On an RTE 1 programme this evening circa 23.00:
".... from it's own ashes."
Monday, December 9, 2013
Prophetic and universal words from Erich Kästner
In 1931 Erich Kästner in his novel 'Fabian The Story of a Moralist' wrote:
"I can assure you that with the exception of priests and teachers, people are greatly concerned about their situation".
"I can assure you that with the exception of priests and teachers, people are greatly concerned about their situation".
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Goodbye to Lenin in Kiev
In the freezing temperature of Kiev this evening a statue of Lenin was toppled.
That name 'Ogle'
There is a strap line over the heading of the lead story on the front page of today's Sunday Independent. It reads: "The good, the bad and the Ogle".
Brendan Ogle is the secretary of the ESB group of unions. In another life, as a locomotive driver with Irish Rail, he closed down the railway.
The main headline runs: " Economic chaos and misery if ESB strikes".
It's clever but will it help in calming the atmosphere in the run-up to the planned strike due to begin on December 16?
But it's not the job of newspapers to 'calm things'. Surely the newspaper tells the story, passes on the message.
Of course the play on 'Ogle' is clever. Do newspapers have 'agendas'? What's the overriding purpose of a newspaper, to tell the story, make a profit for its shareholders? To sell papers?
Brendan Ogle is the secretary of the ESB group of unions. In another life, as a locomotive driver with Irish Rail, he closed down the railway.
The main headline runs: " Economic chaos and misery if ESB strikes".
It's clever but will it help in calming the atmosphere in the run-up to the planned strike due to begin on December 16?
But it's not the job of newspapers to 'calm things'. Surely the newspaper tells the story, passes on the message.
Of course the play on 'Ogle' is clever. Do newspapers have 'agendas'? What's the overriding purpose of a newspaper, to tell the story, make a profit for its shareholders? To sell papers?
Saturday, December 7, 2013
The mothers and fathers who were/are the war generation
Below is today's 'Irish Times' Thinking Anew column.
Michael Commane
Last Sunday RTE screened the last of a three-part series called ‘Generation War’. It was shown earlier in the year on German television where it was called ‘Our Mothers, Our Fathers’.
It is the gripping tale of five young people living in Berlin in 1941.
They get caught up in Hitler’s war. Two brothers are soldiers who see duty on the eastern front, one a nurse who works in a field hospital in the east. Viktor is a Berlin Jew and then there is the glamorous singer, Greta, who sings for the troops.
Anyone who has watched this mini- series will be appalled by what war does to ordinary decent people. The suffering, the violence, the brutality of war is really incomprehensible for those of us who have never had to go to war.
In tomorrow’s Gospel (Matthew 3: 1 – 12) we read how John the Baptist was offering baptism to people so that they would have a change of heart. In other words he was suggesting to people to turn away from their evil ways and live good lives. But he does tell his followers that while he baptises for a change of heart, the person who comes after him is far more powerful than he and will offer his followers the living gift of the Holy Spirit.
Baptism is always linked to a change of heart. If it is to have any meaning for us we have to see it as a gift from God that turns us away from all that is wrong and directs us towards the goodness of God.
‘Generation War’ describes in graphic detail the evil of what was World War II.
And that war came about as a result of economic ruin, selfish nationalism and political opportunism. The Nazis managed to convince the German people that Jews, homosexuals, Romas, Russians, almost everyone except the Germans were best dealt with in the gas chambers of the concentration camps. That war took the lives of 50 million people and left millions more maimed and broken.
The European Union was the brainchild of dedicated and far-seeing European statesmen. The primary vision of the Union was to ensure that another war could never again happen on European soil.
The European Union, with all its failings, is a political attempt at keeping the people of Europe living in peace and harmony, all the time respecting the different cultures and traditions.
Today the European Union is part of our lives. But like any institution the EU has failings. It needs constant policing.
If there is a democratic deficit in its running then the people of Europe need to counteract that and make sure that faceless bureaucrats and opportunistic politicians are never allowed control the reins.
In these economic harsh times there is a worrying trend towards a narrow type of nationalism, which tries to make out that one nation, one people is better or worse than another. The growth of totalitarian ideologies across Europe, in politics and church is a worrying trend.
Surely at the core of Christianity is the belief that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, and that we respect and cherish others. An ideology based on the notion that one people, one group is the ‘best’ ends in terrible suffering.
In tomorrow's Gospel John the Baptist asks his followers to turn away from their sins and to repent. ‘Generation War’ reminds the viewer about the savage deaths of 50 million people. Closed nationalism, all forms of fascist ideologies always end in the story of ‘Generation War’. We need the sense and the grace to keep alive the change of heart that is required to avoid the evils of war.
War does not work. People flourish under God's protection in a peaceful, open and tolerant society.
The repentance John the Baptism preaches is not a static event, rather a life-long process that enables us to keep turning to God, and then living out His reality with our fellow sisters and brothers irrespective of their creed, colour, class, nationality.
War may appear ‘easier’ than diplomacy but peace building, seeing God in the other person, is the Christian vocation.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Thursday, December 5, 2013
What attracted Nelson Mandela pleased his soul
In an interview conducted by CNN the late Nelson Mandela said:
"I don't regret anything because what attracted me pleased my soul.
"I don't regret anything because what attracted me pleased my soul.
Inspiring men, who seem kind, visit Irish Dominicans
As reported on Tuesday on this blog the Master of the Dominican Order, Bruno Cadoré is visitng Dominicans in Ireland. Isn't it a horrible sounding title, Master of the Order?
But Bruno, who is French, seems to be an inspiring man.
When you meet him you get the feeling that he is genuinely interested in you and that he is kind. An intelligent man too.
No humbug, no cant, no pious clichés, something real about him.
Irish Dominicans also get the chance to speak with his assistant, Dominic Izzo, who also impresses. Dominic is a member of the New York Province of the Order.
Hope for the Irish Dominicans?
But Bruno, who is French, seems to be an inspiring man.
When you meet him you get the feeling that he is genuinely interested in you and that he is kind. An intelligent man too.
No humbug, no cant, no pious clichés, something real about him.
Irish Dominicans also get the chance to speak with his assistant, Dominic Izzo, who also impresses. Dominic is a member of the New York Province of the Order.
Hope for the Irish Dominicans?
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
German parliamentarians have chauffeur driven cars
Every member of the German parliament has 24-hour access to a chauffeur-driven car. The service is available within Berlin.
But trouble for the parliamentarians is looming as the company which supplies the fleet is heading for insolvency.
But trouble for the parliamentarians is looming as the company which supplies the fleet is heading for insolvency.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Head of Dominican Order makes official visit to Ireland
Bruno Cadoré Master General of the Dominican Order begins today an official visit of the Irish Dominican province. All 170 members living in Ireland will get an opportunity to speak with him.
He flies into Dublin this afternoon and will give an address to the Dominicans in Tallaght this evening.
He is accompanied on his visit by Dominic Izzo, an American Dominican, who lives in Rome. Dominic is a member of the General Council of the Order and a brother of the New York province.
He flies into Dublin this afternoon and will give an address to the Dominicans in Tallaght this evening.
He is accompanied on his visit by Dominic Izzo, an American Dominican, who lives in Rome. Dominic is a member of the General Council of the Order and a brother of the New York province.
Sex and the single priest
The article below appears in 'The New York Times' on Sunday, December 1.
A lovely piece of writing. Sad too.
AMONG the teaching nuns at St Matthew’s Catholic School, Sister Mary Robert was my favourite. She was young, not yet 30, with a gentle face framed by the starched white wimple.
She tamed a classroom of hormone-dizzy eighth graders by making us want to please her. We offered up our compositions and our ventures in iambic pentameter, and were rewarded with encouragement that, at least in my case, never wore off.
Not many years after I left St Matthew’s, I left the church. Leaving your church is not so much like quitting a club as emigrating from the country where you grew up.
You forfeit citizenship and no longer consider yourself subject to its laws, but you follow the news from the Old Country and wish its people well, because they are still in some sense your people. And if you write for a living you may sometimes write about that world, from a distance.
Last year, 50 years after eighth-grade graduation, Sister Mary Robert saw something I wrote on this subject and sent me a letter. Only she was no longer Sister Mary Robert. She had met a priest, Father John Hydar.
They fell in love and, after extricating themselves from their respective religious vows, they married. At the time of her letter the marriage of Roberta (her reclaimed birth name) and John Hydar was in its 41st year, and it seemed to be a happy one.
If I’m an émigré from the country of Catholicism, the Hydars would be best described as dissidents who stayed. They ended up in one of the many small communities of disaffected Catholics where women are ordained, same-sex marriages are blessed, and members of the clergy are not required to endure the loneliness of celibacy. Eventually John began ministering to these Catholics on the margins. As one of four married priests at St. Anthony’s Community in Santa Barbara, Calif., he baptized children and presided over weddings and funerals. Sometimes he was invited to fill in at short-handed mainstream Catholic parishes, with a wink from the archdiocese.
In the view of the official church they were outliers, if not outcasts, but in their own view they were the real Catholics, waiting for Rome to wise up. “My husband and I may not live to see the fruits of our labors,” Roberta wrote to me, “but in the meantime we find new ways to be Catholic, believing that the Spirit is on the move and there is no stopping Her by the institutional church.” That “Her” made me smile.
Enter the new pope, Francis, who has heartened many progressive Catholics and infuriated many Catholic conservatives by suggesting that Jesus did not intend to establish a legion of scolds. The pope’s efforts to promote a more tolerant tone and to reorient the church’s priorities from inquisition to compassion are mostly words.
I do not mean that as a slight. The kindness of his language, his empathy for the least among us, and the humility of his example are undeniably refreshing. Still, at some point Francis will, and should, be judged by the substance of his leadership. What should we look for?
Much of the social agenda that church reformers like the Hydars advocate — full ordination of women, full equality for gays, an end to the widely ignored prohibition on birth control — is so entangled in past papal proclamations and historical precedents that I doubt Francis will take the issues on.
An apostolic exhortation the pope released last week was a heartfelt appeal for inclusiveness — but on the Vatican’s familiar terms.
There is one issue, however, where the internal politics, while difficult, are less difficult, where the case for reform is pressing, and where there are hints that Francis may be inclined to change. That is priestly celibacy.
The arguments for lifting the requirement that priests forswear sex and marriage are not new, but they have become more urgent. Mandatory celibacy has driven away many good priests and prospects at a time when parishes in Europe and the United States are closing for lack of clergy.
It deprives priests of experience that would make them more competent to counsel the families they minister. Celibacy — by breeding a culture of sexual exceptionalism and denial — surely played some role in the church’s shameful record of pedophilia and cover-up.
“Lots of people don’t see [celibacy] as some extraordinary act of witness,” said Thomas Groome, who heads the department of religious education and pastoral ministry at Boston College. “They see it as just a peculiar lifestyle, and one not to be trusted.” Groome was a priest for 17 years but left to be a husband and father.
“The loneliness of it, I think, can drive people crazy,” he told me. “I’ve known hundreds of priests in my life,” from student days in an Irish seminary through the priesthood and decades as a theologian. “I don’t know too many diocesan priests, maybe three or four, who have lived a rich, life-giving, celibate lifestyle.”
The requirement that priests be celibate is not a doctrine but a cultural and historical aberration. The first apostles had wives. Catholic clergy were free to marry for the first millennium, until a series of church councils in the 12th century changed the rules, motivated in part by financial disputes. (Priests were trying to pass on church property to their children; the crude remedy was to deny them children.)
There are, in fact, many married priests in the Catholic Church, priests who were ordained in the Eastern traditions of Catholicism as well as Anglicans and other married priests whose families were grandfathered in when they converted to the Church of Rome. In parts of Latin America and Africa, priests marry or have common law wives and the church looks the other way. Francis knows this well.
As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the future pope befriended a radical and famously noncelibate bishop, Jeronimo Podesta, ministered to him on his deathbed, and remained close for years thereafter to Podesta’s widow, who recalls that they often discussed the issue of celibacy.
Francis’s intentions have been a subject of intense speculation in church circles since September, when Archbishop Pietro Parolin, a Francis confidant and second in command at the Vatican, told an interviewer that celibacy “is not a church dogma and it can be discussed because it is a church tradition.” Parolin qualified his remarks (“We cannot simply say that it is part of the past”), but his declaration that the subject “can be discussed” guaranteed that it would be.
ONE place it has been much discussed is among the married priests in the dissident parish where John and Roberta Hydar found sanctuary. John told me that if celibacy had been optional back in the ’60s, “most of us would have remained in active ministry” (although “most of us would also have gotten in hot water” over other disagreements with Vatican policy).
He admitted taking a little sinful pleasure in the discomfort Francis has caused among Catholic hard-liners: “Well, the shoe is on the other foot now.” And he said he can even imagine that Francis, given 10 or 15 years of good health, might change the church sufficiently — not to win back lost causes like me, but to make Catholics like my old teacher and her husband feel at home there again.
John Hydar will be watching, with keen hope, but without his wife. Roberta Hydar died of cancer on October 18 at the age of 79.
A lovely piece of writing. Sad too.
AMONG the teaching nuns at St Matthew’s Catholic School, Sister Mary Robert was my favourite. She was young, not yet 30, with a gentle face framed by the starched white wimple.
She tamed a classroom of hormone-dizzy eighth graders by making us want to please her. We offered up our compositions and our ventures in iambic pentameter, and were rewarded with encouragement that, at least in my case, never wore off.
Not many years after I left St Matthew’s, I left the church. Leaving your church is not so much like quitting a club as emigrating from the country where you grew up.
You forfeit citizenship and no longer consider yourself subject to its laws, but you follow the news from the Old Country and wish its people well, because they are still in some sense your people. And if you write for a living you may sometimes write about that world, from a distance.
Last year, 50 years after eighth-grade graduation, Sister Mary Robert saw something I wrote on this subject and sent me a letter. Only she was no longer Sister Mary Robert. She had met a priest, Father John Hydar.
They fell in love and, after extricating themselves from their respective religious vows, they married. At the time of her letter the marriage of Roberta (her reclaimed birth name) and John Hydar was in its 41st year, and it seemed to be a happy one.
If I’m an émigré from the country of Catholicism, the Hydars would be best described as dissidents who stayed. They ended up in one of the many small communities of disaffected Catholics where women are ordained, same-sex marriages are blessed, and members of the clergy are not required to endure the loneliness of celibacy. Eventually John began ministering to these Catholics on the margins. As one of four married priests at St. Anthony’s Community in Santa Barbara, Calif., he baptized children and presided over weddings and funerals. Sometimes he was invited to fill in at short-handed mainstream Catholic parishes, with a wink from the archdiocese.
In the view of the official church they were outliers, if not outcasts, but in their own view they were the real Catholics, waiting for Rome to wise up. “My husband and I may not live to see the fruits of our labors,” Roberta wrote to me, “but in the meantime we find new ways to be Catholic, believing that the Spirit is on the move and there is no stopping Her by the institutional church.” That “Her” made me smile.
Enter the new pope, Francis, who has heartened many progressive Catholics and infuriated many Catholic conservatives by suggesting that Jesus did not intend to establish a legion of scolds. The pope’s efforts to promote a more tolerant tone and to reorient the church’s priorities from inquisition to compassion are mostly words.
I do not mean that as a slight. The kindness of his language, his empathy for the least among us, and the humility of his example are undeniably refreshing. Still, at some point Francis will, and should, be judged by the substance of his leadership. What should we look for?
Much of the social agenda that church reformers like the Hydars advocate — full ordination of women, full equality for gays, an end to the widely ignored prohibition on birth control — is so entangled in past papal proclamations and historical precedents that I doubt Francis will take the issues on.
An apostolic exhortation the pope released last week was a heartfelt appeal for inclusiveness — but on the Vatican’s familiar terms.
There is one issue, however, where the internal politics, while difficult, are less difficult, where the case for reform is pressing, and where there are hints that Francis may be inclined to change. That is priestly celibacy.
The arguments for lifting the requirement that priests forswear sex and marriage are not new, but they have become more urgent. Mandatory celibacy has driven away many good priests and prospects at a time when parishes in Europe and the United States are closing for lack of clergy.
It deprives priests of experience that would make them more competent to counsel the families they minister. Celibacy — by breeding a culture of sexual exceptionalism and denial — surely played some role in the church’s shameful record of pedophilia and cover-up.
“Lots of people don’t see [celibacy] as some extraordinary act of witness,” said Thomas Groome, who heads the department of religious education and pastoral ministry at Boston College. “They see it as just a peculiar lifestyle, and one not to be trusted.” Groome was a priest for 17 years but left to be a husband and father.
“The loneliness of it, I think, can drive people crazy,” he told me. “I’ve known hundreds of priests in my life,” from student days in an Irish seminary through the priesthood and decades as a theologian. “I don’t know too many diocesan priests, maybe three or four, who have lived a rich, life-giving, celibate lifestyle.”
The requirement that priests be celibate is not a doctrine but a cultural and historical aberration. The first apostles had wives. Catholic clergy were free to marry for the first millennium, until a series of church councils in the 12th century changed the rules, motivated in part by financial disputes. (Priests were trying to pass on church property to their children; the crude remedy was to deny them children.)
There are, in fact, many married priests in the Catholic Church, priests who were ordained in the Eastern traditions of Catholicism as well as Anglicans and other married priests whose families were grandfathered in when they converted to the Church of Rome. In parts of Latin America and Africa, priests marry or have common law wives and the church looks the other way. Francis knows this well.
As archbishop of Buenos Aires, the future pope befriended a radical and famously noncelibate bishop, Jeronimo Podesta, ministered to him on his deathbed, and remained close for years thereafter to Podesta’s widow, who recalls that they often discussed the issue of celibacy.
Francis’s intentions have been a subject of intense speculation in church circles since September, when Archbishop Pietro Parolin, a Francis confidant and second in command at the Vatican, told an interviewer that celibacy “is not a church dogma and it can be discussed because it is a church tradition.” Parolin qualified his remarks (“We cannot simply say that it is part of the past”), but his declaration that the subject “can be discussed” guaranteed that it would be.
ONE place it has been much discussed is among the married priests in the dissident parish where John and Roberta Hydar found sanctuary. John told me that if celibacy had been optional back in the ’60s, “most of us would have remained in active ministry” (although “most of us would also have gotten in hot water” over other disagreements with Vatican policy).
He admitted taking a little sinful pleasure in the discomfort Francis has caused among Catholic hard-liners: “Well, the shoe is on the other foot now.” And he said he can even imagine that Francis, given 10 or 15 years of good health, might change the church sufficiently — not to win back lost causes like me, but to make Catholics like my old teacher and her husband feel at home there again.
John Hydar will be watching, with keen hope, but without his wife. Roberta Hydar died of cancer on October 18 at the age of 79.
Monday, December 2, 2013
National Roads Authority chases vehicle to the Vatican
The National Roads Authority has seized a number of vehicles for non-payment of tolls.
The authority said it had pursued evaders to 16 countries including the Vatican.
The authority said it had pursued evaders to 16 countries including the Vatican.
How wrong our 'hunches' are
Irish people are seriously deluded on a range of public policy issues.
The Ipsos MRBI/Irish Times 'Perceptions Research' poll has produced startling findings.
Sixty two per cent think the unemployed get most from the social welfare budget. Not true. Pensioners get the biggest cut.
Although only 12 per cent of the population is made up of foreign nationals, more than one in three believe that the foreign national community represents over 30 per cent of the population.
Ireland ranks seventh on the UN Human Development Index, which measures 186 countries' performance under headings such as health, wealth, hapines and education.
The average guess was that we rank 35th on the UN HDI.
The Ipsos MRBI/Irish Times 'Perceptions Research' poll has produced startling findings.
Sixty two per cent think the unemployed get most from the social welfare budget. Not true. Pensioners get the biggest cut.
Although only 12 per cent of the population is made up of foreign nationals, more than one in three believe that the foreign national community represents over 30 per cent of the population.
Ireland ranks seventh on the UN Human Development Index, which measures 186 countries' performance under headings such as health, wealth, hapines and education.
The average guess was that we rank 35th on the UN HDI.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Street demonstrations take place across Ukraine
German television has shown this evening disturbing scenes from Ukraine where tens of thousands of people are demonstrating throughout the country in opposition to the president.
On Friday the Ukraine president refused to sign an agreement of co-operation with the European Union.
There was no mention on BBC Radio news about the demonstrations in Ukraine. Germany always has an eye on its eastern neighbours.
Today 70 years ago the document below was published.
On Friday the Ukraine president refused to sign an agreement of co-operation with the European Union.
There was no mention on BBC Radio news about the demonstrations in Ukraine. Germany always has an eye on its eastern neighbours.
Today 70 years ago the document below was published.
The Tehran Declaration (December 1, 1943)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Declaration of the Three Powers:
We, The President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and the Premier of the Soviet Union, have met these four days past, in this, the Capital of our ally, Iran, and have shaped and confirmed our common policy.
We express our determination that our nations shall work together in war and in the peace that will follow.
As to war—our military staffs have joined in our round-table discussions, and we have concerted our plans for the destruction of the German forces. We have reached complete agreement as to the scope and timing of the operations to be undertaken from the east, west, and south.
The common understanding which we have here reached guarantees that victory will be ours.
And as to peace—we are sure that our concord will win an enduring peace. We recognise fully the supreme responsibility resting upon us and all the United Nations to make a peace which will command the good will of the overwhelming mass of the peoples of the world and banish the scourge and terror of war for many generations.
With our diplomatic advisers we have surveyed the problems of the future. We shall seek the cooperation and active participation of all nations, large and small, whose peoples in heart and mind are dedicated, as are our own peoples, to the elimination of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance. We will welcome them, as they may choose to come, into a world family of democratic nations.
No power on earth can prevent our destroying the German armies by land, their U-boats by sea, and their war plants from the air.
Our attack will be relentless and increasing.
Emerging from these cordial conferences we look with confidence to the day when all peoples of the world may live free lives, untouched by tyranny, and according to their varying desires and their own consciences.
We came here with hope and determination. We leave here, friends in fact, in spirit, and in purpose.
Signed: ROOSEVELT, CHURCHILL, AND STALIN.
Signed at Tehran, December l, 1943
.
.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Pope Francis prefers a church bruised and dirty
"I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security."
That's Pope Francis talking.
It's clear there are many regligious congregations where that sort of talk is not welcome or accepted.
And then the picture of him in today's Irish Times, wearing his 'Dominican attire' and showing off his trousers. Gosh, how that would not be accepted by the laces and candles brigade.
That man would have little chance of preferment in certain religious congreagations today. He'd be kept well away from the commissions, commissioners and the entire panoply of the ruling classes. And he'd certainly be seen as a bad influence on the younger members.
If he is successful what at all will the 'ruling classes' do?
Does Pope Francis know that the verb is 'to tweet' and the noun is 'twitter' Then again does he know the difference between the verb 'to practise' and the noun 'practice'?
On the other hand, the Vatican questionnaire confuses the verb and the noun. And it's a pity the questionnaire for Ireland and the UK did not use English spelling, instead of the US spelling it uses.
Would he seek advice from people who would subserviently agree with him or would he call in people who might tell him he is talking nonsense?
It's the little things that give them away. It always is in life.
That's Pope Francis talking.
It's clear there are many regligious congregations where that sort of talk is not welcome or accepted.
And then the picture of him in today's Irish Times, wearing his 'Dominican attire' and showing off his trousers. Gosh, how that would not be accepted by the laces and candles brigade.
That man would have little chance of preferment in certain religious congreagations today. He'd be kept well away from the commissions, commissioners and the entire panoply of the ruling classes. And he'd certainly be seen as a bad influence on the younger members.
If he is successful what at all will the 'ruling classes' do?
Does Pope Francis know that the verb is 'to tweet' and the noun is 'twitter' Then again does he know the difference between the verb 'to practise' and the noun 'practice'?
On the other hand, the Vatican questionnaire confuses the verb and the noun. And it's a pity the questionnaire for Ireland and the UK did not use English spelling, instead of the US spelling it uses.
Would he seek advice from people who would subserviently agree with him or would he call in people who might tell him he is talking nonsense?
It's the little things that give them away. It always is in life.
Friday, November 29, 2013
The EU, psychiatry, the State through the eyes of 'Alive'
The December issue of 'Alive' offers its readers another dose of nasty inaccurate nonsense.
One headline runs 'EU watching you'. It is about EU regulations on wastage of water. Elsewhere we read that the EU buys journalists.
In another piece there is a wallop at psychiatry. Then the Minister for Education and The Irish Times are denigrated. Having attacked many agencies of State the free sheet then asks readers to avail of the Government-run scheme, which allows contributors to a charity to claim back tax for the named charity. How can a free sheet newspaper be classified as a charity?
Surely it would be far better for one's health to be watched over by the EU than the editorship of 'Alive'.
RTE viewers, who are watching 'Generation War' on Sunday evenings, will clearly see how beneficial the European Union has been to all its member states.
One headline runs 'EU watching you'. It is about EU regulations on wastage of water. Elsewhere we read that the EU buys journalists.
In another piece there is a wallop at psychiatry. Then the Minister for Education and The Irish Times are denigrated. Having attacked many agencies of State the free sheet then asks readers to avail of the Government-run scheme, which allows contributors to a charity to claim back tax for the named charity. How can a free sheet newspaper be classified as a charity?
Surely it would be far better for one's health to be watched over by the EU than the editorship of 'Alive'.
RTE viewers, who are watching 'Generation War' on Sunday evenings, will clearly see how beneficial the European Union has been to all its member states.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Catholic pin-up names
The pin-up names for the institutional Catholic Church in Ireland include Breda O'Brien, John Waters, Lucinda Creighton, Ronán Mullen.
What is it about the Catholic Church that always seems to make it come down on the side of the right wing and reactionary forces?
Has it something to do with an absence of any sort of original thinking? Is it that the church finds comfort in carrying out a conversation with those with whom it feels it agrees?
Maybe the Irish Church is many steps behind Pope Francis. It would appear to be so.
What is it about the Catholic Church that always seems to make it come down on the side of the right wing and reactionary forces?
Has it something to do with an absence of any sort of original thinking? Is it that the church finds comfort in carrying out a conversation with those with whom it feels it agrees?
Maybe the Irish Church is many steps behind Pope Francis. It would appear to be so.
Sunday is World Aids Day
Sunday December 1 is World Aids Day.
RTE's Sean O'Rourke interviewed a man with the HIV virus today. He spoke openly and honestly.
It was in stark contrast to the secrecy and obfuscation that surrounds everything to do with sexual orientation within the Catholic priesthood.
Good or bad?
RTE's Sean O'Rourke interviewed a man with the HIV virus today. He spoke openly and honestly.
It was in stark contrast to the secrecy and obfuscation that surrounds everything to do with sexual orientation within the Catholic priesthood.
Good or bad?
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
SPD members will now vote on last night's agreement
It's now up to the 470,000 members of the SPD to say ay or nay to the agreement reached last night between the CDU/CSU and the SPD to form a new government in Germany.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Bishop compares Irish institutional church to Jesus
Below is a quote from a sermon preached at the ordination of a priest in Ireland.
"To be Catholic in the 21st century Ireland is a very different proposition than in the 20thcentury. So much change within and without the Church has changed our context for believing. No longer can we presume the support and sharing of faith – on the contrary in many quarters hostility is the order of the day. But then that is not new – many pages of the Gospels speak of the challenges and rejection of Jesus’ own words and deeds."
But surely much of the 'hostility' is due to the hurt that the institutional church caused to people. It did this principally through its control and power.
It spent great sums of money, much energy and expertise covering up and not telling the truth.
Is the bishop trying to compare the institutional church in Ireland to the courage and life of Jesus?
Monday, November 25, 2013
Catholic Church and State conspire in terrible injustice
UK and Irish media outlets have given much coverage to the news in the last few days of three women who had been kept as slaves 'without handcuffs' in London's Brixton for over 30 years.
And once there is no public coverage of the story, neither the State nor church will say a word. On the other hand, if it did/does make the newspapers, 'leaders' in the institutional church would/will immediately run to their lawyers and pay them large sums of money for the service,
Shocking. Gospel values?
But it's even worse than that. There are priests talking cliched nonsense about the role the Catholic person 'the lay faithful, God love us, should play in political life in Ireland.
If it all were not so sad and unjust it would be laughable. But it's important still to laugh at the nonsense that is being spoken. And all said in such pious tones.
It is now emerging that there are aspects of a commune and a cult surrounding the horrific story.
The Irish State and the Catholic Church conspired with one another to strip young Irish men of their civil rights, who entered seminaries. The State and church did this until 1989.
Up until 1989 if a priest, it may well have appplied to religious sisters and brothers too, was employed and paid tax and social insurance, his social insurance contributions were not reckonable for purposes of pension.
Until 1989 priests paid Class K social insurance. The State considered priests as self-employed.
At the same time the Association of Secondary School Teachers, ASTI, prohibited priests from joining their trade union as they considered them part of management. A wonderful Irish joke.
And to add to the wrong-doing, many religious orders 'suggested' to their men who were teaching in schools not to pay the occupational pension.
This terrible injustice to the person means that men, who dcided to leave priesthood, say in their 40s or 50s most likely found/find themselves without a contributory old-age pension in their retirement.
This is a simple and clear injustice to the person.
What does the State say about this? What does the insitutional church say about this?
The State will wash its hands and the church will write a document on its mission policy to the marginalised.
And once there is no public coverage of the story, neither the State nor church will say a word. On the other hand, if it did/does make the newspapers, 'leaders' in the institutional church would/will immediately run to their lawyers and pay them large sums of money for the service,
Shocking. Gospel values?
But it's even worse than that. There are priests talking cliched nonsense about the role the Catholic person 'the lay faithful, God love us, should play in political life in Ireland.
If it all were not so sad and unjust it would be laughable. But it's important still to laugh at the nonsense that is being spoken. And all said in such pious tones.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Looking on while the jeering and mocking takes place
Did you ever feel people were jeering at you, sneering at you, laughing at you to your face, or worse, behind your back?
That sense of being jeeered at and ridiculed must be one of the great feelings dismpowerment. That impression that people are mocking you. Loneliness, that sense of not being part of the group.
And what compounds it is when others stand by and allow it to happen.
Exatcly what today's Gospel is about.
That sense of being jeeered at and ridiculed must be one of the great feelings dismpowerment. That impression that people are mocking you. Loneliness, that sense of not being part of the group.
And what compounds it is when others stand by and allow it to happen.
Exatcly what today's Gospel is about.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Michael Harding reviews D'Arcy and Flannery books
"There is a notion in modern philosophy that nothing is absolutely true; things are true as far as they go, but it is in negotiating our way through the day that we become human. Catholic theology has no truck with such relativism. Catholic theology is mostly a medieval construct; it deals with 'absolute truth' as that which is substantial, immutable and eternally true."
That's a quotation from Michael Harding's review of Brian D'Arcy's 'Food for the Soul'. The review appears in today's Irish Times, Weekend Review.
The review also considers Tony Falnnaery's 'A Question of Conscience'.
Harding finishes with this: "And yet in a strange way D'Arcy is also a subversive figure. Because his obedience, quietude and folksy gentility accentuate the fascist rot at the heart of the institution that would seek to crush him, and Tony Flannery, and all the other loolas of the world who commit the error of thinking for themselves."
That's a quotation from Michael Harding's review of Brian D'Arcy's 'Food for the Soul'. The review appears in today's Irish Times, Weekend Review.
The review also considers Tony Falnnaery's 'A Question of Conscience'.
Harding finishes with this: "And yet in a strange way D'Arcy is also a subversive figure. Because his obedience, quietude and folksy gentility accentuate the fascist rot at the heart of the institution that would seek to crush him, and Tony Flannery, and all the other loolas of the world who commit the error of thinking for themselves."
Friday, November 22, 2013
Events of November 22
Three things.
On this date, November 22, 1909 my mother was born.
I'm writing this in the same room that I heard of the death of JFK 50 years ago today.
Today I fixed a bicycle puncture.
On this date, November 22, 1909 my mother was born.
I'm writing this in the same room that I heard of the death of JFK 50 years ago today.
Today I fixed a bicycle puncture.
Who misses Pat Kenny on his morning RTE show?
Radio presenter Pat Kenny has left RTE and in his morning slot he has been replaced by Sean O'Rourke.
Who misses Pat Kenny? Has RTE Radio lost any listenership? Unlikely. Indeed, it would seem that O'Rourke is a better interviewer. The listener now hears more about the interviewee than the interviewer.
It's so often said that people are not indispensable yet it is a 'sin' we all commit.
Something that happens especially with positions of authority and especially so in church organisations. Once someone is in a job a general air is created that they cannot be replaced. In most instances we end up with incompetent people and simply afraid to change them.
Who misses Pat Kenny? Has RTE Radio lost any listenership? Unlikely. Indeed, it would seem that O'Rourke is a better interviewer. The listener now hears more about the interviewee than the interviewer.
It's so often said that people are not indispensable yet it is a 'sin' we all commit.
Something that happens especially with positions of authority and especially so in church organisations. Once someone is in a job a general air is created that they cannot be replaced. In most instances we end up with incompetent people and simply afraid to change them.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
A conversation at pedestrian lights on a street in Dublin
The pedestrain lights were red against traffic. I was stopped on my bicycle. A man was crossing and then stared at me as if to say don't you dare go through that red light.
We locked eyes. He kept staring me.
"You think I am going to go through the red light," I asked.
He replied: "Nobody keeps these lights and I was watching you."
"I'm cycling 59 years and really find it impossible to keep traffic lights," I answered with a half-hearted smile.
He now began to smile too.
I went on to say I was addicted to running lights but added that if I could give up alcohol then I could keep the lights and I told him I was off alcohol four to five years.
"I have not had a drink in 35 years and I'm 75 now," he smiled.
A cyclist and a pedestrian in conversation at a pedestrian crossing in Dublin's Camden Street yesterday.
We locked eyes. He kept staring me.
"You think I am going to go through the red light," I asked.
He replied: "Nobody keeps these lights and I was watching you."
"I'm cycling 59 years and really find it impossible to keep traffic lights," I answered with a half-hearted smile.
He now began to smile too.
I went on to say I was addicted to running lights but added that if I could give up alcohol then I could keep the lights and I told him I was off alcohol four to five years.
"I have not had a drink in 35 years and I'm 75 now," he smiled.
A cyclist and a pedestrian in conversation at a pedestrian crossing in Dublin's Camden Street yesterday.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Paul Flowers the banker and the minister of religion
Paul Flowers. The banker and minister of religion.
Paul Flowers surely is a metaphor for that mix of religion, spoof, money and deviant sexual behaviour.
The tighter the hands are clasped, the more genuflections that are made, the more holy sounding words that are issued, then ususally one knows it is terrible spoof.
It's the 'behind the back/scene stuff', the 'cute hoor' syndrome that makes it all so nauseating. That 'holier than thou' attitude. And not to forget the holy sounding voice with the fake intonations.
It is that cocktail of deviant sex, spoof religion and a crazy conservatism that is most worrying.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
More people have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet
The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.
Michael Commane
A friend of mine had new blinds fitted to the windows of her house in the last few weeks. They look good. She may well have nicked the idea from me as I have similar ones in my house.
She told me that the man who fitted them was a nice chap and the price for the job was reasonable. But he told her that some days earlier he had fixed a blind for an elderly lady.
When the job was done he told her it cost €250. The woman went for her purse to pay the money and just then the man told her that he had been joking and that the job would only cost €50.00. Joke or no joke, it was not a nice thing to do but it did set me thinking how vulnerable we all are, especially older people.
In the last few days I heard about a man, who was on the verge of giving all his banking details to a fraudster who telephoned him. He was about to give the last digit of his PIN when he suddenly felt uncomfortable and hung up. Electronic banking works but always be careful and never give your PIN to anyone. Be smart.
We are forever and always susceptible to all kinds of fraud and theft. Modern technology has changed the landscape of scams and fiddles. It’s no longer a question of making sure that just your wallet is well hidden and the doors and windows are all secured and locked.
Every day there is a story about electronic fraud. The big story last week was how 1.5 million people had personal details compromised. The number might turn out to be much higher.
Okay, I’m no longer the youngest kid on the block but I think I can still manage electronic commerce. These days most of us pay our bills electronically and do much of our business on the internet. I have to admit that I still prefer to study a facility bill on hard copy.
How at all are older people coping with what is taking place in the electronic world?
I’m thinking of a friend of mine who can’t read. What happens to him when he will no longer be able to go to the Post Office to collect his pension?
November is the traditional month when we remember the dead.
My father died in 2004. He was 95. Up to 93 he was as sharp as a razor yet he never used a mobile phone nor did he manage to get his head around the euro currency.
I remember on one occasion, on my advice, he had his pension paid electronically into his account. He changed it back to the old system within weeks. He wanted to be able to go to the Post Office and collect his own pension.
Maybe it is that I am simply reaching an age where change is not as easy as it was when I was younger. But I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Right now change seems to jump at some sort of exponential speed that has never happened before.
Are we taking enough care to protect people who are not so computer literate?
Did you know that more people in the world have access to a mobile telephone than to a toilet?
I’m just reminded. I better check my IBAN and BIC numbers.
In the meantime wouldn’t it be a good idea if our primary schools taught children how to type. Then again, come another few years maybe keyboards will be a thing of the past.
Who knows?
Monday, November 18, 2013
Bishop pays up and criminal proceedings are dropped
Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst has paid his €20,000, which means there will be no further proceedings against him for his lying with reference to his first class Lufthansa ticket to India.
It's worth noting that this man was appointed bishop in Limburg to 'clean up' the diocese and restore 'orthodoxy'.
Tebartz-van Elst and all the chicanery surrounding the bishop is the perfect metaphor for so much of what is laughable and so wrong in the Catholic Church at present.
Can Pope Francis change things?
It's worth noting that this man was appointed bishop in Limburg to 'clean up' the diocese and restore 'orthodoxy'.
Tebartz-van Elst and all the chicanery surrounding the bishop is the perfect metaphor for so much of what is laughable and so wrong in the Catholic Church at present.
Can Pope Francis change things?
Freedom of Information Act and religious congregations
The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has been criticised for placing fees on Freedom of Information Act applications.
One would imagine that the Christian churches would be in support of people who make requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
Indeed, church leaders may even speak in public supporting an open and transparent FoI environment.
The reality is that there are religious congregations, that refuse to make available to their members their personal files.
In so doing they are breaking Irish State law. And not a whisper from anyone or anywhere. such behaviour is far removed from anything to do with Gospel values or indeed 'truth'.
One would imagine that the Christian churches would be in support of people who make requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
Indeed, church leaders may even speak in public supporting an open and transparent FoI environment.
The reality is that there are religious congregations, that refuse to make available to their members their personal files.
In so doing they are breaking Irish State law. And not a whisper from anyone or anywhere. such behaviour is far removed from anything to do with Gospel values or indeed 'truth'.
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