

Hitler the murderer and his hordes shall pay for these tears with their wolfish blood; for the avenger’s hatred knows no mercy. (Page 457/458)

Surkov’s words are a warning to those who do gratuitous vile deeds to other people.

It seems clear that God is not listening

The editorial of the July/August issue of Reality, published by the Irish Redemptorists, carries an interesting editorial on the death of vocations to priesthood and religious life.

In the last paragraph acting editor Gerard Moloney writes:

Meanwhile, religious leaders continue to ask for prayers for vocations, even though it seems clear by now that God is not listening.

Perhaps God’s silence is sending a message.

The old clerical modal of church is dying.

Priesthood and religious life as we knew it are coming to an end. We need to imagine a radical new way of being church in the 21st century. 

Even though it may seem like we are peering through a glass darkly, we need to trust that God will show us a way forward.

Twenty per cent of the population did not attend Mass

Derek Scally in his book, 'The Best Catholics in the World’ points out that approximately 80 per cent of the Catholic population did not attend Sunday Mass in the 18th century; yet Sunday Mass attendance later became one of the main criteria for judging people’s practice of the faith.

Derek Scally is The Irish Times correspondent in Berlin.

From never knowing why to job satisfaction

A link to ‘A `word in Edgeways’ aired on RTE Radio 1 yesterday at 06.15. 

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/21978750/

A word on former Dominican, the late Joe Bergin

This is a post received on Monday and sent by Joyce2. It was posted on the obituary blogpost on Joe Bergin.

Again thank you for continuing to "own", by recalling them with affection and respect, those of the Dominican Order who chose to get married. 

It is tragic that the church authorities continue to impose celibacy on those who have a vocation to priesthood and a vocation to marriage. 

I am saddened to hear of Joe's death, but he lived with courage and love, that will not die. I hope his memories are published. 

It is consoling to know through your blog that priests who married continued to have a profound positive influence on others, continued to bring them closer to Christ. God bless you.

By-election posters provoke a wry smile

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

There is a by-election in Dublin Bay South this Thursday.

St Luke’s Hospital in Rathgar, where I work, is in the constituency and I live just a few footsteps outside the constituency.

This is a traditional Fine Gael seat. The former housing minister Eoghan Murphy is leaving politics and retiring as the constituency TD, hence Thursday’s election.

There are 15 candidates putting their names in the ring.

It means over the last few weeks I have been passing pole after pole festooned with election posters of the candidates.

On Saturday I went for a seven kilometre walk, which took me through a leafy part of the constituency, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh and Dartry.

What did I learn from the posters I saw? Certainly I learned zilch about their political philosophy. Why the posters? The marketing people talk about name recognition.

I think I’m fairly neutral, which gave me some chance of being objective about the posters I saw. It also allowed me to see the funny side to it all.

Labour’s candidate is Senator Ivana Bacik. Her poster caught my attention. I know it’s only a poster, and graphics of their nature must allow for a certain poetic licence. 

But Ivana’s poster did bring a wry smile to my face. It’s obviously attempting to be artistic. But really does it work? It’s a graphic of a young woman with a scarf around her neck, wheeling a bicycle. 

But it’s the weirdest bicycle I have ever seen. It has no brakes, no chain, no mudguards but it does have a basket. And why in heaven’s name is the young woman wearing a scarf. After all, the election is in mid-summer. 

Then there’s the poster of the Fine Gael candidate James Geoghegan. It’s just a mugshot of the man. The moment I saw it, the immediate word that came to mind was smarmy. Yes, that's the impression I got from the picture. 

I don’t know the first thing about the man. No, not completely true. I have a vague memory of hearing something some weeks ago about the house he lives in and something to do with the mortgage. Nothing else.

The next poster was that of Social Democrats Sarah Durcan. Again it was a mugshot and all I can remember from the poster are her unusual-looking glasses and her lipstick.

I saw a poster of the Aontù candidate Mairéad Tóibín. Nothing special about her picture and when I saw the name I thought of Niall Tóibín and was wondering might she be related to the late actor.

My last poster on my seven kilometre walk was that of the Fianna Fáil candidate, Deirdre Conroy. 

Nothing special or unusual about her picture. But I was reminded about how she was in the news some weeks ago for not being too kind to someone who was cooking in her kitchen And at the time there was some sort of hullabaloo about it all.

I was walking with a friend and we had a discussion about the posters. I came home and began to think about election posters and democracy.

I’m growing more and more confused about democracy as we currently operate it.

Maybe I’m missing something.

Dates worth noting in Britain, Ireland and Germany

On this day in 1954 the BBC broadcasted its first television news bulletin.

We have come a long way in 67 years.

On December 31, 1961 RTÉ Television began broadcasting.

ZDF, one of Germany’s two public broadcasting television companies, announced on Friday the appointment a new director. 

The man’s name is Norbert Himmler. And his father was a police chief. An unfortunate name surely and then the poor man’s father's occupation.

Norbert Himmler will take up his new job next March.

Phone scamming is costing people dearly

According to US research for phone company TrueCaller, 59 million Americans lost money to phone scams last year. One in five admitted that they had been fooled more than once.

The average loss was approximately €420 per person.

The business to the fraudsters was worth approximately $30 billion.

In Australia people were defrauded of €538 million.

There are no figures available for such scams in Ireland. 

The moral of the story is never ever give personal information to a cold caller. Never engage them in any conversation. 

Bertie Ahern on a border poll

In my view the time for a border pole is not opportune until we reach a situation where nationalists and republicans and also a sizeable amount of unionists and loyalists are in favour of such a poll on the basis of consent. That is still some years away.

- former taoiseach Bertie Ahern

What China says in Ireland and in Tiananmen Square

The Irish Times yesterday carried a page advertisement from the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China.

The author is He Xiangdong, who is the current Ambassador of China to Ireland.

The ad begins explaining how the Communist Party of China was established 100 years ago this month.

The ambassador points out how China, like Ireland, remaind poor and backward and was struggling against foreign oppression and exploitation.

He goes on to say that over the last 100 years the Chinese Communist Party have been rallying the Chinese people, leading them in revolution and nation-building, and putting an end to semi-colonial, semi-feudal society of the old China.

Today, he tells the reader, that China is the world’s second largest economy, its largest manufacturing country, and the largest commodity trading nation.

The ambassador believes this is a good time to strengthen further China Ireland cooperation.

Meanwhile at celebrations in Tiananmen Square  yesterday Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged that China would not accept “sanctimonious preaching” by others, and it would not be “bullied, oppressed, or subjugated”. Anyone who tries “will find them on a collision course with a steel wall forged by 1.4 billion people.”

There are always two sides to stories.

The altar boy from Schönau who won the World Cup

"One win more, one defeat more. There are other important things: family, friendship, values." 

Joachim Löw has retired as manager of the German national football team after 15 years and 198 games.

Among the team’s many victories under his stewardship was the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.

Hansi Flick is the new German manager.

I was ordained a priest the day West Germany beat Netherlands in the World Cup in Munich on July 7, 1974.

Löw, born in Schönau in the Black Forest, was an altar boy in the parish church of his childhood.

England team wins while fans boo

Congratulations to England in their history over Germany in EURO 2020 yesterday.

But the booing of the English fans during the German anthem and indeed the booing right throughout the game was unfortunate and cannot be good for the game.

It certainly was most unsportsmanlike.

Not at all impressive.

Shame on us - 82.4 million refugees

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

The Dominican saint and theologian Thomas Aquinas says that what we need to note is what is being said and not who it is who says it. I think you could argue the pros and cons of that.

Earlier this month I was scanning the letters page of The Irish Times when I spotted a letter written by Siobhan Walsh. While I was working in the press office in Concern Worldwide Siobhan was also working with Concern and we met on a number of occasions.

She is now chief executive officer of Goal. Goal is an international humanitarian response agency, founded by Irish journalist John O’Shea in 1977.

Siobhan’s name caught my attention so naturally I read the letter. The treasure trove that it opened for me.

The following day, Sunday, June 20, was World Refugee Day and Siobhan was highlighting the plight of refugees.

Some of the statistics are simply horrendous. There are 82.4 million refugees around the world and it is the highest number ever recorded. Approximately 34 million of that number happen to be children. That is simply shocking.

And for you and me those figures are just numbers.

When I read Siobhan’s letter I was on a three-day break in West Kerry with everything at my disposal. 

But so it is with me every day. I never have to worry where I am going to sleep or how I’ll manage to get my food. I take it all for granted. Is it possible for someone like me to understand what life must be like for refugees?

Reading Siobhan’s letter and then going off and finding out more information on the subject I began to feel ashamed of myself. I can get agitated if I find out I have run out of oranges for my breakfast. And what are we doing as a nation for refugees? Since the beginning of 2020 Ireland has resettled 250 refugees. 

Sweden, which has a population twice the size of Ireland resettles 5,000 refugees annually.

Since last November a war in northern Ethiopia has caused two million people to lose their homes.

Pope Francis has referred to the Mediterranean as ‘the largest cemetery in Europe’. He is talking about those poor miserable people who have paid large sums of money to smugglers to flee their homes and then end up at the bottom of the sea.

The picture is bleak.

Surely we in the West have a grave responsibility to bang heads together to come up with a solution to the problem of refugees.

Right now Ireland has a seat at the UN Security Council. As an Irish tax payer may I scream out to our representative on the Security Council to fight like hell on behalf of the 82.4 million refugees.

Refugees are forced to leave their homes usually as a result of war and violence. They’d much prefer to stay at home but they simply can’t.

To think that the weaponry that is driving people out of their homes is the same weaponry that is making billions for the armaments industry and the large corporations that support them.

Why do we let this cruelty happen?

What might 1.6 billion children make of yesterday’s Gospel?

In the Gospel read in the liturgy yesterday St Mark tells the story of how Jesus heals the little 12-year-old daughter of a synagogue official.

There are 34 million children refugees in the world.

There are 1.6 billion children living in conflict zones.

Approximately 12.3 Irish children leave school after the Junior Cert. That works out at approximately 8,000 children every year, in 10 years that’s 80,000 children.

And all the pious words that will have been spoken yesterday.

Smarmy James, Ivana’s scarf and the odd bicycle

Before the arrival of Photoshop

and social media is was generally accepted that a picture was worth a thousand words. It’s probably not  so any longer.

There is an election in Dublin Bay South on Thursday July 8.

The posters are appearing all

over the constituency, which covers a wide spectrum of Irish society.

Labour Party Ivana Bacik’s poster would make one ask some questions.

Wearing a scarf in July? And then there is the bicycle.

No chain, no brakes. Ivana with a scarf around her neck and no mudguards on the bicycle. And then there’s the basket.

Does Fine Gael’s candidate James Geoghegan look a little too smarmy for the casual voter passing the lamppost?

More anon on what’s adorning our lampposts right now.

Matt Hancock asked citizens ‘to keep doing their bit'

UK’s secretary of health Matt Hancock’s dalliance, his not keeping the social distances rules that he asked the rest of the citizenry to keep, his comments of criticism when a UK Covid expert had to resign because of an extra marital affair, saying that it was  not just possible in these circumstances to keep his job, tells the story of the current crop of Conservative politicians.

At one stage Hancock asked the citizens of the UK “to keep doing your bit”.

Irony of ironies.

And Matt Hancock’s boss is Boris Johnson.

How did a video camera find its way into Matt Hancock’s office and remain unnoticed?

The day that Stalin’s enforcer is forced out

On this day, June 25, 1953 the notorious and cruel Lavrentiy Beria, head of the Soviet secret police was arrested. At the time Nikita Krushchev had replaced Stalin with help from Georgy Zhukov.

After being arrested, he was tried for treason and other offences. He was sentenced to death, and executed on 23 December 1953. 

During his trial, and after his death, numerous allegations arose of Beria being a serial sexual predator. 

Beria carried out all of Stalin’s requests. He played an important role in the satellite states of the Soviet Union in the years immediately after World War II.

Viktor Orban always insists of picking on a enemy

Naomi O’Leary in her European Letter in The Irish Times yesterday writes about the phenomenon of the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.

She interviews  Hungarian MEP Katalin Cseh, who points out that Orban always has to have one enemy, whether it is during his time in government or in the run up to an election.

“It is usually a group of people in a minority who are weak, who do not have the same opportunities as the majority and they are singled out.

“Before this it was the migrants. Now it appears that the LGBTI community is part of the new enemy group."

Antony Blinken and Heiko Maas share a German beer

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German foreign minister Heiko Maas met in Berlin yesterday.

They visited the Holocaust memorial in the centre of the city, where they met a 99-year-old Holocaust survivor.

One of Blinken’s ancestors was a victim of the Hitler terror. Blinken is a Jew.

Blinken's stepfather was the only Holocaust survivor of the 900 children of his school in Poland. 

Maas and Blinken enjoying a German beer spoke about the close relationship between their two countries and the German foreign minister, with a smile, admitted that in a phone call with ‘Tony' he had the feeling that this was his first time to talk with a US secretary of state.

Obviously Germany and the US are back doing business as close partners after four difficult years.

What to believe and what not to believe

According to a Reuters Institute Digital News Report 70 per cent of Irish people are extremely or very interested in news, which is up five per cent on last year.

The EU average is 60 per cent, the UK 51 per cent and in the US the figure is 54 per cent.

Sixteen per cent of Irish people pay for news.

RTÉ is considered by 78 per cent as a trusted news brand with The Irish Times at 77 per cent.

WhatsApp has overtaken Facebook as the most popular social media platform. It is used by 68 per cent of the 2,000 people who responded to the survey.

Seventy five percent of over 65s are concerned about what is real and what is fake on the internet, compared with 55 per cent of 18 - 24-year-olds.

When a new DA was appointed in Philadelphia major changes were made in the police. 

Someone was overheard saying that a person who has nothing to hide, hides nothing at all. 

Angela Merkel offers her condolences to Vladimir Putin

German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday to offer her condolences on the 80th anniversary of  Germany's World War II invasion of Russia.

June 22, 1941 was the first day of Operation Barbarossa when the Wehrmacht crossed the River Bug and entered the territory of the USSR.

Merkel expressed feelings of empathy in connection with "the incalculable misery and suffering brought by the war unleashed by the Nazi regime," the Kremlin said in a statement.

"Both sides stressed the importance of preserving the historical memory of the tragic events of those years. It was stated that overcoming mutual hostility and reconciliation of the Russian and German peoples carried key importance for the fate of postwar Europe. It stressed that even now the security of the common continent is possible only through joint efforts," it said.

Vladimir Putin also spoke to Merkel about his meeting last week with US President Joe Biden in Geneva.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier laid a wreath in Berlin yesterday to commemorate the victims of the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

Steinmeier laid the wreath at the Soviet War Memorial in Schönholzer Heide in the Berlin district of Pankow. It is estimated the war  against the Soviet Union cost roughly 27 million lives, of which 14 million were civilians.

Steinmeier said: "Nobody during this war mourned more victims than the people of the former Soviet Union. And yet these millions are not as deeply etched in our collective memory as their suffering, and our responsibility, demand.”

He added that the German war against the Soviets was carried out with "murderous barbarity.”

More than 13,000 Red Army officers and soldiers who died in the battle for Berlin in 1945 are buried at the Schönholzer Heide memorial, which is one of three large Soviet memorials in the German capital, along with those in Treptow and Tiergarten.

I’m no Mick Dundee but an hello helps

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Cycling home from Mass on Monday morning I came up behind a mother and what I took for her seven/eight-year-old daughter, who were cycling in front of me. The daughter was in front of her mother and her mother was giving her gentle instructions on how to navigate between the kerb and the passing cars.

I was intrigued by it and then when I was overtaking the two of them I said to the mother to tell her daughter that I’m cycling 67 years, gave a wave to the little girl and assured her she was doing a fantastic job. I cycled off and it’s most unlikely that we’ll ever meet again. But I do know I gave the little girl’s mother cause to smile. She was delighted with both herself and her daughter and waved me goodbye.

I hadn’t cycled 500 metres when I was reminded of the 1986 film Crocodile Dundee.

 

Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) is a feature writer on her father’s New York newspaper and is engaged to the paper’s editor when she goes to visit Mick Dundee (Paul Hogan) in Australia’s Outback.

Later in the film he travels back to New York with Sue. It’s his first time in the US. He brings all his rural customs of the outback with him to the Big Apple. He says hello to everyone he meets on the street, even opens the window of his taxi to greet people. Naturally New Yorkers think this chap is crazy. And he certainly does behave in a way to which no New Yorker would be accustomed.

Well before the onslaught of Covid a friend of mine commented that there are so many elderly and lonely people out there that even to say hello to them when passing them on the street is a good idea. I listened to her carefully and decided I should follow her example. I didn’t. 

Some months ago I heard Fr Peter McVerry arguing that even if we are unwilling to give a person begging on the street some money, at least we could say hello to them. Again, I was impressed with the idea but like all good intentions the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

It was Covid that caused me to develop my new street policy. These days I’m saying hello to far more pedestrians and cyclists than I ever did before. Of course I’m not saying hello to everyone I pass on Grafton or O’Connell Street but on quiet streets and parks these days I’m far more inclined to say hello or give a nod of the head. 

The same with cyclists, I’ll say hello or offer some sort of friendly gesture when passing or stopped at traffic lights.

I’m pleasantly surprised with the responses I am getting. The vast majority of people reply or give some sort of recognition.

Just think of the difference it could make for them and for us.

I have learned from my job as a hospital chaplain the profound importance of a simple smile or a quick kind word.

Mick Dundee’s approach was hilariously funny, but remember where it got him in the end. If you haven’t seen the film, watch it and find out.

And say hello to the passing person.

On your knees in hell

Lateral thinker Edward Charles Francis Publius de Bono, who died on June 9, tells a joke:

An old man dies and goes to hell. When he gets there, he sees his friend, a 90-year-old man, with a beautiful woman sitting on his knee.

He says to his friend. This can’t be hell. You’re not being punished, you’e having fun!’ To which his friend replies, ‘This is punishment  - for her!’ "

World Refugee Day

Today is World Refugee Day. The number of  vulnerable people forcibly displaced globally stands at almost 82.4 million, which is the highest figure on record.

The safe option is not always what we need

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

It is spectacular that in a world population of over seven billion each one of us is unique.

When it comes to someone being elected or appointed to high office a term that comes to mind is ‘a safe pair of hands’, at least that is, when the person is considered not to rock the boat. And so often we are more comfortable with the familiar.

Whether or not it is a complimentary or pejorative term may well depend on our own understanding of the word and our opinion of the particular person.

But when the safe pair of hands throws off that mantel and turns out to be an adventurous and prophetic leader there is a wonderful charm and excitement about what might happen.

In the present world of politics it might just turn out that Joe Biden, considered by many ‘a safe pair of hands’ may well turn out to be far more adventurous than people originally thought. 

One could look on Pope John XXIII as fitting that bill. He was a former diplomat. The elderly man was considered a caretaker pope on election but he went on to give an exciting life to the Catholic Church, indeed, his influence spread across all churches and indeed further.

Other names that come to mind are Gorbachev, and Merkel. Gorbachev was a loyal and true-blue member of the USSR Politburo and Merkel had a leadership role in the East German controlled Free German Youth. Both considered safe pairs of hands, who went on to show the world what imaginative and prophetic people they were.

It was exciting watching them develop and blossom in their roles and how they attempted to improve the lot of their citizens. Closer to home, Sean Lemass comes to mind, even among those who don’t support Fianna Fáil. Along with farsighted civil servant Ken Whitaker Lemass, who had spent his career in the political  shadow of Éamon de Valera merged and began the economic revolution which became the practical  realisation of Irish nationhood. 

Are churches far too tempted to go for the security of the safe pair of hands? And how often does it happen that the safe pair of hands breaks loose and goes on to be prophetic and exciting?

If ever it were needed, surely we in Ireland right now need a church leadership that has the humility and genius, the courage too, to inspire people to be impressed by the Word of God.

The new Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Farrell has set up a task force titled ‘Building Hope’. 

Parishioners across the archdiocese have been asked to contribute their thoughts, their vision for the future of the archdiocese.

It would seem Dermot Farrell is hitting the ground running. But it is vital that he and his team listen to those who feel alienated and may have highly critical opinions to express, something John XXIII did.

The lesson writ large in tomorrow’s Gospel (Mark 4: 35 - 41) is that we should not be afraid. It’s so easy to hide behind fear, to use fear and security as tools to keep us in our bubbles and stave off the prevailing winds. And that’s exactly why Jesus is critical of his disciples as they battle with the sea winds.

Jesus offers them a new and exciting alternative. And when the wind drops they are astounded, surprised and realise that this man is offering them a hope for the future that is beyond their calculations. Out on that boat they realised that they have to recalibrate.

Is there anyone at senior leadership level in the Irish Christian churches willing to say that we are in trouble? Might someone have the temerity to suggest, calling in an outside agency to do a root and branch audit of church organisations in Ireland?

There is a faith reserve across Irish society that goes back centuries. It hasn’t been blown away by any wind or storm. Yes, it has been damaged but if we make a genuine effort in listening and summoning God to our side we will not be left wanting.

God’s love always wins out. During the life of Jesus and in his church what’s worked best has not always been the safe option. However you choose to describe him, the man from Galilee was never a safe pair of hands. And he is God too.