Robert Barron in his element listening to Donald Trump

This from the NCR National Catholic Reporter. The piece is written by John. Grosso.

The words and behaviour of Bishop Robert Barron are becoming more outrageous with the passing of every day. It would be interesting to hear from his fellow US bishops and what they think of what he  is saying and how her is behaving.

This blog has written to him and to his diocesan office, so far no reply, and it was some months ago.

Bishop Robert Barron was "delighted" to attend President Donald Trump's joint address to Congress and celebrate a private Mass for lawmakers, he said on a lengthy social media video about his "thrilling" trip.

Read more: https://www.ncronline.org/node/295626

‘Pat his little hand’, 31 other tips for Martin’s visit to Trump

Justine McCarthy’s opinion piece in The Irish Times of Friday. Clever, fun and a good read.

Protocol guidelines for the visit of An Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, to Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America, at the White House next Wednesday.

1. Wear a suit. Your host is under the impression that clothes make a man.

2. Pair it with a tie so long a small child playing Tarzan could swing off it.

3. Pat the president’s knee, fondly.

4. Say: “Tell your beautiful wife I said hello.”

5. Do not ask where his beautiful wife is.

6. Say “thanks” in every sentence.

Actually, shout it.

7. Do not mention his hair or he might call you an “arsehole” (see the Seán O’Rourke’s radio interview in 2014).

8. Bring some Claddagh rings for him to give his buddies Vladimir Putin, Binyamin Netanyahu and Kim Jong-un as a symbol of his enduring love and friendship.

9. Do not lose your temper. Even if he calls you a dictator or accuses you of screwing America, smile and remember he’ll have forgotten by bedtime that he ever said it. “Did I say that?” he’ll smirk like a 79-year-old toddler trying to look adorable.

10. Do not call him a kleptomaniac, a sexual reprobate, a jingoistic plunderer, a mendacious megalomaniac, a sociopathic rabble-rouser, a convicted felon or a Kremlin marionette. He does not do polysyllables. Stick to “bad”, “mad”, “sad”, “ugly” and “dog” when discussing his enemies and “great”, “best by far”, “king” and “big love” when discussing him. “Bigly” is permissible in a crisis.

11. Teach him a couple of Irish phrases he might find helpful. “Póg mo thón,” for JD Vance when the Veep’s obsequiousness proves unsatisfactory. “Póg it some more.” When he is addressing Congress or the media or, really, anytime he opens his mouth to speak he could say: “Tá mé ag insint bréaga,” because, as you know, Taoiseach, that does not mean he’s telling lies.

12. Do not ask him if his “beautiful wife” lives in the White House too.

13. Have a bugler sound a fanfare as you dramatically unfurl a roll of wallpaper decorated with lots of little squiggles and dashes. Tell him it is an invitation written in ancient Ogham from the Little People to come to the land of leprechauns. Tell him nothing like this has ever been seen before and that the King of the Fairies has a crock o’ gold waiting for him. Relax, he won’t come. He and his White House think Ireland is in the UK.

14. Assure him he has no need to worry about the Occupied Territories Bill because the only occupied territories the Oireachtas knows of are Denmark’s Greenland, Palestine’s Gaza, and Canada’s, er, Canada.

15. Pat his shoulder like you’re old mates (see video of Keir Starmer).

16. Tell him America is lucky not to have all those multinational US tech companies needing energy-gobbling data centres, homes for their workforces and extra landing slots at Dublin Airport so that nobody on the northside can get a wink of sleep.

17. Tell him that repatriating Ireland’s big pharma companies would be surplus to RFK jnr’s requirements because they make “nasty” vaccines when all the secretary of health and human services wants are gallons of cod liver oil to cure the measles epidemic and barrels of bleach for Covid.

18. If the president says America wants the multinationals back on his home turf because the price of eggs has gone through the roof, make like Marie Antoinette and suggest: “Let them eat omelettes.”

19. Pat his little hand – preferably the one nearest you or the Secret Service might get twitchy.

20. When he mentions tariffs, as he inevitably will, pretend you thought he said “terrorists” and reply: “No problem at all, Donald, we’ll send them all over to you.”

21. Do not ask him if his “beautiful wife” is actually a hologram.

22. When he flings the bowl of shamrock aside in disgust, promise he can mine Ireland’s rare-earth treasures – Michael Lowry and the 853 pages of part two of the Moriarty tribunal’s report. Even Trump can always use another disrupter.

23. If offered food, eat it quickly before you’re thrown out of the White House.

24. Do not request five varieties of lettuce, a tomato or any of that “woke” tofu malarkey.

25. Do not ask to see his holiday snaps from his first trip to Russia in 1987 when the Soviet regime invited him to Moscow to build a hotel and he returned to New York wanting to become the president of America.

26. Lather him with flattery.

27. Tell him how much you loved his book, The Art of the Deal, and don’t worry that he will quiz you about your favourite bits because he hasn’t read it either.

28. Do not let Vance into the room.

29. Manspread for Ireland and Europe (see video footage of Emmanuel Macron).

30. If television cameras are allowed into the meeting, make sure Micheál Lehane gets to ask the first question: “Taoiseach, how many suits do you have in your wardrobe? Do you possess a wardrobe? Is it acceptable that some people have to live in wardrobes because they can’t get houses?”

31. Give the president a potted history of St Patrick and how he banished the snakes from Ireland, but, under no circumstances, insinuate that is probably the reason the search for his ancestral roots has drawn a blank.

32. Admire the White House. Then whip out snaps of the Leinster House bike shelter and the Department of Finance security hut. As a property developer, he will love the margins.

Alternatively, Taoiseach, you could take a deep breath, walk in there and speak on behalf of a world trembling in fear beyond Pennsylvania Avenue. He may sulk and not talk to you but his days are numbered and, when he is gone, you will be remembered as one courageous leader who refused to toady to the big bully in the Oval Office.

No pressure. But do have your Weetabix on Wednesday morning. And remember what Obama said – is féidir leat.

The night Horatio Nelson came a cropper in Dublin

On this day, March 8, 1966

Nelson’s Pillar on Dublin’s O’Connell Street was blown up by the IRA.

Local gossip has it that the IRA operation was technically better than the Army’s subsequent demolition.

The Spire now hold pride of place where Nelson’s Pillar was. The Spire was built in 2003 and is close to three times the hight of the Pillar.

Bishop Robert Barron on his congressional experience

Below is a link to Bishop Robert Barron reporting on Facebook his experience attending President Donald Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress. He is also reporting on a Mass he celebrated with/for elected representatives.

Some days earlier the bishop shared a platform with Jordan Peterson at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference.

The world of social media seems to be about publicity and populism. How would one critique Bishop Barron’s description of his evening on the Hill? 

It would be interesting to know what his fellow US bishops think of his non-stop worldwide peregrinations.

It certainly is slick. But what’s to it all? What’s it actually about? And how does the bishop find the time to manage his diocese?

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18Qyme5u2q/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Journey from love to charity and then from lover to adultery

English Dominican Fr Herbert McCabe (1926 - 2001), who was a theologian and philosopher, giving a lecture on one occasion said:

"I looked up the word love in a theological dictionary, I was directed to the word charity.

"I then went to the word lover and was told to check adultery."

Congressman Moore invites Bishop Robert Barron to the Hill

This from Bishop Robert Barron’s facebook page. It will be interesting to hear what he says.

Riley Moore is serving his first termini Congress as the representative of the second district of West Virginia.

 "I want to express my sincere gratitude to Representative Riley Moore for his kind invitation to celebrate Mass for Catholic members of Congress and to attend, as his guest, the President’s joint address. I look forward to this opportunity both as a Catholic bishop and as an avid student of American history."

Two bets I lost back in March 2013

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Pinned under a hook on my kitchen wall are two betting slips. One is dated March 4, 2013, the other slip March 7, 2013. I put €10 on Christoph Schönborn at 12/1on March 4 and €5 on Mauro Piacenza at 50/1 on March 7.

I lost both bets. On March 13 Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope.

At the time Schönborn, who is a Dominican, was archbishop in Vienna and considered to be on the liberal wing of the church. 

Piacenza was seen as a traditionalist and was a cardinal in the Vatican. I was hoping Schönborn might get the job. I’d met him once or twice. He had studied with the German Dominicans near Bonn, a place where I had spent many happy days.

I can still vividly remember Pope Francis on the night of his election, wishing the people buonasera. It was my first time to hear a pope sounding so ordinary and friendly. He simply wished the crowd good evening. 

On that evening an Argentinian Dominican, Javier Pose, who knew Francis from Buenos Aires, while watching events unfold on television with fellow Dominicans, quietly said: ‘There will be surprises.’ There have been many.

I’m writing these words with Pope Francis in hospital. He has had pneumonia but is sitting up and eating his food. The man is 88, he’s grown frail of late, so naturally the situation is precarious. There have been many occasions when Pope Francis has made me smile. 

During his 12-year pontificate he has given me hope. He has said and done things that make me feel good in my skin being a Catholic. There is something gentle about him, a sensitive, intelligent man who listens to the views and concerns of other people. But I also know that he is no walk over and when decisions have to be made he makes them, but in consultation with other people. He has appointed forward-looking men as bishops, especially in the US, where there are worrying divisions between liberal and conservative thinking.

He has appointed women to senior jobs in the Vatican and of course the Synod has been his idea. Its purpose has been to bring people together, to listen and learn. It has been an attempt at reaching out to those on the margins, genuinely listening to their hopes, dreams and concerns. It’s work in progress.

In the very days that Pope Francis finds himself in hospital ‘Conclave’ the screen adaptation of Robert Harris’ novel of the same name wins top awards. The film is about the election of a pope and all the intrigue that that involves. 

Whatever happens Pope Francis in the days ahead  I’m delighted we have been blessed having him our pope.

I hope it’s not indecent to talk about the next election, but I can’t see myself placing a bet next time, whenever the time comes. 

I know Timothy Radcliffe, who was made a cardinal in September. He is a Dominican and I would love to see him pope, but he’ll be 80 in August and that’s too old for the job. It would  make no sense putting a fiver on him.

Thank you Francis and keep going as long as God allows you. 

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It might be eighty for those who are strong

"All our days pass away in your anger,/Our life is over like a sigh./Our span is seventy years/or eighty for those who are strong." 

A Psalm from today’s Morning Prayer. Written circa 3,000 years ago.

Trump - a damnable disgrace and recruited by the KGB

Both these links are worth a read:

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/thehill.com/opinion/international/5162890-assessing-new-allegations-that-trump-was-recruited-by-the-kgb/amp/

https://www.theindex.media/a-damnable-disgrace/

I say nothing as the taxi driver rants about ‘those people’

From the weekend edition of The Irish Times.

I’m unsure if he wants me to speak for the migrant population or to agree with him as an Irish person

---

The taxi mobile application displays the faces of potential drivers before eventually connecting me with Stephen, who will arrive in one minute. Stephen is friendly and chatty and insists on talking about the rainy weather despite my short answers and the sound of the flipping pages from my notebook, which I’m pretending to read enthusiastically.

Stephen exhausts the conversation about the weather before he moves to ask if I have just finished work.

“No, I’m jumping to another kind of work.”

“Good woman.”

I leave it there. I don’t tell Stephen that I’m taking my lunch break from my full-time tech job to give a talk to college students. It doesn’t take Stephen long before reaching for the blunt question.

“So, where are you ‘originally’ from?”

I smile. Since December 8th, this has been my favourite question to answer, and it doesn’t make my stomach tighten or my heart race any more. I answer all Stephen’s questions one after the other like a ping-pong match:

“Syria.”

“Ten years.”

“Yes, Ireland is home, sometimes.”

“The new Syrian regime is promising.”

“No, they are not terrorists.”

“Yes, I want to go back home.”

“One day at a time.”

Stephen then takes a right turn with his car and with the conversation. He tells me he doesn’t mind refugees here as long as they work and give back.

“But, Stephen, many are not allowed to work.”

“Well, they are not bringing paperwork with them! The Government is putting them in hotels instead of looking after our own on the streets. Did you know the Garda is on the lookout for an Isis attack on Paddy’s Day? Oh, yes, I tell you! They just announced it on the news! And that attack in Stoneybatter, have you seen that?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And the school stabbing last year?”

“I did. Tragic.”

At this stage, I’m unsure if Stephen wants me to speak for the migrant population in Ireland or to agree with him as an Irish person. I nod quietly, but he keeps pushing for more.

“If that’s not a terrorist attack, then what is? Jesus, this is not the Ireland I grew up in. It’s gone so far now! They are just letting everyone in.”

“What about all the young gangs, Stephen?”

Rant

“Of course, they are on the streets because the Government is not looking after them. All resources are going to those people.”

I sigh and let chatty Steve rant about “those people” as if they were not my people. Like I’m one of his people. I’ve never been confused about my identity as much as at this moment.

I stare at Stephen’s face from the rearview mirror while his eyes are on the road. I’ve heard these rants before. I’ve read them on Twitter, X or the dark web, as my friend likes to refer to that platform, warning me not to read the comments section under my name.

When The Irish Times announced my name as the winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, there was a Stephen in the comments on social media.

“Prize for Irish Literature given to a non-Irish person. Bizarre.”

Could that be the same Stephen driving right now, talking about “those people”? Under the online Stephen’s account was an angry, proud commenter named “Ireland”.

“Another woke shite decision from the arse council type. Giving the prize to a foreigner is Judas to Irish writers.”

The Rooney Prize was established in 1976. All 47 former winners listed on the website have traditional Irish last names. Mine would be the first non-traditional one up there. I’m proud, but I can’t help but wonder how many more are upset with my Syrian last name listed there.

My mother also found it bizarre that I had been shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards 2022.

“But you’re not Irish!” That was the first thought she shared spontaneously over the phone.

I understood where she was coming from because, when I was growing up in Saudi Arabia, I wasn’t allowed to participate in national competitions, which were exclusive to Saudis. Still, it was disheartening to receive questions instead of congratulations whenever something remarkable happened to me as a result of my hard work.

A month after the Rooney Prize, I am on the “dark web” again in an interview for RTÉ, speaking about the fall of the Syrian regime.

I’m beaming with happiness as my homeland is freed. A title appears near my face: Suad Aldarra, a Syrian-Irish writer.

The collapse of the Syrian dictatorship regime was a significant event in the history of the world. Yet, the comments are all fixated on understanding why I’m being labelled as Irish, even after a dash. Someone explained that Irish nationality is precious and not everyone should have it. Having an Irish passport doesn’t make me Irish. I can’t call myself Irish and walk away with that. The audacity. And again, I understand. I used to think the same about my precious Syrian nationality. It took a war for me to change that prejudiced view. I’ve been living in Ireland now more than I’ve lived in Syria, while the rest of my early life was in Saudi Arabia, where my Syrian parents migrated.

For some Irish, I’m not Irish because I wasn’t born in Ireland or to an Irish parent. For some Saudis, I’m not Saudi, even though I was born and raised there. For some Syrians, I’m not Syrian because I haven’t lived there enough.

I blame myself for taking a taxi, but then I remember Patrick, the lovely Irish driver who worked as a peacekeeper. For the 30 minutes between Dublin Airport and my house, Patrick told me about his best times between Syria and Lebanon. “If there were heaven on Earth, it would be Damascus.”

Patrick left me with those words from his memory and promised to come for tea sometime. I hold Patrick’s warm memory during this cold day, and I let Stephen go as I make my way to give a talk about Irish immigration.

Suad Aldarra’s memoir, I Don’t Want to Talk About Home, was published in 2022

A need for faith sooner or later?

In studying theology we end up with the end of a rope in each hand, the ropes disappearing into the darkness before us and it is only by faith that we know they are the ends of the same rope. 

I suppose an image to say that reasoning carries us so far but there is always a need for faith, sooner or later.

Comment made by the late Fr Paul O’Leary op.

Vassal States pay homage to the White House

It’s embarrassing watching western leaders trot to the US attempting to get on the right side of Trump.

Yesterday the US president when asked about calling the Ukrainian leader a dictator replied: ‘did I say that? I can’t believe I said that.'

Sir Keir Starmer presented President Trump with a letter from King Charles inviting him to another State visit. It even looked embarrassing an this from a British Labour prime minister.

President Trump seems to love every country and everyone. It’s beyond funny. He’s great friends with people he has met for five minutes.

He talked about his golf clubs in the UK and then mentioned Doonbeg in Ireland.

And while Trump and Starmer are talking and laughing, the Tate brothers are flying in a private jet to the United States.

It’s difficult not to look on and laugh, maybe even cry.

During the Soviet era the world looked on as the leaders of vassal states paid homage to the man in the Kremlin. The running to the White House of western leaders looks as nonsensical, maybe even worse. At least the Soviet leaders seemed to know what they were saying.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum

Justine McCarthy’s opinion piece in The Irish Times of Friday, February 21.

It’s savage but brilliant, accurate and powerfully courageous. Well done Ms McCarthy. 

---

And so it has come to pass. The lunatics have taken over the asylum. They’re holding God hostage while the Pope is hors de combat in hospital. 

They’ve denounced the Episcopal Bishop of Washington for imploring them to have mercy on the vulnerable. Their leader, who couldn’t lay his hand on the Bible when he took power after flogging copies of the book for profit, claims God saved his life from assassination so that he could save America. 

“America first” is his mission – and to hell with the rest of the world, unless, of course, his gang can make a fast buck by plonking a sun-sand-and-sexy resort on some patch of it.

The vindictive, serial-lying, thricemarried billionaire sexual assailant and convicted felon known as US president Donald Trump, has established a taskforce to “move heaven and earth” in defence against what he calls antiChristian bias in the federal government. He has also set up a Faith Office in the White House run by his spiritual adviser, televangelist Paula White. He professes to love the Bible as much as he loves tariffs.

He should read it.

“We have to bring religion back,” declares unrepentant Trump. “Let’s bring God back into our lives.” His Secretary of Defence, Pete Hegseth, is a self-described “evangelical nationalist” who attends a church affiliated with the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches some of whose members, US media have reported, want the repeal of women’s right to vote. Also thrice-married, he has been investigated on suspicion of sexual assault and sports tattoos of Christ’s cross on his chest and a catch cry of the medieval crusades, “Deus vult” (God wills it), on his right bicep.

Trump’s second-in-command, JD Vance, took to the podium at the Munich Security Conference to scold Europe for being too compassionate. With the zeal of a convert baptised a Catholic five years ago, he excoriated European leaders for being soft on immigration and obsessed with regulating disinformation, which he calls “free speech”. He wants Europe to emulate Trumpism and lock its borders, ignoring the wars and environmental destruction propelling the flow of humanity.

His speech shamelessly milked the horror of a suspected terrorist attack by an asylum seeker on the German city while ignoring the almost routine mass killings by native-born citizens in his own country. Even the Pope isn’t Catholic enough for Vance.

For he preaches the opposite philosophy. “The wars being fought today involve several regions of the world, but the weapons with which they are fought are produced in entirely different regions,” Pope Francis states in his autobiography, Hope. Those regions producing the killing machinery, he says, “then refuse and turn away the refugees who have been generated by those weapons and by those conflicts.”

Global military expenditure

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has estimated global military expenditure in 2023 at $2.443 trillion (€2.346 trillion), the biggest annual spend ever, with 75 per cent of arms exported by the US, France, Russia, China and Germany.Leaving aside his effrontery in accusing Europe of censorship while the White House bans the Associated Press because the agency declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, Vance should be taken seriously because he is a man on a frightening crusade. He’s smarter than his boss. Better read too, though granted, so are Barbie and Ken. After his assertion that Ukraine started the war with Russia, Trump is as incontestably divorced from reality as he is from Marla Maples.

Vance has the conceit to project himself as a moral intellectual. He explained his theological hierarchy of obligations in descending order during a Fox News interview when he said: “You love your family, and then you love your neighbour, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then, after that, you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world.”

This, he clarified, is according to ordo amoris, an ancient concept propounded by Vance’s favourite saint, Augustine.

Within this concept is the kernel of the choice facing the Irish Government in its deliberations about how to contend with the madness of the court of King Trump. Considering Vance’s superstructure of responsibilities, Merrion Street’s promised “charm offensive” will have as much traction on that court as water on a duck’s back.

If Micheál Martin receives an invitation to bring a bowl of shamrock to the White House next month, should he go?

If he does go, should he grovel for Ireland’s selfish interest in retaining American jobs? What if Trump embarrasses him, as he did when, sitting beside the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in a media glare, he castigated India’s import levies as “very unfair and strong”.

None of these questions can be definitively answered until, first, the Taoiseach establishes which end of Vance’s theological see-saw Ireland occupies. Is it to be Ireland first? Or will the country’s humanitarian and missionary history win out?

Wary commentators have urged Martin to go to the White House and cravenly keep silent about Trump’s plan to decant Gaza of its people, his ostracisation of Ukraine, his defenestration of USAid, his “drill, baby, drill” vandalism and his mass deportations. Some want him to delay and dilute or even abandon the Occupied Territories Bill.

The likelihood that provocation will lead to trade and employment losses for Ireland is a genuine concern. And yet the choice is not hard. Ordo amoris may have made some sense before the wheel was invented and a person’s ambit stretched no farther than to the Flintstones’ for dinner, but the advent of instant communications has shrunk the world.

How can we relegate people’s suffering in other countries when nightly we watch war and famine and sinking migrant boats and ecological destruction on television in our sittingrooms? Pope Francis has said Christian love is not a concentric expansion of love that little by little extends to other people and groups. It is about fraternity, without exception.

The Taoiseach should go to Washington and, as Enda Kenny did, remind the American president that St Patrick was an immigrant and that Ireland, with its history, can be no mé féiner. Trump has dragged our world into a dark night of the soul. The lord may work in mysterious ways but it is imperative that political leaders speak out unambiguously and unequivocally for everyone’s sake.