Parish Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30 Della Mannion, (Anniv).
11.00 Margaret. Louis, James & Angela Naughton, (Anniv)
6.30 Costello Family, (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

25 years ago this month, in March 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was shot dead as he celebrated Mass. A tiny wealthy elite dominated that small Central American state. At the time Romero was assassinated, 0.85 percent of the landowners held 77.3 percent of the arable land, while 99.15 percent of the landowners owned 22.7 percent of the land. Throughout most of the 19th century, the great landowners used their own private armies to deal with the problems of recalcitrant peasants.

Born in 1917, the 60-year-old Romero was appointed Archbishop of strife-torn San Salvador in 1977. He was a compromise candidate, the proverbial 'safe pair of hands', elected as leader of the bishop's Conference by conservative fellow bishops. He was predictable, an orthodox, pious bookworm who was known to criticise the progressive Liberation Theology clergy so aligned with the impoverished farmers seeking land reform. But an event would take place within three weeks of his appointment that would transform the ascetic and timid Romero into a raging New Testament prophet.

The new archbishop's close friend, the Jesuit, Fr. Rutilio Grande, was ambushed and killed along with two parishioners. Grande was a target because he defended the peasant's rights to organise farm cooperatives. That night Romero drove out of the capitol to Paisnal to view the bodies of the slain. There, he experienced a conversion more radical than that of his hero St. Paul. At the funeral Mass the following day, he left the poor peasants in no doubt as to where he himself stood. In the course of his homily he stated:

"God needs you, the people, to save the world . . . The world of the poor teaches us that liberation will arrive only when the poor are not simply on the receiving end of hand-outs from governments or from the churches, but when they themselves are the masters and protagonists of their own struggle for liberation."

With one exception, all the Salvadoran bishops turned their backs on him, and they complained secretly to Rome about his 'political activities'. Unlike them, Romero had refused to ever attend a government function until the repression of the people was stopped. Rome put great pressure on him to relent, but he held fast, and kept his promise to the poor.

In his final homily, he spoke on John 12:24: 'Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies....' As he lifted the bread at the Offertory, a single shot rang out and 'the grain of wheat fell to the ground and died'. A further 39 people were killed at his funeral Mass, where Bishop Casey represented the Irish bishops. John Paul created more saints than any other pope. He even 'fast-tracked' some. Why was Romero the Martyr not among them? Is there a political angle to sanctity, I wonder?

-Dick Lyng

BITS & PIECES

CATHOLIC=INCLUSIVE

In a recent piece in The Guardian (25/5/04), Timothy Radciffe (pictured below), the first English-born Master General of the Dominicans, welcomed Charlie Brown, a gay man, into the Catholic Church with the following words:

Many people may consider that Charlie is doing something crazy. We are welcoming you into communion, not just with this community, but with the whole Church. You belong now to a community that is rocked by scandal. You are becoming one with people with whom you may profoundly disagree. You are gay, and you now belong to some people who may appear to reject your sexual orientation and much that you may hold dear. You have entered into 'communion with progressive Catholics and traditionalists, Cardinal Ratzinger and Hans Kung ... You cannot pick and choose. It is all or nothing.

-Kevin T. Kelly, The Furrow, March, 2005.

EPISCOPAL PERMISSION

Madam, - Michelle McDonagh (Irish Times, February 23rd) explains how, as a result of grassroots meetings between lay parishioners of two churches in Galway, the facilities of a Protestant church were offered to the parishioners of a Catholic church, during a period of renovations to that church. The offer was approved by the Church of Ireland Bishop of Tuam, and indeed there was a further offer to reschedule the Protestant Sunday services to facilitate the Catholic parishioners.

The headline to this article reads "Bishop gives permission to use C of I facility in Galway". Rather amazingly this does not relate to the Protestant bishop but rather to the Catholic bishop giving permission to his parishioners to celebrate Masses in the Protestant church! Is this really an appropriate headline for such an act of generosity?

Maybe, in the not too distant future, the GAA might allow Croke Park to be used for rugby and soccer while Lansdowne Road is being redeveloped. I' m sure the vast majority of the taxpayers of this country, who have provided almost half of the funding for the re-development of Croke Park would be in favour of this. If it were to happen, is it likely the headline in your paper would read, "FAI and IRFU give permission for Irish soccer and rugby teams to use Croke Park"?

I somehow doubt it. - Yours, etc.,

DAVID A. LUKE, Sydney Parade Avenue, Dublin 4.

from 'CLEARANCES'

In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other' s work would bring us to our senses.
So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives-
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

-Seamus Heaney

(The above extract was written in memory of the poet's mother).