Parish Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Michael Murray, (Anniv).
12.00: Colm Ferguson & Rory Kavanagh, (Anniv).
6.30: Martin & Kate Cleary, (Anniv).

AS I WAS SAYING.....

Authority, we are told, is seeping away from Tony Blair. In the wake of the Ferns Report, authority has all but collapsed in the Catholic Church in Ireland, we are also told. For the moment, I make no comment on whether that is true or not - but what does interest me is the use of the word 'authority'. It's not a word we hear discussed very often these days. Yet in reality it is a notion that is fundamental to human society, political or religious - and indeed to our own individual lives.

First, a simple but basic distinction. Power and authority are not the same. If you have the power to make people do what you want, it may create the impression of authority: but authority may in fact have drained away. Iran is creeping back into the news again. A few years ago the Shah of Iran had all the outward panoply of power: a large army, the latest western tanks, a vicious secret police. Yet a single voice, an exiled Ayatollah, brought the whole pack of cards tumbling down. For the reality was that people had withdrawn their consent and transferred it elsewhere. A similar situation emerged in Eastern Europe, in the old Soviet satellites. Popular consent was finally withdrawn and the whole edifice came crashing down.

Authority depends utterly on consent freely given. This consent, sustained over a long period of time, depends in the end on a recognition of what is of worth, and what is true. Real authority is founded on trust. If trust evaporates, as seems to be the case with Mr Blair, authority collapses. 'We can no longer trust him' is a constant refrain since he was accused of lying over Iraq. Václav Havel, the playwright and later President of Czechoslovakia, called a book of his essays 'Living in the Truth'. During the Communist regime, which he regarded as the great lie, he thought that the most effective opposition was simply to live truthfully. For example, he encouraged shop-keepers to take down Communist Party slogans from their windows. Understandably, the Communist Party did not trust him, and withdrew his travel documents. He was, in effect, a prisoner in his own country for thirty years. But, through his 'authentic living', he emerged as THE authority, despite the tanks and armies arrayed against him. And Mandela's uplifting story is too familiar to be repeated here.

'Truth' and 'authentic living' are crucial to the presence of real authority. The Ferns Report highlighted an absence of both to an extraordinary degree. As happened with the Communist Party, the institution seems to have regarded itself as 'the greatest good'. Time will reveal the extent to which consent is withdrawn. But one thing is certain: Irish Catholicism will never be the same again. But, would we want it to be?

In Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus tells a parable outlining the distinction between wisdom and folly. The author takes care to record the reaction of the crowd: "When Jesus has finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes". I fear that, over the last 50 years, too many Scribes have been promoted in the Catholic Church. Authority has suffered badly as a result. Authentic living deserves one last try!

-Dick Lyng

Incidentally....

Remembrance Day

They shall not grow old,
as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

As we Irish people work to build a shared and peaceful present and future on this island, it is appropriate that the memories of all 200,000 young men from all parts of this island who fought at the Somme and elsewhere in that war are similarly honoured. We can no longer have two histories, separate and in conflict. We must acknowledge that the experiences of all the people on this island have shaped our present and, in some way, defined what it is for all of us to be Irish.

When President McAleese and Queen Elizabeth opened the Memorial Peace Park at Messines, they reminded us that men of different Irish traditions fought side-by-side 90 years ago, their historic differences transcended by a common cause. Of the 200,000 Irishmen who volunteered for service with the British army, at least half were Catholic and many of them strong Irish nationalists. An estimated 50,000, both Catholic and Protestant, never came home.

The bonds forged among the Irish soldiers is best exemplified by the tribute paid to Father Willie Doyle, one of 30 Irish Catholic priests to die in the war, by a Belfast Orangeman in the Glasgow Weekly News on September 1st, 1917: "Father Doyle was a good deal among us. We couldn't possibly agree with his religious opinions, but we simply worshipped him for other things. He didn't know the meaning of fear and he didn't know what bigotry was. He was as ready to risk his life to take a drop of water to a wounded Ulsterman, as to assist men of his own faith and regiment. If he risked his life in looking after Ulster Protestant soldiers once, he did it a hundred times."

The Irish men of the first World War died side-by-side. They are remembered side-by-side in Messines and their sacrifice should be honoured by all of us on this island this weekend without reservation.

-Dermot Ahearn, TD.

Clongowes Remembers

For political reasons we have underestimated the Irish Catholic presence in the British army during the First World War. Clongowes Wood College which was, and is today, run by the Jesuits, supplied five hundred and sixteen ex students up to the 30th of May 1917, including the Poet Tom Kettle, and Willie Redmond, the brother of the Nationalist Party leader, John Redmond. Six Jesuit members of staff enlisted, one of whom was Fr Willie Doyle, Chaplain to the Dublin Fusiliers. Forty two Clongownians joined the Dublin Fusiliers, ten were killed, one of whom was Capt. Mick Fitzgibbon from Castlerea Co. Galway, killed in Gallipoli on the 15th of August 1915. Each week during the war, two special masses were said for Clongownians at the Front. The Boys offered their Holy Communion on Mondays, and their Rosaries on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays for the same intentions.