Masses Today

11.00: John O'Connor, (Anniv)
6.30: Kathleen Walsh, (Anniv)

AS I WAS SAYING...

The silly season is upon us. Many have departed on their holidays, politicians among them. Nothing much happens. Politically speaking, the country is in sleep-walking mode. In fact Peter Mandleson referred to high Summer as 'burial time'. If there is a bad story, this is the time to tell it, and bury it. Did we not see an example of this during the week? Not until the government and opposition have scattered to the four winds does a junior member open the envelope containing the 'End of Term Report'! Not a word about an election double-whammy and, better still, no one around with the bad manners to point out this 'careless' omission!

But our Church leaders seem to be learning from these little tricks so well honed by our political masters. We had a couple of examples of 'ecclesiastical burials' this week. Almost 30 years ago now, Seán Fagan a priest and moral theologian, published a book titled 'Has Sin Changed?' It was well received in scholarly circles. "Its pages will change attitudes as they deftly analyse and set in proper perspective the moral confusion, uncertainty and dilemmas which beset and disturb so many today," wrote one commentator at the time.

One of Fagan's central arguments was that principles (or ideals) are unchangeable and unchanging; but the law in which they are enshrined is indeed 'culturally conditioned'. The preservation of the ideal is primary, the observance of the law secondary. For example, the abolition of the Friday fast confused many people at the time. "How come it was a grave sin to eat meat last Friday, and no sin today?" many wondered. Fagan's reply is the only one that makes any kind of sense. All religions have a tradition of asceticism, of fast and abstinence. At a particular time, when people thought and behaved in a particular way, the Church judged that this principle was best safeguarded through obligatory fasting. But experience tells us that laws can outlive their usefulness. In fact they can damage the very principles they were originally promulgated to safeguard. There came a time when the Church made a judgement call that this was precisely the case with the law of fasting. Friday fast was now voluntary rather than obligatory. Clearly, Fagan's case was borne out in practice: the law was culturally conditioned, therefore, changeable.

Of course in today's world, nothing really stands still. Moral theology is now challenged almost daily by new developments in the medical and bio-technological sciences in particular. In response to these developments, Fagan reworked and republished his book as 'Does Morality Change?' in 1997. "It would be irresponsible to say a blanket 'No' to all developments in the field of bio-technology" he writes before going on to tease out the central issues.

His teachings were condemned as 'erroneous' by the Irish bishops this week. Apparently 'one of themselves' had complained Fagan to Rome. Rome ordered the Irish bishops to 'do their duty'. The episcopal 'slap on the wrist' was administered in the form of a five-page 'corrective document' attached quietly to the Irish Bishops' website. I suppose, if you really wanted to bury a story, you will not find a more remote resting place than the website of the Irish Catholic Hierarchy! Who said the bishops have learned nothing from the politicians? An episcopal burial indeed!

-Dick Lyng.

EVENTS THIS WEEK AND LAST

NOTHING IS NEW UNDER THE SUN

Fifty years ago this week, in August, 1954, the Commission on Emigration and Other Population Problems published its Majority Report. One member of that Commission, the Bishop of Cork, Dr Con Lucey, begged to differ. He dismissed the report as 'far too timid and abstract' and submitted instead his own Minority Report. As usual, his language was blunt! He favoured a more forthright declaration that Dublin was hopelessly overgrown as a result of state incompetence. He stated that the basic remedy rested with the government. It should take away some of the State Departments from Dublin and to relocate them in the provinces. The bishop concluded that the population of Galway should -ideally- be at least 50,000. In some ways, Connie was way ahead of his time. In other ways, of course, he would have felt quite at home in Medieval times!

VATICAN ON MEN AND WOMEN

(Rome's new document on men and women shows that feminists and the Church have more in common than perhaps either realises, but Catholic theology has yet to describe the sacramental nature of women.)

The publication of the Vatican letter on women was greeted with predictable bias in the secular press this week. "Pope warns feminists: Bishops told to take hard line on issue of gender", announced The Guardian headline. Christina Odone, deputy editor of the New Statesman, speaking on BBC Radio 4, was (predictably) less predictable. She described the letter as "a historic U-turn...the document that will mark the Pope as a born-again feminist...a wonderfully moving testament".

The letter does indeed contain much common sense and insight, but it is one-sided in its representation of feminism and makes a number of problematic claims. It also risks making the Catholic hierarchy seem ever more anachronistic as far as women are concerned. What other institution today would produce a document about women, written by one group of men (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, under the signature of Cardinal Ratzinger, pictured above), addressed to another (the bishops), without quoting or referring to any woman's ideas? Given that the letter is titled "On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World", its lack of collaboration with women is slightly ludicrous. But I suspect that many of us who remain in more or less good faith with Holy Mother Church when so many have left, do so because we have a well-developed sense of the ludicrous and have learned to live with her quaint idiosyncrasies.

-Tina Beattie is a senior lecturer in Christian Studies at Roehampton University.

INVITATION

Anywhere and always just as you expect it least,
Welling or oozing from nowhere a desire to feast.

At Auschwitz Wolf hums Brahms' rhapsody by heart
As Eddy, thief turned juggler, rehearses his art.

Fling and abandon, gaieties colourful and porous.
The Mexican beggar' s skirt, an Araner's crios.

Irresistible laughter, hiss and giggle of overflow.
That Black engine-driver crooning his life' s motto:

'Paint or tell a story, sing or shovel coal,
You gotta get a glory or the job lacks soul.'

Abundance of joy bubbling some underground jazz.
A voice whispers: Be with me tonight in paradise.

-Micheal O'Siadhail.

MEMORABLE QUOTES

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