Masses Today

6.30: Mary Keane, (1st Anniv)
11.00: Mary Bridget Morkan, (Anniv)
6.30: Patrick Daly, (Anniv)





Events This Week and Last






AS I WAS SAYING...

I got some flak during the week as a result of the piece I did on Bill Murphy, the Bishop of Kerry, here last weekend. (By 'flak' I mean that four or five people courteously took exception to what I had written.) I return to the topic for reasons that will soon become obvious. But also because of the season that's in it: the First Holy Communion and Confirmation season. The topic under discussion will have obvious relevance there.

You may recall that I supported Bill Murphy's right to speak publicly about the manner in which the sacraments are being celebrated, or abused as the case may be, in the contemporary Church. (Incidentally, don't for a moment conclude that, in my dotage, I have become a spear-bearer for their Lordships. Far from it. When true leadership was called for, I believe they behaved like 'headless chickens' and I said as much here. Were it not for the media's persistence, I believed they would never have faced up to reality and the truth. However, the issue today is another matter entirely).

So, to get back to Bill Murphy. Briefly, the bishop said that the religious element of the sacraments should always take precedence over the social element. For example, couples should not present themselves for the sacrament of marriage, or their child for baptism, simply because of social or family expectations. The primary motivation has to be their own personal faith life. That's the kernel of what he had to say.

One individual who spoke to me believed that such pronouncements are counterproductive: they further alienate the already alienated. (But, if they are so alienated, what is their interest in the sacraments? I hope that's not a cheap shot!) Another person thought that the bishop's words were nothing more than nostalgia, and his expectations unrealistic. He was hankering after a world that has long disappeared, a world where compliance to the Catholic ethos was universal. And I don't think there are many who would demand a return to those drab days.

In fact I believe the bishop was doing the opposite actually. He did say that it was unreasonable of those who never attended Mass to expect the Church to provide them with a Wedding Mass. I don't think the bishop was calling for 100% weekly Mass attendance at all. He took care to stress that his words were directed at those who no longer attended Mass: "I am really speaking to those who are not here and who don't come to church very much."

These are not words of nostalgia. These are the words of a realist. This is not an appeal for full compliance to the Catholic ethos. His thoughts were moving in the very opposite direction, actually. His was an appeal for honesty, for integrity. He is saying: "Step out from the herd. You do not have to follow the crowd. Stand up for your own convictions. If this Catholic stuff means nothing to you, well stand up and say so. Do not allow yourself be dragged into this through social or family pressures. If you do, your own integrity is compromised; you yourself will feel diminished by it and the sacrament will be demeaned."

For generations, the leadership of the Catholic Church treated us all as children. They are unlearning that style very slowly. But we too have a lot of unlearning to do. We must stop reacting to them as children and learn instead to make our own mature, adult choices regarding our faith.

-Dick Lyng.




FAIR WEATHER FRIEND

The English Catholic writer, G.K. Chesterton, attended the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in 1932. What struck him most was the following:

In that strange town, the poorer were the streets, the richer were the street decorations. Men who could hardly read had written up inscriptions; and somehow they were dogmas as well as jokes. Somebody wrote: 'God Bless Christ the King.' I knew I was staring at one of the staggering paradoxes of Christianity. A priest told me that he had himself heard a very poor threadbare working woman saying in a tram on the way to the Congress, with a resignation perhaps slightly tinged with tartness: 'Well, if it rains now, He'll have brought it on himself.'
-Patrick Corish, The Irish Catholic Experience' , page 258.




THE LATE PEARSE O'MAHONEY

The family of the late Fr Pearse O' Mahoney, who died 19th November, 2003, wish to express their deep appreciation to all who cared for him and who prayed for him during his illness; to the community and staff of the Augustinian Priory; to all the parishioners and to the nurses and doctors at the University and Galvia hospitals. Our sincere thanks too, to each and everyone who attended the funeral services, who had Mass offered f or the repose of his soul, and to the choirmaster and his choristers who rendered special hymns and songs with great beauty.

(Pearse's sister Ita asked that this note be printed here)




HAMMERING AWAY

To have convincing authority we must share the journeys of people, enter their fears, be touched by their disappointments, their questions, their failures and doubts. Often we speak about people: about women, about the poor and the immigrants; about the divorced, those who have abortions; about prisoners; people with AIDS; homosexuals; drug addicts. But our words for Christ will not have real authority unless we in a sense give authority to their experience, enter their homes, receive their hospitality, learn their language, eat their bread, accept from what they have to offer. This is dangerous. People will misunderstand and accuse us of being mixed up with the wrong people. But there is a good precedent for this. We cannot respond to the crisis of authority just by asserting our faith even more strongly, hammering away.

-Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. former Dominican General.




SEX, PIETY AND THE RED SCARE

Some regard the 1940s and 1950s as the high point of Irish Catholicism. Vocations to the priesthood had reached all-time high. The missionary movement flourished. Weekly Mass attendance was universal. If we are to judge the quality of Catholicism by the intensity of its devotional life, or the general level of conformity to what has often been described as 'the Catholic ethos', then the period 1930 to 1960 was indeed something of a 'golden age'. While this Marian enthusiasm had its origins in the 19th century, it reached its high point in the mid-20th century. New Marian shrines and grottoes were springing up throughout the country; the popularity of pilgrimages to Lourdes and Fatima increased; a whole new religious mobilisation of sodalities, confraternities, and so on was afoot. This was the hey-day of the Marian priests, Patrick Peyton and the Dominican Gabriel Harty.

It was a time of great silliness, too, of a general paranoia. "There is Russian money working in this country, and working very cleverly, and it behoves everyone to be on his guard against communism" declared Bishop Fogarty of Killaloe. A corresponded with the Irish Catholic went one better: "In every town in Catholic Ireland, there are subterranean chambers and galleries of the crimson mole!"

The degree of conformity will strike us today as extraordinary and probably unhealthy. These Marian movements occasionally strayed outside their spiritual remit, to wander into the precarious field of female fashion! For example, in 1942, the staff at the women's Training College in Limerick established the "Modest Dress and Deportment Crusade". The Crusade, apparently, had the formal approval of the Irish hierarchy. The aims of the crusaders were outline in two pamphlets, 'The Vice of Today' and 'Short Skirts or Slacks'. Skirts should be worn at least four inches below the knee and slacks were frowned upon entirely since 'they give undue prominence to the female figure' ! Long skirts also prevented rheumatism, the pamphlet added helpfully. These Crusaders were not slow to play the green card! Women were urged to lead Irish society back 'from the anglicising influences which are degrading it and divesting it of every trait of nationalist characteristic.' Of course the real irony lay in the fact that Victorian prudery and was now doing duty for authentic Catholic morality. Even in death, the earthly queen, rather than the heavenly one, was still calling the shots!

-D. Lyng.





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