Haughey’s part in Ireland’s literary success

Justine McCarthy in her column in The Irish Times on Friday wrote about Charles Haughey’s part in Ireland’s literary success.

She quotes George Bernard Shaw:

“You use a glass mirror to see your face. You use works of art to see your soul."

The world salutes Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza

Alexei Navalny was jailed for a further 19 years on Friday. A brave man.

The free world salutes him and Vladimir Kura -Murza.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/04/russian-court-extends-alexei-navalny-sentence-in-penal-colony?CMP=share_btn_link

Taking cover at the cinema

More rain today.

One big winner for July’s rain were the cinemas.

Cinema spending grew 136 per cent in July, which was the wettest July on record. And that surely must be a difficult record to break.

Far-right hide behind hodgepodge of populism

Colm Tóibín’s historical novel The Magician is an about the life of German writer Thomas Mann. It is a masterclass in writing and more anon.

Close to the end of the book Mann’s wife Katia says about her son Klaus, who is also a writer, a drug addict and a homosexual:

"Nobody needs a German who cannot stop telling the truth."

Something about the sentence that reminds me about the Ireland of today looking at the Ireland of yesterday.

Talking about Germany. I first arrived at Cologne rail station in 1972, a mere 27 years since the unconditional surrender at Karlshorst.

In the years that followed, certainly up to the fall of the Berlin Wall Germany was ashamed to mention its immediate past. It would have been anathema to see or hear about a far-right student movement. There may have been tiny neo Nazis but they were more a force of derision than anything else.

And how it has all changed. The far-right AfD are most likely to be in state parliaments next year. They prance about as if they own Germany. But it is not only in Germany. Across Europe the monster is showing its head again.

The AfD is growing from strength to strength. It’s clever, scratch the surface and the hatred is not too far away.

The name of the party was a hodgepodge for whatever you are having yourself, populist to the core; The Nationalist Socialist German Worker’s Party.

And then there is Donal Trump.

Enough.

The archbishop, the minister, the pp and the book

 On Monday evening RTÉ One Television screened a programme on Noel Browne and his work as minister for health. His nemeses were the Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid and the medical profession.

Yesterday The Valley of the Squinting Windows by Brinsley MacNamara featured on the Oliver Callan Show on RTÉ Radio One.

Because of the book MacNamara lost his job as a teacher, sacked by the parish priest and never received a pension.

The footage of the behaviour of those around the archbishop leaves no one in doubt about the times that were in it. Embarrassing.

It’s never ending. It’s not enough to bow our heads in shame.

And what about all those who allowed it happen?

A Ukrainian writer talks about her home place

The late Victoria Amelina talking about home and how Russia looks on Ukraine. Not to be missed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/audio/2023/jul/31/victoria-amelina-ukraine-and-the-meaning-of-home-podcast?CMP=share_btn_link

Making the wrong call at Heuston Station

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

It was Friday morning and I was at the ticket machine at the Luas stop at Heuston Station in Dublin. 

I suppose I spent a minute or two looking at the fare structure and the route the Red Line takes when our eyes met. She was a young woman sitting down on the seat beside the machine. She was poorly dressed and I did notice that her teeth were in bad condition. 

She stood up, came over to me and asked me would I give her some money. I forget how much she asked for, maybe it was her fare into town. She went on to tell me that she was pregnant. She was wearing a shabby white T-shirt and yes, it was evident that she was expecting a baby. 

I told her the truth that I had no change on me. Maybe I should have checked my wallet so as to give her a note. But I didn’t do that. 

When I told her I had no change she immediately accepted what I said and went back to her seat and sat down. 

I was half way between the Luas stop and the entrance to Heuston Station when I went back to her and apologised for not giving her anything and told her how impressed I had been with her graciousness. 

I went on my way and travelled on the 9am Cork service, en route to West Kerry.

The following evening, back again at the Luas stop at Heuston Station, this time waiting for a city-bound Luas, a man, probably in his 30s, early 40s started begging and asking the large crowd waiting for the Luas if they could spare a ‘few bob’. 

He said he was homeless and rhetorically asked us what we would do if we were homeless. It was raining, a miserable evening, which complemented his mood of sadness and maybe even rejection. I won’t say he was threatening but my immediate reaction was not to get involved with him in anyway whatsoever. I think he was using a walking stick. 

From what I could see nobody was giving him any money. Indeed, whatever way he behaved, he created a strange eerie silence among those waiting for the Luas. Then almost without notice he seemed to disappear into the ether. 

He was gone. The tram arrived and the large crowd boarded.

After the savage attack on US tourist, Stephen Termini and the publicity it garnered there is a heightened awareness of crime in our cities.

 

Any time I’m at that Luas stop at Heuston I’m constantly watching my back and make sure to engage with no one whom I would consider to be in anyway dangerous.

 

I’m disappointed with myself that I did not give the pregnant woman a note that I had in my wallet. I could easily have done it and yet I didn’t. On the other hand I have no regrets for not giving anything to the man who was begging on Saturday evening.

I don’t think it was a question of woman versus man, no not at all. There was a gentleness about the woman, whereas the man seemed to be angry, maybe even combative. Isn’t it strange how we read people. I know it’s a cliche but don’t we often advise people not to judge a book by the cover. We all do it, even with books.

It must be hell on earth to have to beg on the street. 

What must it be like for a pregnant woman? I’m fairly sure I made the wrong call on Friday morning.

Remembering the Buttevant rail crash of August 1, 1980

On this day, August 1, 1980 a major rail accident happened at Buttevant rail station in Co Cork.

The Dublin Cork express, travelling at approximately 60 mph was derailed at the station as a result of facing points directing the train into a siding. The points had been disconnected from the signal.

Eighteen people were killed and 70 more injured.

The locomotive driver of the ill-fated train  was Dublin man Bartholomew Walsh, who at the last minute read the situation and tried to stop the train but that was not possible because of the speed he was travelling.

At the time many media outlets attributed blame to low paid workers. The subsequent report exonerated the low paid workers. The crash happened as a result of a number of errors made at management level. 

The train was made up of a mix of old timber and alloy-framed coaches with out of date coupling systems.

That crash and the subsequent one at Cherryville Junction made the State take action and begin a project to update the rail system.

At the public inquiry loco driver Bartholomew Walsh gave an excellent report of what had happened and how he reacted. The driver did everything according to the book.

Buttevant Station closed in 1977. It first opened to passenger traffic in 1849.

The locomotive on the ill-fated 10.00 express Heuston Cork service was 075, which may still be in service on non-passenger work with Irish Rail.

The All-Island Strategic Rail Review

The All-Island Strategic Rail Review published last week offers great hope to the life of railways in Ireland. The Review, as the name implies, covers the whole island of Ireland.

It’s interesting how so many of the railway lines that were closed in the first 50 years of the State are now to be rebuilt. Only less than 30 years ago there was the real possibility of closing the Killarney Tralee line.

It tells a story of the shortsightedness of earlier administrations.

Why is there no mention of building a rail spur from Farranfore to Kerry Airport? It would be simple, cheap and easy to do, involving the building of a railway line less than two kilometres in length.

All material associated with the SEA consultation process can be accessed via the Department of Transport’s website here and the Department of Infrastructure’s website here.

The growth of Germany’s AfD with all its contradictions

The far-right AfD party in Germany held a conference in Magdeburg on Friday and Saturday to elect candidates for the European parliamentary elections next year.

The party currently polls at 22 per cent behind the opposition CDU party.

One of their best known MPs is Alice Weidel.

The AfD stresses that it supports traditional German values. It is opposed to the current German regulations on allowing refugees and asylum seekers enter the country.

Ms Weidel is in a civil union with a woman from Sri Lanka.

Another prominent member of the party is Björn Höcke whose views are close to the National Democratic Party of Germany.

In September 2019, a German court ruled that describing Höcke as fascist was not libellous. However, a later court ruling in 2020 ruled against the FDP politician Sebastian Czaja for stating that the court ruling had classified Höcke as a fascist.

Höcke has called for more "Prussian virtues" and promotes natalist views, specifically the "three-child family as a political and social model.”

He opposes gender mainstreaming and demands an end of what he calls "social experiments" that undermine what he deems the "natural gender order.”

In 2017, Höcke stated "dear young African men: for you there is no future and no home in Germany and in Europe!”

What is happening across the world is frightening.

Colm Tóibín’s novel The Magician captures in gripping detail how Thomas Mann experienced the rise of Hitler in his German homeland.

The novel, while talking about past events, constantly hints of what might well be happening in Europe and the US today.

 

Kylian Mbappe offered €300 million by Saudis

French international footballer Kylian Mbappe is said to have been offered €300 million to join Saudi Arabian side Al Hilal.

In tribute to Sinead O’Connor and two historical moments

In tribute to Sinéad O'Connor.

https://youtu.be/T6zqb3gf5aA

https://youtu.be/FS5JE3OG07A

-----------------------------------------

With no reference to the above. It’s worth noting these two historical events. Order 227 was cruel but for it would the German Army have been defeated at Stalingrad?

On this day in 1942 Soviet leaderJoseph Stalin issued Order Number 227.

In response to alarming German advances, all those who retreated or otherwise left their positions without orders to do so were to be tried in a military court, with punishment ranging from duty in ashtrafbatbattalion, imprisonment in a Gulag, or execution.

On this day in 2005 the IRA called an end to its 31-year long armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland.

Sinéad O’Connor RIP

Sinéad O’Connor dies at 56.

A woman ahead of her time, who had been tormented all her life.

She was gifted, provocative and outspoken.

The Dublin singer spoke out against authorities she believed to be unjust and corrupt.

It obviously cost her her life.

A lesson for life?

She was fragile and fearful.

In praise of BBC journalist George Alagiah RIP

BBC journalist and news presenter George Alagiah died yesterday.

Many fine words have been spoken and written about George’s life.

The link below is to a podcast called How to Fail. It makes for great listening.

https://howtofail.podbean.com/e/how-to-fail-george-alagiah/

As the world burns we take to the skies in reckless abandon

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

Michael Commane

On the same day that US climate envoy John Kerry met his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in Beijing to discuss the climate crisis, Irish media reported on a national strategic railway plan that is due to come before the cabinet later this month.

The report recommends a railway link between Ballina and Rosslare and the return of trains to Donegal.

Former shortsighted decisions by Irish governments saw the closure of what were then uneconomic railway lines, including services in Dublin, Kerry, Cork and Clare. The closure of the Harcourt Street to Bray line can only be described as vandalism. The then chairman of Córas Iompair Éireann, Todd Andrews is reported to have said that only ‘Protestant solicitors from Carrickmines’ used the train.

As the world begins to burn, governments have at last realised that rail travel makes great environmental sense.

On the day John Kerry was in Beijing, a region in western China recorded a temperature of 52.2C.

We simply can’t continue as we are. I find it bizarre to hear experts on the media advising Irish holidaymakers how to survive in the sweltering heat in many of the countries experiencing temperatures in the 40s and even 50 degrees Celsius. 

The world is on fire and I’m wondering are we really facing up to what is happening. Planes are renowned for being fuel guzzlers. Aer Lingus proudly advertises that it has four daily flights to New York. Our airports are bulging at the seams. People are flying here, there and everywhere. Only last month I heard of someone who plans to fly once a month to Rome. I can’t get my head around the current travel craze. 

Why would you want to go on holidays to somewhere where you have to avoid going outdoors. It sounds beyond absurd. We see and hear of tourists taking extreme measures to avoid the heat. And this is called a holiday? But besides the evident craziness of such behaviour, what about our carbon footprint? 

One minute we’re all talk about the importance of recycling but when it comes to buying aviation fossil fuel we do so with reckless abandon. Honestly, I’m confused and don’t really understand what’s happening. Did you know that aviation fuel used for international travel is liable to VAT at zero per cent? Can anyone explain why that is so?

Does it make sense that there are occasions when it is cheaper to fly from Dublin to Kerry than travel by rail?

  

Should air travel be more expensive? An unpopular question to ask but we need to be made aware of the extremely perilous times in which we are living. The world is on fire and we have to help stop the impending disaster. 

Over the years I’ve done my fair share of travel, indeed, only in April I went for a long weekend to Germany. Was it necessary? No. I’m not saying I am never going to fly again but when it comes to our current flying frenzy I have to admit I’m bewildered.

It seems we develop some sort of brain fog once we get the tiniest whiff of aviation fuel.

Vision of divided USA looks all too plausible

This piece by are Lara Marlowe in the Weekend edition of The Irish Times is most interesting.

This paragraph is eye catching. It appears int he second half of the piece:

But what if internal disaggregation was the greatest threat of all, as predicted by Kennedy? In earlier books, he wrote about the US Bible Belt and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. He is fascinated by the way religious fundamentalism pulls societies apart. Fundamentalism often goes hand in hand with populist nationalism. In Kennedy’s novel, the extreme right has also come to power in France, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the former Warsaw Pact countries.

It is August 8th, 2045, exactly 100 years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fundamentalist Christian United Confederacy marks the centenary by burning at the stake Maxime Lefkowitz, a transgender Jewish comedian from New York. Lefkowitz is an informer for the Bureau, the intelligence agency of the rival New Republic. She has offended the fundamentalist regime by making crude jokes about Jesus Christ in her comedy routine. Their agents abduct her in the neutral zone of Minneapolis, take her across the border into the Confederacy and try to execute her.

In the dystopian vision of the Irish-American author Douglas Kennedy, the US has split into the Confederacy, corresponding to present-day red, republican states and governed by 12 self-proclaimed apostles, and an ostensibly progressive, secular but totalitarian Republic corresponding to today’s blue, Democratic states. The book’s English-language title will be Flyover.

Published this year in France under the title This is How We Shall Live, Kennedy’s novel reads like an updated version of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Unlike Orwell’s central character, Winston Smith, intelligence agent Samantha Stengel supports the totalitarian regime that employs her. The intelligence agencies of the former United States are engaged in a savage war of kidnapping and assassination.

Divorce, abortion and gender-affirmation surgery are banned in the United Confederacy. The president of the secessionist New Republic, Morgan Chadwick, is an Elon Musk-like tech executive and inventor of the Chadwick chip, which all citizens must have implanted behind their ear.

Surveillance

In the Republic, The System uses Chadwick chips and facial recognition to track every movement and conversation. The System dispatches driverless taxis, automatically opens apartment doors, even monitors cholesterol and stress levels and knows when to send citizens to a womb-like DeStress box. Outdoor temperatures and prices are of course high. Ambitious people avoid emotional attachment by using the Tonight Only app for sex. As Leonard Cohen sang, “I have seen the future, it is murder”.

Kennedy wanted his novel to be plausible. “A world without freedom and under surveillance; I don’t think that’s far off,” he says. “A cop once told me, ‘If you have a smartphone, you are under surveillance already. We know everything. Unless you happen to be in North Korea, we are going to find you, probably within 10 seconds. When we arrest somebody, the first thing we do is take the phone, because it’s all there. This is not being paranoid. This is just true’.”

We seem to feel an inescapable compulsion to imagine our future. Haunted by the Cuban missile crisis, my generation half expected to perish in a nuclear Holocaust, a prospect renewed by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The American futurist philosopher Buckminster Fuller predicted in the 1960s that man would invent a device to connect everything, making it unnecessary for people to work from an office.

In the 1990s, two Harvard academics offered contrasting visions of the future. Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 book said the triumph of liberal democracy spelled The End of History. Four years later, Samuel Huntington foresaw The Clash of Civilisations, a confrontation between Christianity and Islam. That fear was seemingly confirmed on 9/11 and has receded somewhat with the invasion of Ukraine.

Fundamentalism

But what if internal disaggregation was the greatest threat of all, as predicted by Kennedy? In earlier books, he wrote about the US Bible Belt and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. He is fascinated by the way religious fundamentalism pulls societies apart. Fundamentalism often goes hand in hand with populist nationalism. In Kennedy’s novel, the extreme right has also come to power in France, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the former Warsaw Pact countries.

The scenario is disturbingly credible when one recalls Donald Trump’s presidency and the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol. The conservative-dominated supreme court has overturned the right to abortion and reversed affirmative action. In Russia, the Duma assembly just banned gender change operations, because fundamentalist Orthodox Christians view the LGBTQ+ community as an existential threat.

Kennedy has known his greatest success in France, where his novels have sold eight million copies. Flyover, with its cover showing a torn US flag, is selling like popcorn. He bridles at the suggestion that the French enjoy a little schadenfreude at the thought of American misfortune. “That’s rubbish,” Kennedy says. “France is a much more nuanced country than that. There’s an American attitude that the French hate us. The relationship is very complex. I think there’s a sense of ‘If it’s happening in America, will it happen here too?’”

Kennedy recommends Rick Perlstein’s 2008 book Nixonland, which recounts how Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election by appealing to white middle-class voters who were shaken by race riots, the Vietnam war, and the sexual revolution. Nixon told them they were the real United States, the silent majority, dominated by elitist Democrats from the east and west coasts. “There was a subtext of racism, homophobia and misogyny behind it,” Kennedy says. “The fragmentation started more than 50 years ago.”

The world and its mother turning to rail transport

Derek Scally in the Weekend edition of The Irish Times has an interesting article on the reintroduction of sleeper trains across Europe. And in that same paper there is a news report on Germany planning to invest €47 billion on the overhaul of Germany’s state railway company, Deutsche Bahn.

There has been a major improvement on railways in Ireland over the last 25 years but we are still lagging far behind European rail networks.

Why have freight/cargo trains disappeared off Iarnród Éireann tracks over the last 25 years? At Mallow station the entire freight yard has been decommissioned. Similar decommissioning has occurred across the network.

Why has there not been a rail spur built from the main Dublin Belfast line to Dublin Airport?

A rail link to Kerry Airport at Farranfore would have meant the building of a short two kilometre spur from the Tralee Mallow line. When the Mallow Tralee line was upgraded would it not have made sense to have upgraded the track to allow for faster speeds? 

Such a high speed rail link to Kerry Airport would have attracted passengers from Cork, Kerry, even parts of Limerick and Clare.

Remembering two Irish Dominican brothers

Yesterday was the fourth anniversary of the death of Flannan Hynes. He died in Montevideo in 2019.

Flannan held many positions in the Dominican Order, including eight years as provincial of the Irish province.

He was disciplined, one might even call him an ascetic person.

We all praise those we like and admire and of course we are all biased.

Flannan was a kind and considerate person. He was provincial when I made my solemn vows and ordained a priest. It was Flannan, who gave me my first two assignations, to San Clemente in Rome and St Mary’s Pope’s Quay in Cork.

His younger brother Paul, also a Dominican, predeceased him by many years.

In 1972 Paul told young Dominicans that they should celebrate baptisms, weddings and funerals in a proper, dignified, sensible and prayerful manner because is would be the only time that they will be inside a church.

A man ahed of his time.

Austria is a 'veritable aircraft carrier' of illegal Russian spies.

Spying is not illegal in Austria, providing those spying are not  causing any disadvantage to Austria.

If, for example, Russia were spying on Germany in Austria, the authorities could do nothing about it.

Vienna is a perfect hub for spying. One diplomat said Austria is the Wild West when it comes to spying.

Remember of the Austrian parliament, Stephanie Krisper said: "If you are a Russian intelligence officer and want to run a source in Germany, why would you run the risk of meeting him there? You invite this guy on a skiing holiday in Austria. Or to a ball in Vienna... you can basically recruit sources and exfiltrate information completely unmolested.”

Austria is a 'veritable aircraft carrier' of illegal Russian spies.

The Austrian capital is likely hosting an outsize Russian signals intelligence operation, a fact barely disguised at street level to a casual passer-by.

Russian war makes millions for German arms industry

German arms group Rheinmetall’s shares have jumped more than 150 per cent since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has calculated that the value of the shares of the chief executive of Rheinmetall, Armin Papperger had risen by €30 million since the start of the war. Papperger was paid €5 million in salary last year.

The Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall makes the cannon for the Leopard 2, and Munich-based KMW makes the chassis.

The Leopard 2 fires rounds at supersonic speeds. 

The price tag on the tank is between  €13 and €15 million.

A Russian artillery strike on a Ukrainian vehicle column during a daytime assault on or near the town of Novopokrovka—60 kilometres south east of Zaporizhzhia city in southern Ukraine knocked out at least one Leopard 2 tank in June.

And then think of the loss of human life on both sides, people maimed for life. It is unthinkable, barbaric too.

Lutz Seiler wins Georg Büchner prize

German writer Lutz Seiler

was awarded the Georg Büchner prize yesterday. It is Germany’s most prestigious literature award.

Lutz Seiler is best known for his novels Kruso and Starr 111. Both novels were influenced by his early life growing up in Gera in the German Democratic Republic.

He originally qualified as a carpenter and began to take an interest in literature while completing his military service with the National People’s Army of the GDR.

After his military service he studied language, literature  and history. 

His first publications were poetry collections, including the debut "Berührt-Geführt" (Touched-Guided), as well as the acclaimed "Pech & Blende" (Pitch and Blend), "Vierzig Kilometer Nacht" (Forty Kilometer Night), and "Schrift für Blinde Riesen" (Writing for Blind Giants).

In 2007, he was the recipient of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for the short story collection "Turksib" but it was the novel Kruso that propelled him to wider fame.

The story was inspired by Seiler's own life working as a seasonal employee on the island of Hiddensee, off the northeastern coast of Germany, which became a refuge for free thinkers and disillusioned East Germans wishing to escape across the sea to Denmark.

Kruso (a reference to Robinson Crusoe) documents the community of 'shipwrecked people' on Hiddensee during the final months of the German Democratic Republic. 

RTÉ has become our scapegoat

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

Michael Commane

RTÉ has been all over the news for a month. I’m beginning to think our national broadcaster has become a scapegoat. Throw all the blame on them and we can easily forget about other agencies that are in shambolic condition.

I often wonder what’s going on inside the management of so many organisations.

Over many years I’ve had experiences with State and church groups, which have made me wonder who are the people in charge. I often find myself saying I would not leave them in charge of a chicken run. Indeed, a chicken run would require good and proper management.

Some weeks ago I wrote in this column about the new Transport for Ireland, TFI Live app. 

I had problems with navigating around it and how it published timetables. I emailed the National Transport Authority with my enquiry on May 25. That same day I received an email reply not answering my specific questions. I emailed again on June 18. Guess what happened? They replied telling me that they had dealt with my issues in the email of May 25. 

On another occasion I received a generic email informing me that I would receive a reply within 15 working days. I can’t recall receiving a reply. I phoned them and spoke with a pleasant and competent-sounding person. I explained my story and I could hear from her voice she knew exactly my predicament. She assured me she would inform the relevant department of my complaint. So far I have received nothing from the NTA. 

And I am still completely confused about what Transport for Ireland and the National Transport Authority do. Why should the National Transport Authority be responsible for the Transport for Ireland app? Is there anyone out there who is able to distinguish what is the different remit of both agencies? Should State agencies really be as obtuse as this? 

Now to my second unwholesome experience. Anyone who has been Garda vetted for their work, be it paid or voluntary, will be aware of the tedious process of having to list all the addresses they have lived in since birth. 

The system is not fit for purpose. 

I have to be Garda vetted for at least four agencies/organisations. My Garda vetting comes up every few years and every time I have to give all my addresses from birth. 

On this occasion, listing all my addresses, in error, I omitted the postal code of an address in Northern Ireland. My application was refused because of the missing postal code. 

Guess what, they have asked me to list all my addresses again, from the day I was born, which works out at 15. They would not accept a simple addition of the missing postal code. 

How much must all this pen pushing/keyboard stroking and bureaucracy cost the State? And on it trundles and we seem to accept it all sitting down. 

Someone needs to cry stop. And the sooner the better. This is our tax money, that is being wasted on the silliest of bureaucracy. 

What about the politicians who appoint so many people to State boards? How competent are these people? 

Soviets yield power in Yekaterinburg and Potsdam

Two important historical events that took place on July 17.

On this date in 1918 the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his immediate family at their home in Yekaterinburg.

And another July 17, this time in 1945 Stalin, Truman and Churchill met in Cecilienhof in Potsdam to decide the future of a defeated Germany. At the time Potsdam was in the Soviet zone of divided Germany.

We are all cafeteria Catholics, so what?

This from the NCR and well worth a read.

By Daryl Grigsby

July 7, 2023

Some Catholics speak derisively of other Catholics as "cafeteria" believers. The real issue is whether we are still feasting at the banquet of Catholic life, says commentator Daryl Grigsby. 

Read more: https://www.ncronline.org/node/248116

We are the children of our history

The Thinking Anew  in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

The moment I got off the train in Tralee on the first Sunday of July it began to rain. 

I was heading for a week’s holiday in West Kerry. And that was disappointing, especially after the June heatwave. It rained most days but the sun shone too, which meant I could swim, both in the sun and in the rain.

While I was annoyed about the rain the local farmers were glad to see rain as they badly needed it for their vegetables.

Because of the wet and cold it meant I spent more time reading newspapers.

Tomorrow’s Gospel is the well known parable of the sower who goes out to sow the seed. (Matthew  13: 1 - 23) The seed that is sown on rich soil naturally produces the best crops while that sown on less fertile soil is a far poorer product. It makes perfect sense.

There is always the discussion about what makes a person do what is good and behave in a way that adds to the general wellbeing of society. What role does one’s environment play in how we live our lives? Of course there is individual responsibility but surely all our actions are heavily loaded by our environment.

Since Joe Biden became US president there’s been background noise about his son, Hunter. Martin Wall in the Weekend edition of this newspaper on July 1 reported on the saga. It’s not within my remit to know the specific details of the rights and wrongs of the life of Hunter Biden but reading Martin Wall’s story I was reminded of tomorrow’s Gospel. 

In spite of Hunter’s wealth and privilege the dice was stacked against him from an early age. He lost his mother and baby sister when he was three in a car crash in which he and his older brother, Beau were seriously injured.

In 2015 when his brother Beau died of cancer, Martin Wall explains: “…he seemed to go off the rails completely.”

Hunter readily admits to abusing alcohol and drugs. He’s done it all, placing much emphasis on the bad stuff.

The story of Hunter Biden certainly brings home how we are all influenced by our environment and the things that happen us on our life’s journey. I’d go as far as saying that the moment we are conceived in our mother’s wombs the pathways of our lives begin to take shape and that is something neurosurgeon and author Henry Marsh comes back to in his books recalling his career as a doctor.

It is often said that the Irish obsession about land and property can be traced back to how we were treated by the British, also that the famine has left an indelible mark on our psyche. Scratch the US surface and the shadow of the Vietnam war becomes ever so real.

However and whenever the war in Ukraine ends, the damage being done today will last for generations. Whatever about the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, the Russian people have not forgotten the horrors of what invading armies unleashed on their country. Putin is not slow in reminding the world of that.

We are the children of our history. Our past is marked all over our DNA. And in a similar way our environment plays a great influence in who and what we are.

That’s why it is essential for governments to make it their business to go that proverbial extra mile to support and nurture the less well off in our society. 

The fragile, the marginalised, those who feel hopeless, deserve special attention. And guess what, it is also the message of Jesus Christ. Read tomorrow’s Gospel, indeed, scroll through the New Testament and observe how Jesus spends his time in support of those less privileged. 

I’m just thinking, isn’t it odd how we can so often miss what is right in front of our noses and how we use every conceivable excuse not to face up to what needs to be done.