Parish Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30 Elizabeth Coyne, (Anniv).
12.00 Johnny Buckley, Mervue, (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

It has been another bad week for the institutions of the State. Trust was eroded on two fronts: the abuse of elderly people in care, and the behaviour of the Gardai in Donegal.

The first breach caused widespread revulsion, with scenes reminiscent of squalid Romanian orphanages at the collapse of Communism. This scandal has enormous implications for an ageing if affluent society. For all practical purposes, full employment is now the norm here. Consequently, many of us today have elderly relatives cared for in nursing homes. (Indeed this practice sometimes brings its own -often irrational- burden of guilt). For obvious reasons, these institutions have proliferated over the last 15 to 20 years. (See below). Increasingly, the responsibility for the care of our elderly will fall to supposed professionals. If this system is to work efficiently and humanely, competence and confidence must be central ingredients. Both ingredients were patently absent in the Leas Cross nursing home. This single scandal has sown insecurity and unease in the hearts of many, many people. The primary victims have, of course, been the elderly themselves. But the confidence of many who entrusted their loved ones to the care of professionals has been seriously dented too. Unfortunately, nursing homes that are run compassionately, and to the highest professional standards, will suffer too. Unfair it may be, but the shadow of suspicion falls over all.

The second breach of trust came to light with the exposure of Garda misdeeds in Donegal. The second report of Mr. Justice Morris (left) found that elements within the Gardai set out to frame two local men for a murder that never was! (In fact the victim, Richie Barron, died as a result of a hit-and-run accident on October 14th, 1996.) Morris found that the subsequent Garda investigation into the accident was ‘prejudiced, tendentious, and utterly negligent in the highest degree.' The report went on to claim that some Donegal Gardai were...

"so consumed by the notion that Frank McBrearty and Frank McConnell were guilty of murder when in fact there had been no murder, and the two men were completely innocent. Evidence to the contrary was rejected."

This web of deceit was sustained only because a number of Gardai were prepared to lie while on oath. These men had each sworn an oath to uphold the law. Now they have no compunction about committing perjury for no other reason than to undermine the law and thereby ‘do down' two innocent men.

Society has been underpinned by a shared understanding that an oath is sacrosanct. It is the linchpin holding every single social cog in place. It is bad enough that this sacred act should be treated in a cavalier fashion by common criminals. But alarm bells should really ring when Officers of the Law commit perjury at will! In both cases (the Gardai and the Nursing Home) sacred trust was betrayed in a most shameful manner this week. But there has been no noticeable expressions of regret or shame from the perpetrators. However, heads that are joined to bodies by brass necks don't readily hang in shame.

-Dick Lyng.

BY THE WAY...

PARTING SHOT

The retiring editor of the US Catholic magazine, America, appears to be going out with a bang rather than a whimper. The last issue edited by Jesuit Thomas Reese, published this week, contains an article that discerns a new mood of subservience in the Church.

Fr Reese is standing down after what has been reported as sustained pressure from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) over articles that have been critical of the Vatican's stance on a number of sensitive issues. The article in the current issue of America by James 1. Digiacomo SJ claims that the Catholic Church is "at a crossroads".

On the one hand, Digiacomo writes, are those who offer unquestioning loyalty to the "guardians of order". Among these are many younger clergy who find their identity in professing "unquestioning assent to authority". These young men explicitly distance themselves from older priests who they feel have "failed to purge themselves of the disease of critical thinking". On the other side are those - "adventuresome theologians" and others -who "can't seem to turn off" their own "little gray cells", which carry on working "even after respected authority speaks".

At this moment in the life of the Church, Digiacomo believes, those who continue to think and who refuse to settle for what he calls "slack-jawed certainty" are in for some bad times.

-The Tablet, 28 May, 2005.

RESPECT FOR AGE

With a ‘greying' population, old age is fast becoming the new middle age and it's time to ditch ageism. Today's over-60s are not a homogenous gathering. Examine any random group of older Irish public figures - take, for example, actor Anna Manahan, cardiologist Maurice Neligan, singer Sonny Knowles, broadcaster Andy O'Mahony, poet Brendan Kennelly, entrepreneur Tony O'Reilly, writer Maeve Binchy, politician Mary O'Rourke, architect Sam Stephenson ... the only thing they may have in common is that they are 60-plus.

Generally, people in their 60s are in the mainstream of life, contributing as parents, grandparents, friends, neighbours, mentors, campaigners and volunteers. Twenty years on, even the healthiest may be less active. They can still, of course, be net contributors; irrespective of age, everyone may remain loved and loving, able to give to life.

In earlier societies, older people were accorded respect due to perceived wisdom and longevity. More recently it was decided that a disengagement as people aged was desirable - with US states such as Florida an extreme example. This separation has ghettoised older people, and helped the spread of ageism, a prejudice against older people because they are old, leading to often unconscious, negative attitudes to ageing.

Discrimination on grounds of age has been unlawful here since 1998, but it still goes on. Ageism includes talking down to older people, according less weight to their opinions and needs, restricting their recruitment and promotion, and taking their health and welfare needs less seriously. For example, the Breast Check service covers women aged 50 to 64, stopping just when incidence of breast cancer begins to escalate. The Irish Cancer Society has called for the age limit to be extended to 70.

Ageist attitudes include seeing older people as physically and intellectually diminished, viewing a lower standard of living for them as acceptable, seeing them as less productive after paid work, and equating physical beauty solely with youth. Ageism permeates many aspects of society including government, public opinion and over-60s themselves. It becomes institutionalised when we marginalise older people in law and policy, and normalise their withdrawal from life.

In 1926, Irish men had a life expectancy of 57.4, and women 57.9 years. Life expectancy for babies born in 2002 is 75.1 for males and 80.3 for females. Today, men at 65 can expect to live a further 12-15 years, while today's 65-year-old woman may live on average another 19 years. Because they are living longer, older people are more numerous. In 1900, only one in 25 Europeans was aged over 65. Today there are half a million over 65s in Ireland, comprising almost one in 10 of the population. By 2040, this group is projected to grow to 1.25 million.

Get used to it folks: old age is here to stay, thank God!

-Anne Dempsey in The Irish Times.