No easy answers to conflict in Ukraine

The article below appeared in The Irish Times yesterday. It is by Lara Marlowe. It is one of the finest pieces this writer has read on the war in Ukraine.

Two weeks in Ukraine have not answered what an army officer called “the dumb questions”: How long will the war last? How and when will it end?

These questions are not “dumb”, merely unfathomable. The different perspectives of Ukraine and its allies make it more difficult to address them.

Westerners think the war started on February 24th, 2022. For Ukrainians, it started with Russia’s invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014 and has been going on for nine years, as long as the first and second World Wars combined. The term “full-scale invasion” papers over the gap in our perceptions.

A few days ago, in president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, journalists lost interest in a memorial service held by mothers of fallen soldiers when it transpired that the soldiers had died in Donbas in 2014.

If we focus only on the latest missile or drone attack, we cannot grasp the weight of 300 years of Soviet and Russian imperialism, and the way Ukraine has been torn back and forth between Moscow and the West since independence in 1991.

Impatience is the corollary of our ignorance. The idea that Ukrainians ought to wrap up their brave little show of resistance so we can put our economies in order, stanch the flow of military and humanitarian aid and forget fears of escalation is increasingly mainstream.

The US threatens Ukraine with the possibility of a second Trump presidency. “If you don’t speed up your counteroffensive and grab your occupied land back, Trump may come back and shaft you,” is the message. Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican candidate from Ohio, wants to stop all aid to Ukraine, abandon sanctions against Russia and give Putin the occupied territories. Ronald Reagan must be turning in his grave.

One of the few dissonant voices I heard was a working- class, middle-aged man in Kryvyi Rih. He voted for Zelenskiy in 2019 because Zelenskiy promised to make peace with Russia. “A bad peace is better than a good war,” the man told me.

Irreconcilable

When I put the question to a university professor and old friend of Zelenskiy’s a few hours later, he solemnly replied that Zelenskiy will make peace with Russia. These two residents of Kryvyi Rih also held irreconcilable visions of what peace should look like.

With few exceptions, the Ukrainians I met were determined, united and amazingly resilient, including several who have been badly wounded in the war. This war must be won once and for all, they told me. Any compromise with Putin would simply allow him to regroup, rearm and attack again later. Forcing Ukraine into a bad peace would prepare the ground for future wars and permanently damage Ukraine’s relations with the West.

Some Western politicians, such as the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, urge Ukraine to make concessions. To stop the Georgian war in 2008, Sarkozy gave Abkhazia and North Ossetia to Putin on a platter. A French financial prosecutor is investigating his €3 million contract with a Russian insurance company, and the €300,000 he received for a lecture in St Petersburg.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has labelled the eagerness of some westerners to end the war at Ukraine’s expense the Munich syndrome, after Chamberlain and Daladier’s appeasement of Hitler in 1938.

“Why are there cynical calls by the leaders of the free world to pull the plug on Ukrainians in order to reach an agreement with evil?” Podolyak asked this week.

For the US and Europe, Putin is the devil they know, clearly evil, but less dangerous than a nuclear-armed, anarchical Russia. The Ukrainians have seen Putin up close and are willing to plunge into the unknown.

Ukrainians believe the fate of the free world hangs on their struggle. One officer compared the dilemma facing the West to the scene in the Hollywood blockbuster Matrix where the hero is asked to choose between two pills. One will allow him to continue living as before. The other will reveal the truth but alter his life forever.

A psychologist in Kyiv told me that Ukrainian civilians who flee often suffer greater stress and PTSD than those who remain, because they consume a high concentration of anxiety- inducing news on social media.

Apart from the combat zones, life continues almost normally. A Patriot missile defence system has all but ended civilian casualties in Kyiv. Across the country, Ukrainians get on with their lives, not unlike the French people who braved Jihadist attacks in the late 2010s.

The common wisdom at the moment is that Zelenskiy has six months to take back as much territory as he can, after which the US and Europe will exercise maximum pressure on him to make peace. In exchange for this, he would be offered an open-ended commitment of military aid, like Israel.

Personally, I don’t buy it. If the extraordinary saga of Yevgeny Prigozhin taught us anything, it is the potential of this conflict to produce unexpected consequences. It may be wishful thinking, but another quotation from Podolyak rings true to me: “In the end, it will all end quickly and in an instant, just as it began.”

Fr Patrick Brennan OP (1936 - 2023) - an obituary

Patrick Brennan died in Tallaght

University Hospital on Friday, September 1.

He was born on New Year’s Day 1936.

Patrick, who was known generally in the province as Paddy or Pat,  grew up in Passage West in County Cork, where his father was the local Garda Sergeant.

In the past there was always a close and friendly relationship between priests and An Garda Síochána.

This is open to correction but I think I can recall Patrick telling me that he cycled from Passage West to school at the CBS in Cork City, which is a distance of approximately 12 kilometres.

On completion of his Leaving Certificate he joined the Irish Dominicans in his home city in 1954, where he spent his noviciate and first year philosophy at the Dominican Priory in Pope’s Quay on the north side of the River Lee. On receiving the habit he was given the religious name Walter, which he dropped after the reforms of the Vatican Council. For many years he was known as Wally.

He studied philosophy and theology at St Mary’s Priory in Tallaght, which was then a village outside Dublin. Patrick was ordained a priest in July 1961. 

On completion of his theological studies he moved to the Dominican Priory in the Claddagh in Galway, where he obtained a BA at University College Galway.

While he was in Galway he was  pastorally engaged in the community in the Claddagh and founded a soccer club, which became a vibrant sporting activity in the local community. 

People in the Claddagh still fondly remember the work that he did with the soccer team and a former player on one of his teams recalls how the club was very disappointed when they heard he was leaving Galway. “You know, Pat should  have been left in Galway back then. He was so loved in the area and he was really enjoying himself. He did such great work with all the young people who were involved with the club," a former player recalls.

On completion of his studies at UCG he was assigned to the Irish community in Trinidid in the West Indies. While there he was involved in pastoral work in a number of parishes and taught at Holy Cross College in Arima.

When Pat went to Trinidad in the mid to late 1960s Irish Dominicans were running many parishes and a secondary school. In 1974 there were 60 Irish Dominicans on the Caribbean island. Today there are nine Dominicans in Trinidad, including two Irish priests. An Irish Dominican, Finbar Ryan, a fellow Cork man, was archbishop in Port of Spain from 1940 to 1966.

Patrick was a renowned operatic singer. He was at his most fluent and most talented when he was on stage singing. He thrived on it and and loved to be asked to sing. On the final day of a provincial chapter in Tallaght in the 198os he was asked to sing after lunch. He lifted the roof off the refectory and was delighted that he had been invited to sing among his own fellow Dominicans.

His talent for singing and music was never fully appreciated or recognised within the Irish Dominicans.

One could easily get the impression that Pat was something of a showman and enjoyed the limelight. Yes, he enjoyed his singing in public but behind the seeming bombast and braggadocio Pat was a profoundly shy person, who suffered from depression. It was something he kept very private and mentioned it to few people. It played a significant role in his long life.

Pat was a sensitive person, interested in poetry and well read in English. He had an enquiring mind and would ask pertinent questions as to what life was all about. He was keenly interested in the God question. 

He followed many sports and while in Trinidad played a weekly round of golf with fellow Dominican Leo Donovan. 

One of Paddy’s two sisters had a mobile home on the Maherees in West Kerry. His sisters truly spoiled him and he so enjoyed spending time in the mobile home, playing golf, walking on the beach and allowing himself to be spoiled by his sisters. He wallowed in it, though pretending not to, and they loved him.

In the mid 198os Pat returned to Ireland, spending some time in Holy Cross, Sligo and St Martin’s Parish, Tallaght. But he found it difficult to settle in in a country, which he had left 20 years earlier, and returned to Trinidad.

While he was in Holy Cross in Sligo among his jobs was that of bursar. He was conscious that the Dominicans lived off the generosity of the people and was careful with the money, which he managed on behalf of the community. He was careful with other people’s money. It was an admiral quality of his.

I lived with Patrick in Sligo. At first he came across as an aloof and distant person. People could easily have got the impression that he was something of a snob. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, Paddy was an extremely shy person, never exactly sure how to read a room. He was a man of a nervous disposition, unsure about himself, especially in unfamiliar company.

Paddy was quietly kind to people and genuinely interested in the lives and stories of those whom he encountered.

He took preaching the Gospel seriously and was forever pained to avoid cliches, drivel and all sorts of pious humbug. And of course, he enjoyed singing at Mass.

Anyone who got to know Paddy Brennan will be well aware that he was a thinking person, who thought and even prayed about his faith.

Because of ill health Paddy returned to Ireland close to 10 years ago and was a member of the community in St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght. He had been in a poor state of health for some time, during which he was lovingly cared for by the team of carers and the prior in the priory. Some weeks ago he was admitted to Tallaght University Hospital, where he died on Friday.

May he rest in peace.

The body of Patrick Brennan will lie in state in St Mary’s Priory Tallaght from midday on Monday, September 4. Removal to the priory church at 5.30pm on Monday. Requiem Mass at 11.30am on Tuesday, September 5, followed by burial in the community cemetery.

Patrick Brennan OP, RIP

Dominican priest Patrick Brennan died today in Tallaght University Hospital.

May he rest in peace.

Bank of Ireland not very media savvy

Apologies to readers for sporadic entries over the last number of days.

This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Contrast the media savvy of Kevin Bakhurst with that of Myles O’Grady. I think it’s fair to say that most people in the country at this stage know who Kevin Bakhurst is. 

On the announcement of Ryan Tubridy not returning to RTÉ Bakhurst was all over the media telling the public what the story was. He appeared on various news bulletins and on Prime Time. He used simple language admitting faults had been made on both sides. 

Myles O’Grady is chief executive of Bank of Ireland. The bank’s IT system went down on Tuesday, August 15. It was certainly not working at 2pm that day and it was out of service until the following morning. 

And then that morning the big story was about people being able to withdraw money they didn’t have from ATMs. Not a word from anyone at Bank of Ireland to explain what had happened. 

All the media focus was on the free ATM money, people fiddling the system and gardaí being called out to keep control at the ATMs. The story became the people who were taking the ‘free money’.

I never once heard a word from Myles O’Grady until the following Saturday when I read a report in a daily national newspaper where he apologised for the IT glitch.

 

It is interesting that finance minister Michael McGrath has said that there have been ‘too many instances’ of IT glitches at the nation’s banks. Only in June did many of Bank of Ireland’s IT systems crash for the best part of a day.

Systems fail, machines break down. But what is not at all acceptable is how the Bank of Ireland dealt with its most recent outage. 

Once the bank knew the system was down why did they not send text messages to customers explaining the system was down? Why did they not keep their normal business phone lines open after business hours? 

Why did staff tell customers at 6pm that the system would be back in operation within two hours. Their entire communication with their customers was shambolic and there is no excuse whatsoever for how the bank behaved once the outage happened.

The next day all the luck was on their side. The story shifted to customers removing money from ATMs that was not belong to them. 

I don’t think there has been a critical word in the media about how badly the bank communicated the glitch to customers. And what makes it even more annoying, customers could easily have gone into their account, punched in all the requisite numbers to find the screen go blank.

Someone not too familiar with online banking could easily have thought their account had been scammed or hacked. In panic and worry they try phoning the bank, no reply, at least no reply for a long time. That’s no way to treat customers. 

It’s ironic how the RTÉ and Bank of Ireland stories happened so closely together. I sincerely hope Mr O’Grady is willing to learn from the media skills of Mr Bakhurst. 

And a bigger question, have we become too dependent on technology? Have banks closed too many branches far too quickly? It seems like that to me at times. It did on the day of the glitch.

Pearse Dohery gets it wrong on the German government

Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty speaking on Drivetime today referred to the German government as a conservative government. And said it with such confidence and certitude. I doubt German chancellor Olaf Scholz would agree, indeed, I doubt not one of the 80 million citizens would agree. And not a word of correction, surprise or questioning from interviewer Sarah McInerney.

The current German government is a rainbow coalition of the SDP, The Greens and the FDP with the Social Democrats the lead party in the government.

The official opposition is the CDU with its sister Bavarian party the CSU.

Argentine presidential candidate sees pope as the evil one

Argentinian politician who sees Francis as a ‘communist pontiff’.

 “I am terrified of saviours of the nation without a political party history,” - Pope Francis

Link below is from the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/27/the-false-prophet-v-the-pope-argentina-faces-clash-of-ideologies-in-election?CMP=share_btn_link

European Union continues to import timber from Belarus

 Interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/aug/23/belarus-people-still-resisting-exiled-leader-sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-calls-for-wests-support?CMP=share_btn_link

Special days in history

On this day in 1942 the battle at Stalingrad began.

The World Council of Churches was formed on this day in 1948. 147 churches joined from 44 countries.

In 1990 on this day Armenia declared independence from the Soviet Union and the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic announced that they would reunite on October 3, 1990.

Colm Tóibín’s book is truly a magical read

This week’s Mediahuis/INM Irish regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

I’m a slow reader and I’d also call myself something of a hit and miss reader. By that I mean I go through phases, could read a number books in a few weeks and then read nothing for months. 

Every now and again, on the recommendation of someone, I get lost in a book. And it’s happened me again, though on this occasion I faltered over the first few pages and it took me a while to get into it. I finished all 435 pages of the book just over two weeks ago and it’s still swirling about in my head. I’m genuinely excited about it.

The book is The Magician by Colm Tóibín. It was published in 2021 and a number of people suggested I read it. I had previously read two of his other books The Master and Brooklyn. Great reads but The Magician is number one for me.

 

It’s about the famous German writer Thomas Mann, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1929. He’s up there with Germany’s great writers. I think it’s fair to call Tóibín’s book an historical novel as it traces the life of Mann from his birth in 1875 in Lübeck to his death in Zürich in 1955. How much of it is fiction I don’t know because I don’t know enough about Mann to answer that.

 

What fascinated me about the book was the simplicity of the language that Tóibín uses to tell the story of this great man.

I can’t explain how he does it but he seems to get inside Mann’s head and tell his story in such a readable fashion. I’m astonished at the detail in the book, the research that Tóibín must have done to write such a novel.

There is nothing simple about Mann’s life. He has six children, married to a wealthy secular Jewish woman and yet there’s always the gossip about him that he is a homosexual. He certainly admires the bodies of handsome young men. But it would be a terrible mistake to get distracted by that.

 

Tóibín explains how Mann realised early that the Nazis were going to bring mayhem and destruction to Germany.  Two of his children in 1933 told him not to return home from France and eventually at the outbreak of war he and his wife moved to the United States.

He passionately believed in freedom in all its forms and realised that the Nazis were thugs and bullies, who had to have scapegoats at whom they could sneer. They were ever so clever in whipping up fear and anger and at the same time able to appeal to populist sentiment. 

Tóibín  strongly hints that Mann was at first hesitant to speak out clearly in public against the Nazis. Reading the book I kept thinking of political parties that have similar tactics today. And that is beyond frightening.

Mann is a complicated person, aren’t we all. Colm Tóibín has that skill in making Mann come alive, indeed, so much so I’m tempted now to get to know more about Thomas Mann. 

I think it’s a great gift of a writer to make the reader so curious as to go off and learn more about the subject matter. That’s also the hallmark of a good teacher.  And when you read it you’ll discover why it’s called The Magician.

Channel 4’s documentary this evening on Dmitry Muratov

Denmark and the Netherlands are to supply F-16s to Ukraine. The approximate price tag of an F-16 is €63 million.

Germany has promised €500 million to Ukraine over the next four years.

Channel 4 this evening is screening at 10pm a documentary on Dmitry Muratov, the editor of Russia’s only independent newspaper. The documentary focuses of the invasion of Ukraine, when Muratov remained determined to continue reporting on events.

The mystery: how come he has not been arrested?

Sad to see England beaten in Sydney

Most Irish people who follow soccer have close allegiances with English or Scottish clubs but when it comes to following the English national team it seems Irish people are generally supporting the ‘other side’.

Conscious of that, it was sad to the see the English team beaten in Sydney today.

While the Queen of Spain was present in Sydney to cheer on her compatriots, there was no sign of anyone present from the House of Windsor.

Von Storch’s grandfather was Hitler’s finance minister

Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard von Storch is the deputy leader of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) political party in Germany. The party is currently  polling at approximately 22 per cent in opinion polls.

Beatrix Amelie Ehrengard von Storch is a member of the German Parliament and is a former member of the European Parliament. She belongs to the conservative wing of the party.

Her grandfather,  Johann Ludwig Schwerin von Krosigk was finance minister in Germany from 1932 until 1945 when he became German chancellor/first minister from May 1 until May 23, 1945.

von Krosigk was one of five people, including Hitler, who served continuously in the Nazi cabinet.

He had been appointed by Franz von Papen. Many of his family members were involved in the plot to kill Hitler.

He was convicted of war crimes in 1949 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. His was freed in 1951 and died in Essen in 1977.

Sir Michael Parkinson’s secret to interviewing success

Former author and journalist John Sergeant talking about Michael Parkinson yesterday stressed how Parky was always interested in the story of the person he was interviewing.

He went on to say that it was never drink that destroyed a journalist but it was always self-importance. Sergeant said that Parkinson spent his like making sure he never became self-important.

No blessings for gay couples in German church

The article below appeared in The Irish Times yesterday. It is by the paper’s German correspondent Derek Scally

Catholic priest Herbert Ullmann spent most of July on a cycling holiday around Lake Constance in southern Germany. Throughout it all, he had a nagging feeling that something was brewing back home.

Returning a fortnight ago to his western German parish in Mettmann, half an hour east of Düsseldorf, Fr Ullmann found out he was headline news. The reason? The response of his church superiors to his “Mass of blessing for all loving couples” last March.

It was a ceremony with a “concentrated, calm, warm atmosphere”, he recalls, with one obviously same-sex couple among around 25 heterosexual couples attending.

“It was about blessing and showing respect for all forms of responsible partnerships among people of goodwill,” he told The Irish Times.

While other German Catholic bishops have turned a blind eye to similar services in their dioceses, many widely reported in the media, things worked out differently for Fr Ullmann.

Someone attending the ceremony in March tipped off the Vatican, he believes. How is so he sure?

“Rome knew details about the ceremony that were in no newspaper report,” said Fr Ullmann. “There is always a small number of people in any parish with their ‘deep concerns’ who creep to Rome. It’s less than 5 per cent, but they are very spiteful.”

Holy See intervention

Exactly a month after the March ceremony, the Holy See intervened through the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacrament – the oversight body for Catholic liturgy and sacraments.

It contacted the archdiocese of Cologne, responsible for the parish of Mettmann. In turn the archdiocese general vicar Guido Assmann reminded Fr Ullmann of Catholic teaching, renewed in 2021, which excludes same-sex couples from any blessing or sacraments because homosexual acts – with no prospect of procreation – are “intrinsically disordered”.

“Individuals can always be blessed regardless of disposition and life status,” added the general vicar in a letter. Catholic priests should stay clear of any such blessing services as they were likely to “cause confusion among the faithful about the teachings of the church”.

For Fr Ullmann his service, agreed with the local parish committee, was a pilot project that responded to the real needs on the ground of his parishioners. The priest told his superiors he hoped that such outreach events might even help lessen departures from the church.

A record 522,000 people left the Catholic Church in Germany last year. With 20.9 million members, the Catholic Church in Germany has lost more than a tenth of its following – nearly 2.4 million people – in the last decade.

Vow of obedience

After the story became public, Fr Ullmann said his vow of obedience to his local archbishop, Cardinal Woelki of Cologne, precludes him from carrying out such blessing services in the future. But he promises that “this issue isn’t over yet”. His parish is working on new plans and “they know they can count on me pastorally and theologically”.

The campaign group #OutinChurch has accused Cardinal Woelki of operating a “church of fear”, breaking a promise he made in March not to sanction anyone for such blessing ceremonies. Cardinal Woelki is a leading opponent in Germany of liberal Catholics’ reform demands – including an end to celibacy, the ordination of women and blessing services for homosexuals.

Pope Francis has so far pushed back against German reform efforts and, in October, will open a gathering of world church representatives to discuss reform and renewal in a so-called “synod on synodality”.

In a statement, the archdiocese of Cologne said Cardinal Woelki was “aware of the deep desire of same-sex couples for a church blessing and has great understanding for their struggle”.

If the world synod changes its position on same-sex couples, a spokesman said, Cardinal Woelki “would of course follow suit”.

For Fr Ullmann, a trained historian, the row over his blessing service reveals less about him and much more about senior Catholic clergy.

“We have bishops and cardinals, many of whom with little or no pastoral experience and no grounding in people’s real concerns,” he said. “And the bureaucracy in Rome . . . is increasingly saying ‘it’s immaterial who the pope is under us because our system functions as it is’. They have a panicked fear of any kind of synodal understanding of Catholicism.”

Shockingly shoddy treatment from Bank of Ireland yesterday

Are we becoming slaves to modern technology, indeed are we being treated like slaves by the major corporations and banking institutions?

Yesterday Bank of Ireland’s 365Online and Mobile App went down sometime after 14.00. At 4pm Bank of Ireland customer support  promised the service would be back in operation within two hours. Not so.

Why did Bank of Ireland not inform customers via a text message of the outage?

Worried customers were left waiting 16 to 18 minutes for their calls to be answered. The ordinary business hour phone numbers were not available after business hours. Surely those numbers should have been open to deal with such an eventuality.

Customers could easily have thought their accounts had been hacked/scammed.

If customers did ask why they had not been informed via a text message they were advised to check the Bank of Ireland website. The note below appeared on the website. Would a customer have the presence of mind to check the website? Unlikely.

At midnight on Tuesday the system was still down.

Ongoing Issue: 365Online and Mobile App

We are aware that customers using our mobile app and 365Online are currently experiencing difficulties. We are working to fix this issue as quickly as possible and apologise for any inconvenience caused. We will update here once service is restored.