Silly and worrying aspects about GDPR

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

The acronym GDPR comes trippingly off all our tongues at this stage even if we don’t know the letters stand for General Data Protection Regulation. It’s a piece of law which regulates information privacy within the European Union, including Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

I well appreciate the importance of the legislation, which has now been in force across the EU since 2018. Indeed for many people it may not at all impede on their lives but over the last few years I have seen it being used as an excuse for all sorts of laziness, obfuscation and pure inefficiencies, lies too.

Sometimes I get the impression that it is a great tool at the service of those who don’t want you to know information that you are entitled to have.

I can recall being on a finance committee where a member asked for information on a person’s salary. 

They were told by the employer that because of GDPR they were unable to further that information. Of course it was nonsense and I knew at the time but, to my shame,  I said nothing.

I get the impression those four letters GDPR are a great way of frightening people. 

There are also silly aspects about it.

If you walk into a hospital and ask at reception if J Bloggs is a patient in the hospital you would be told that because of GDPR such information cannot be given. If you come back 15 minutes later and ask what ward or room J Bloggs is in you will be given the information. If he or she is not in the hospital you will simply be told that there is no one by that name a patient in the hospital.

Earlier this year I was in hospital, where I received excellent treatment. I spent one night in a double room, where I could hear every word that was said to the man in the other bed and that included every word his consultant said to him. And all that happened after I had received a sheet of paper about the importance of GDPR

This happens in all multi-bed hospital wards. 

I know a world-wide organisation in Ireland that does not print individual material on its members in its in-house annual publication. They claim that GDPR prevents the publication of such material. The same organisation in Germany prints the individual material of its members. No question of infringing on GDPR. 

And then there is the world of harvesting material on individuals. Isn’t that what gives the oxygen to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, now X, Instagram et al. At times it appears that there are people and organisations out there that know more about ourselves than we do.

The State knows so much about us and then when the individual wants the simplest and the most non-threatening information she or he is told that GDPR prevents the issuing of such material.

A fuzzy understanding of GDPR can lead to all sorts of misunderstanding and tempt people to go down the road of conspiracy theories. It can easily add fire to the current unstable world.

A chance that Poland may have a change of government

Maybe good news for Europe and democracy.

Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk said that three opposition parties had sufficient votes to win the general election on Sunday after an exit poll projected that they had enough combined support to oust Law and Justice, the governing conservative nationalist party.

The Ipsos exit poll suggested that the opposition together has likely won 248 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm. Law and Justice, according to the projection, obtained 200 seats, while the far-right Confederation got 12 seats. 

“I am the happiest man on earth,” Tusk said. “Democracy has won. Poland has won.”

But no official result until tomorrow.

Robert de Nero’s take on Donald Trump

Robert De Niro’s views on Donald Trump. This has appeared on  X - Twitter but this blog cannot guarantee its veracity.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying bad men.  I’ve examined their characteristics, their mannerisms, the utter banality of their cruelty. Yet there’s something different about Donald Trump. When I look at him, I don’t see a bad man. Truly. I see an evil one. 

Over the years, I’ve met gangsters here and there. This guy tries to be one, but he can’t quite pull it off. There’s such a thing as “honor among thieves.” Yes, even criminals usually have a sense of right and wrong.  Whether they do the right thing or not is a different story — but — they have a moral code, however warped.

Donald Trump does not. He’s a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics. No sense of right or wrong. No regard for anyone but himself — not the people he was supposed to lead and protect, not the people he does business with, not the people who follow him, blindly and loyally, not even the people who consider themselves his “friends.” He has contempt for all of them.

We New Yorkers got to know him over the years that he poisoned the atmosphere and littered our city with monuments to his ego.  We knew first hand that this was someone who should never be considered for leadership.  We tried to warn the world in 2016.

The repercussions of his turbulent presidency divided America and rattled New York City beyond imagination.  Remember how we were jolted by crisis in early 2020, as a virus swept the world. We lived with Donald Trump’s bombastic behavior every day on the national stage, and we suffered as we saw our neighbors piling up in body bags. 

The man who was supposed to protect this country put it in peril, because of his recklessness and impulsiveness. It was like an abusive father ruling the family by fear and violent behavior.  That was the consequence of New York’s warning getting ignored. Next time, we know it will be worse.

Make no mistake: the twice-impeached, 4-time indicted Donald Trump is still a fool. But we can’t let our fellow Americans write him off like one. Evil thrives in the shadow of dismissive mockery, which is why we must take the danger of Donald Trump very seriously.

So today we issue another warning. From this place where Abraham Lincoln spoke — right here in the beating heart of New York — to the rest of America: 

This is our last chance.

Democracy won’t survive the return of a wannabe dictator.

And it won’t overcome evil if we are divided.

So what do we do about it?  I know I’m preaching to the choir here.  What we’re doing today is valuable, but we have to take today into tomorrow – take it outside these walls.   We have to reach out to the half of our country who have ignored the hazards of Trump and, for whatever reason, support elevating him back into the White House.  They’re not stupid, and we must not condemn them for making a stupid choice.  Our future doesn’t just depend on us. It depends on them.

Let’s reach out to Trump’s followers with respect.  Let’s not talk about “democracy.”  “Democracy” may be our holy grail, but to others it is just a word, a concept, and in their embrace of Trump, they’ve already turned their backs on it.  Let’s talk about right and wrong.  Let’s talk about humanity.  Let’s talk about kindness.  Security for our world.  Safety for our families.  Decency.  Let’s welcome them back.  We won’t get them all, but we can get enough to end the nightmare of Trump, and fulfil the mission of this “Stop Trump Summit.”

Two wrongs don’t make a right

Below is Justine McCarthy’s column in The Irish Times yesterday. It makes for interesting reading and makes good sense surely?

During the slaughter at the Nahal Oz kibbutz last Saturday, terrified residents hiding from Hamas killers pleaded for help on their WhatsApp group. 

When their phones started pinging with messages in Hebrew telling them the attack was over and it was safe to come out, and they duly did, the gunmen were waiting outside to mow them down. It transpired the killers had used the phones of earlier Israeli victims to lure the people to their deaths.

Within 48 hours, on the other side of the border In Gaza, 260 children lay dead amid the rubble and smoke of Israel’s counter-attack.

Two wrongs do not make a right. What they make is a vortex of reprisals that erode the humanity of enemies. There is a saying attributed to a Japanese proverb that, when you are seeking revenge, you should dig two graves – one for yourself.

True friends would caution the aggressors in what we used to call the Holy Land that the way to a genocidal cul-de-sac is paved with retaliation. Two eyes for one eye; two teeth for one tooth. Instead, Joe Biden in Washington sent Israel a warship after Hamas unleashed its savagery on Saturday. 

While Israel’s prime minister was vowing to exact “mighty vengeance”, Rishi Sunak in London said: “There are no two sides to these events. There is no question of balance. I stand with Israel.” In Dublin, Leo Varadkar said the Irish Government supports Israel’s right to self-defence but that it should not be disproportionate.

What constitutes disproportionality? Is it acceptable for Binyamin Netanyahu’s government to massacre the same number of Gazans as the number of Israelis massacred by Hamas? Is mass murder tolerable but near-annihilation a step too far? 

How can anybody even calculate the rate of death when the rest of the world is unable to see up close and personal the horrors now being wreaked upon Gaza from the sky above it that Israel controls? Without electricity, Gazans cannot charge their phone batteries, thus ensuring the detail of what is happening in the tiny territory remains invisible.

As in every war, it is the people without the power to stop it who are being sacrificed. They are the fodder for the guns and rockets, the collateral damage tolerated by the so-called “international community”. 

Hamas exploits injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people to further its own agenda to destroy Israel. The Israeli state endangers its citizens by provocatively breaking international law while its purported friends in the international community look, determinedly, away.

Pursuit of justice

If there are wickedly-motivated people on all sides, there are good people too, such as Rabbis for Human Rights and Combatants for Peace. These people risking their own lives in pursuit of justice are being put at greater risk by the obdurate blind eye of Israel’s so-called friends. Some of their volunteers were interviewed by John McColgan of Riverdance fame for a film he made on behalf of Trócaire called This is Palestine. It is worth watching, if you are not one of the million people who have seen it already. It ought to be compulsory viewing for Britain’s prime minister to disabuse him of the fallacy that there is only one side. There are four sides, at least – two viciously warring enemies, the multitudes of innocents trapped between them, and an outside world more concerned with the tactics of geopolitical poker.

Among the 2.3 million people squashed into the 25-mile long Gaza Strip – a coastal ribbon less than half the size of Ireland’s smallest county, Louth – McColgan met the parents of three little children beheaded or left with their brains blown out by Israeli state forces who, post facto, claimed they were terrorists. He met a young boy who had been rendered speechless after witnessing his playmates on the beach being exterminated by Israeli gunboats. The boy had not uttered a word in the years since the atrocity.

Across the border in Israel, regular practice drills for rocket attacks and the wailing of sirens warning people to drop to the ground in self-preservation are part of normal life. Everyone suffers while the war mongers square up and their allies – be they in Washington or Tehran – inflame them ever more with disingenuous rhetoric.

If Sunak honestly thinks there is only one side, he is not fit to be in charge of any country. Orly Noy, the editor of Local Call, a Hebrew-language news magazine, wrote in the Guardian on Tuesday that, were she to ignore the context of the conflict she would be surrendering part of her humanity. “Because violence devoid of any context leads to only one possible response: revenge,” she said.

No parity of blame

Commentators implicitly blame Gazans for electing Hamas in the enclave’s last parliamentary elections in 2006, as if they have collaborated in their own victimisation. There is no parity of blame extended to Israeli voters who have elected one of the country’s farthest-right governments in its history. Nor should either electorate take the blame. Voters are susceptible to the apocalyptic fears fomented by their political leaders.

Of the four sides, the delinquency of the so-called friends is the most insidious. They have the power to intervene on behalf of the majority who did not start it and cannot stop it.

Instead of acknowledging the context, global powers and their media indulge in the politics of condemnation when the occasion suits them. Rightly, they deplored the barbaric mass killings and the kidnappings by Hamas last weekend, but their denunciations have been feeble since the UN declared Israeli settlements in the shrinking Palestinian territories to be illegal. And what are they doing now other than waving the Israel Defence Forces onwards to Gaza like ushers in a theatre to try to stop the indiscriminate air strikes on the general population? 

The Geneva Convention says people must not be punished for offences they have not personally committed.

By not acknowledging the context, Israel’s so-called friends are choosing to kindle revenge and light the fire of hatred in future generations yet to be born.

High tech scammers are making an awful lot of money

Approximately €1 million is stolen from Irish consumers every day by scammers.

About €115 million is lost due to scam text messages and €187 million to bogus calls.

According to Bank of Ireland 82 per cent of the Irish population are targeted by fraudsters at least once a month, with more than one in three contending with the menace weekly.

Dianne Feinstein was a traipblazer fro women in politics

Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died last week, was a trailblazer in US politics.

When she was appointed chair of the intelligence committee in 2009 she launched an investigation into the torture committed by the CIA between 2002 and 2008.

Between those years the CIA detained 119 men at ‘black sites’ - secret locations around the world - and of these, 39 had been subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and ‘rectal rehydration’.

In 2015, Feinstein worked with Republican Senator John McCain in steering through the Senate an amendment that reinforced a ban on torture.

She has left a fortune estimated at approximately $88 million. In 2018 she was ranked the second wealthiest senator.

Feinstein was born on June 22, 1933 and died on September 28, 2023.

There’s a great magic to urban walking

This week’s Irish Mediahuis regional newspapers’ column

Michael Commane

I can still remember sitting with my father one morning in our car, waiting for my mother to return from shopping. We were playing ‘I spy with my little eye’. Dad would see something, give me the first letter of it and my job was to guess the object he had seen. 

It was great fun. I must have been six or seven. While we were playing that game we also did some ‘people watching’ and Dad would comment on a random passer by. One man passed and Dad thought he was dressed exotically. It all seems like yesterday to me and let me tell you it was a long time ago.

I thought of all that as I was walking along the Liffey some days ago. I was travelling on the 09.00 Heuston Cork train and had arrived in Dublin City Centre far too early so I decided to walk from the Millennium Bridge to Heuston Station.

I had done it some weeks earlier and had been intrigued with the experience so I decided to give it another try. A warning; never underestimate or tut-tut the phenomenon of urban walking. Of course the hills and the open country are the best places to walk but there is another magic walking the streets of cities and towns.

I got off the 14 bus at the end of South Great George’s Street, walked through a quiet Temple Bar, across the Millennium Bridge and set sail along the northern quays. It was approximately 8.10am and the traffic was bumper-to-bumper all the way from the bridge to Heuston Bridge. 

Every shape and size of car, every car too with people of every shape and size, young old, some smiling and laughing, others looking tired, some looking terribly serious. 

I saw a number of women putting make up on. People using their phones. All of human life was there. They all had one thing in common, they were all travelling extremely slowly. 

At one stage a white van was stopped, the window was open and three young men were chatting away with one another. I was right beside them. I looked in at them and the words just came out of my mouth: ‘Lads, what’s it all about’. They heard me. For a microsecond there was silence and then all four of us laughed. The chap  furthest away from me laughed the most. Off they moved. No time to say another word. But it gave me a great laugh and I’d say it was a conversation piece for them all along the quays.

The Four Courts is always pleasing to the eye,  that is unless they are taking you court. I was surprised with the number of buildings in a state of disrepair and I’d imagine there are many empty rooms along those quays. Why not repair them and help solve the homeless problem? 

The fabulous Croppies’ Acre, now a public park, contains a memorial to the dead of the 1798 rebellion. It was designed and laid out in 1998.

And then to Heuston Bridge, called after John Heuston of 1916 fame. It so happens his brother, Michael was a Dominican priest, a wonderful and eccentric man, highly intelligent too, with whom I had the great privilege to live.

A slow 35-minute walk to Heuston Station, a charming building, a place I love. Great start to the day.

Far-right AfD make more gains in German state elections

There were elections yesterday in Germany in the states of Hesse and Bavaria.

Approximately 14 million people were eligible to vote.

The CDU in Hesse and its sister party, the CSU in Bavaria, will continue to be the the governing parties in the new parliaments.

Frankfurt-am-Main, which is the economic centre of Germany and where the EU Central Bank is, is in the state of Hesse.

Wiesbaden is the capital of Hesse and Munich the capital of Bavaria.

The three parties that make up the Federal Government in Berlin, the Social Democrats, Greens and Free Democrats, took a hammering.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in second in both elections.

A worrying trend in the economic powerhouse of Europe.

Much wiser, safer and better to be friends than enemies

Hundreds die and hostages are taken as Hamas assault shocks Israel. Netanyahu declares war as at least 250 Israelis are killed;  more than 300 Palestinians die in airstrikes launched.

And all the while war trundles on in Ukraine and indeed, in many other parts of the world.

On Wednesday a Limerick man was heard talking of the great animosity there had been between the two Limerick GAA club,s Kildimo and Pallaskenry. 

“We hated one another, then in 2015 we formed one club and now we are the best of friends,” he smiled

The world should listen.

It’ s always well worth listening to the other person

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

Professor Mona Siddiqui on the Thought for the Day slot on BBC Radio 4 recently said that whoever lacks kindness has no faith. She went on to say that “kindness is not a water downed piety but essential for living a life of hope and generosity.” Wise words. 

She is a professor of Islamic and interreligious studies and assistant principal religion and society at Edinburgh University. In 2011 she was awarded an OBE for her interfaith work.

Personally I ’m always nervous of those who emphasise doctrine and orthodoxy at the expense of kindness and charity.

So much of the shouting and roaring in our world right now is from people who believe it can only be black or white. If you are not on my side, then you are on the wrong side. On that point, Thomas Aquinas makes the point that the most important of all the virtues is prudence, though he is often misunderstood as being narrowly doctrinally focused.

Many years ago I read Max Frisch’s ‘Andorra’. It left a deep impression on me. It’s a play about cultural prejudice and what happens when we don’t have the ability of putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. 

It’s so easy to scapegoat other people, nations and societies, those who differ in any way.  And those ideas crossed my mind reading tomorrow’s Gospel (Matthew 21: 33 - 43) It’s the parable of the tenants killing the master’s servants and his son, who were sent out to collect his produce. 

Jesus quotes Psalm 118 to point out to his listeners that the kingdom of God will be taken from them and given to a people who will produce its fruit: “It was the stone rejected by the builders/that became the keystone./This was the Lord’s doing/and it is wonderful to see.”

Any organisation, church or state that is closed in on itself can’t in the long term survive. Any group of people who believes that the fullness of truth is owned by them alone  surely must end up in a cul-de-sac.

Whether we admit it or not, we are constantly learning from other people. Every day of our lives we learn something new and that in turn opens our minds to other new ideas, new understandings of other people and places. 

Isn’t that one of the wonders of travel, we see something of the customs and way of life of other people. Isn’t all learning an adventure?

When I read tomorrow’s Gospel I was thinking how every day we see protagonists denouncing each other for their particular standpoint and action. It seems as if we always have to have an enemy. There always has to be the bad guy, the scapegoat, the cause of all our troubles.

Tomorrow’s Gospel seems to me to be saying something very different. The Gospel is telling us that anyone who thinks that all right is on their side is missing reality by the proverbial country mile.

The day before writing this column I met a charming young woman, who happens to be ill. After just one hour in her company I realised I was talking to a wonderful human being. I left her room with a spring in my step. 

I know it is always dangerous to presume anything but that day I did presume that that woman most likely had not been inside a church in a long time. I’m fairly sure that she knows nothing about any of the Christian faiths. Does that mean that she is excluded from the presence of God? It would be absurd to say that she is.

The Second Vatican Council gave us all hope that we would learn to walk in one another’s shoes. Today unfortunately, such a spirit is not the flavour of the month. 

As the Council’s influence fades it is no coincidence there is a world out there where everyone is shouting at each other convinced that all right is exclusively on their side.

Let’s pray that the Synod in Rome will make us all sit up and realise the importance of listening to the other person and give us the grace to be more tolerant.

Street politics of the fringe must be subject to the law

Michael McDowell’s columnn The Irish Times this week.

Liberty to exercise the right of citizens to assemble peacefully and without arms is guaranteed by the State in Ireland subject to public order and morality.

However, Article 40.6 of the Constitution authorises laws to prevent or control meetings “which are determined in accordance with law to be calculated to cause a breach of the peace or to be a danger or nuisance to the general public” and “to prevent or control meetings in the vicinity of either Houses of the Oireachtas”.

Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights similarly provides for the right of peaceful assembly subject only to restriction prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society “in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of public health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

Oireachtas members enjoy constitutional immunity from arrest going to or coming from either House save for treason, felony or breach of the peace; it follows that as a matter of constitutional order it must be unlawful for any group to lay physical siege to the Houses of the Oireachtas – detaining members, officials, lawful visitors and witnesses, and staff, as was done recently.

The corollary is that the An Garda Síochána is legally bound to prevent the effective closure of ingress and egress from sittings at Leinster House. In constitutional terms, keeping the peace and preventing disorder obliges the gardaí to prevent such thuggish sieges from recurring.

It is a breach of the peace to use threatening behaviour to intimidate or interfere with legislators while exercising constitutional rights and performing duties in this way. And the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994 gives gardaí ample power to require anyone engaged in such behaviour to disperse – upon pain of arrest without warrant and criminal prosecution.

Nobody in the Oireachtas objects at all to small groups of orderly picketers or demonstrators protesting on a wide variety of issues immediately outside Leinster House or coming there for a photoshoot to highlight causes dear to their hearts.

This happens almost every day. They are no hindrance, and sometimes are helpful actors, in the democratic process.

Increasingly worrying are signs that some on left and right fringes want to stage threatening and confrontational street politics between activists as a polarising tactic in public discourse. Whether right-wing xenophobes or left-wing Antifa types, they want visible aggro and confrontation and to use it as a recruiting tool.

There is no constitutional right to foment public disorder and breach of the peace in furtherance of extremist views. Obviously, some protests cause inconvenience on occasion and the gardaí have to use discretion and not be unduly heavy-handed in response.

But, as Kathy Sheridan pointed out here last week, the shocking mistreatment of Joan Burton when Tánaiste in 2014 did not come from the far right. Far from it. Street politics is not a one-way street; there are gutters on either edge.

Nor is there an absolute right of assembly aimed at preventing others from assembling. The ECHR and the Irish Constitution do not support use of freedom of assembly to prevent others with whom one may profoundly disagree from exercising the same right.

Counter-demonstration is legitimate provided it is orderly, peaceful and not designed to intimidate, drown out by noise, or create a likelihood or major risk of disorder requiring massive policing. No one has the right to claim a monopoly of assembly rights or to deny others the right to demonstrate peaceably. Pro-choice people may not set out to prevent pro-life demonstrations. Transgender activists breach the rights of gender-critical protesters when they publicly deny their right to public or private assembly.

Alarmed

I was alarmed at the recent response by sports minister Catherine Martin on the Irish Amateur Boxing Association’s comments that it would investigate the use of the National Stadium by a Christian group opposed to the teaching of LGBTQ issues. She welcomed the IABA’s commitment to “keep a much closer eye on their leasing arrangements”.

The State, of which she is a minister, is bound to vindicate citizens’ rights of peaceable assembly. Grant-aiding sports or other arenas – or assembly halls and hotels – is no licence to subvert that right by indirect means.

The GAA were perfectly within their rights to permit recent Eid celebrations the use of Croke Park’s facilities. In doing so, they did not endorse Muslim teachings on gay rights, apostasy, blasphemy, or other issues with which many might differ strongly.

Boycotting or cancelling is no function of democratic government. If we go down the road of seeking to prevent Christian fundamentalists and traditionalists the right to meet indoors on the teaching of LGBTQ or trans issues in schools, we are on a slippery slope.

Those of us who are liberal, secular republicans must speak out courageously for all citizens’ rights, freedoms, and civil liberties – not just a favoured few.

Reading newspapers and talking about God

Interesting quote from Swiss theologian Karl Barth.

What would he say today?

“You preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

“Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”

Barth resigned from Bonn University for refusing to sign allegiance to Adolf Hitler.

Quirkiness of names at Irish Rail stations

Could it confuse the passenger not familiar with this part of mid-Kerry. Why does Irish Rail not replace the missing letters?

In another life it was Ráth Luirc, later An Ráth, then they changed it again to Ráth, which is what’s on the platform these days.

Thurles was Durlas Éile, they dropped the Éile and now it is simple Durlas/Thurles. 

Newbridge was Droichead Nua, now it is Newbridge and Droichead Nua.

All part of the fun travelling by rail in Ireland.

Irish Rail should be complimented for its/their new signage at stations. But maybe they should be even bigger and more of them on the platforms.

It’s always dangerous to look for scapegoats

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

There has been much talk about the behaviour of the 200 or so people who protested in a very intimidatory manner outside Dáil Éireann on Wednesday, September 20. I saw on X, formerly Twitter, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae being accosted by some of the so-called demonstrators. It was appalling behaviour.

It is difficult to say to what exactly they were objecting.

While most of these people can be classified as far right the phenomenon goes deeper than that. They see the world as a great conspiracy. They might even see themselves as zealots.

And it is a spectacle that is appearing all over the world. Donald Trump actually calls his conglomerate a ‘movement’.

 

When I was a post graduate student in Rome between 1976 and 1979 I became aware of a group of young clerical students who simply flabbergasted me. At the time I found myself calling them the ‘lunatic fringe’.  They were mainly from the United States.

Although most of them were not yet ordained priests, they wore long flowing clerical garb, wearing Roman collars that were so big they must have had trouble placing them around their necks. To me back then they appeared extremely weird.

 

These people were so off the scale that a few of us gave them nicknames. I still remember one young man, who dressed in some sort of blue garb, we called him the ‘Blue Streak’.

 

I returned to Ireland in 1979 and forgot about it all.

Twenty, thirty years laters I was reminded of them again when I began to notice something out of joint among young clerical students across Europe and in the United States.

 

Every generation brings its own qualities to the table but this new generation of clerical students seemed to me to be zealot-like in their behaviour. Someone commented to me that they thought they were merciless. There was an air of superiority about them. 

They gave the impression they were the persecuted and had right on their side. Reality is far more nuanced than that, indeed messy and complicated too.

They felt that the church must return to the more certain and doctrinaire style that was fashionable in the 1950s. They felt that the ’70s generation had failed the church.

John Strickland is bishop in Tyler, Texas. He has a large social media following. Strickland was not well pleased about the roll out of the Covid vaccines. 

Rumour has it that the Holy See is not too happy with him and is thinking of removing him. His followers have started a campaign to keep him. I have been shocked with the tone of many of his supporters. There are hints, an undercurrent of violence in their words. It is threatening, certainly insulting and rude to Pope Francis.

Those who acted in such an appalling way on Kildare Street on September 20 feel persecuted and are looking for scapegoats. They feel insecure and threatened. They believe the so-called elite are the cause of all their woes, for them the elite have become their scapegoats.

It’s always dangerous to look for scapegoats.

Memories of other hostilities between Russia and Ukraine

 On this day, October 2, 1920 Mikhail Frunze, the People’s Commissar for Military  and Naval Affairs of the Soviet Union, ordered the Red Army immediately to cease hostilities with the Revolutionary insurgent Army of Ukraine.

Maybe a chance to win a few bob?

What about putting a fiver on Moss Tucker in the 4.25 in Longchamp this afternoon.

A graphic that might remind one of the Berlin memorial

The Irish Times yesterday carried a supplement, which was a special report on Corporate Finance.

There is no caption with the major graphic on the leading page.

Anyone who has been at the Berlin memorial to the Holocaust will immediately be reminded of the memorial maze.

Is such a graphic on the page somewhat insensitive?

Maybe it was the intention.

 

Uber tries to bully European proposals

Uber has warned that EU proposals to designate gig workers as de facto employees will force its ride-hailing service to shut down in hundreds of cities in bloc and raise prices by as much as 40 per cent.

Maybe it should shut down. It is absurd that Uber treats its workers as self employed.

Worth noting

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

- Oscar Wilde

Statue of Cardinal Franz Hengsbach comes tumbling down

A statue of late German Cardinal Franz Hengsbach has been removed from outside the cathedral in Essen after allegations of sexual abuse against him surfaced 

A memorial for victims of sexual abuse will be created to take the place of the statue, which was erected in 2011.

The controversy around the statue began when the German dioceses of Essen and Paderborn announced that they had started investigations into at least three sexual abuse allegations brought against Hengsbach.

Two allegations date back to the 1950s and 1960s. The first case alleges that Hengsbach abused a 16-year-old girl in 1954 while he was still an auxiliary bishop in Paderborn. The second case dates back to 1967 when he allegedly assaulted another woman during his time in Essen when he was already a bishop. 

The latest allegations were made by a third victim in October 2022.

Hengsbach founded the Diocese of Essen in 1958, where he was bishop until his death in 1991 at the age 80.

From the late 1970s there were strong objections to Hengsbach and the manner in which he ran his diocese. Many younger German Dominicans spoke out strongly and bravely against the man and accused him of behaving as a tyrant. He imposed an atmosphere of terror and fear among his priests and across the diocese.

Yesterday the bishop of Limburg and chairman of the  German Bishops’ Conference, Georg Bätzing stressed that everything must be put of the table and no longer one word of cover up must be tolerated.