Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

11.00: Julia, Patrick & Frank O'Donnell, Anniv.

AS I WAS SAYING.....

From any perspective, 2005 was a year of great significance, both benign and malignant. Disasters, both natural and man-made, wreaked havoc on a scale we had not know before. The tsunami disaster dwarfed all modern, natural disasters. Later in the year, the American south drank from the same bitter chalice, as did Pakistan through a devastating earthquake towards the end of the year. But nature was not the only "Angel of Death": in July, 35 innocent people lost their lives in London at the hands of Islamic suicide bombers. Some badly battered chickens were coming home to roost from the war in Iraq.

But all was not bleak. 2005 also saw the long-awaited end to the 30-year bloody conflict in Northern Ireland with the decommissioning of arms by the IRA; this represented one of the few triumphs for patient politics. But what a triumph! We in the south will never fully appreciate what the people of the North have been through.

From the perspective of the Church, 2005 was a truly momentous year, both locally and universally. We witnessed the Church at its worst, and at its very best. The final agony and dignified death of John Paul II, on Saturday April 2nd, moved the world to tears, it seemed. Thanks to television, it was as if the world was present at his death-bed. And they gathered in their millions to mourn him in Rome. Luther's protégé and successor, Doctor Phillip Melanthon, preached the sermon at his mentor's funeral. He famously cried aloud, "Israel's chariot driver has fallen!" Many Catholics felt the same on the death of the Polish pope, and responded accordingly. He had guided the Catholic chariot with an all- too-firm hand for 25 years. Now he was gone, and the chariot must still move on.

The new charioteer was to be his protégé, Joseph Ratzinger. He was 78 years old when elected, which probably tells its own story. He came to office with a well-earned reputation as an unmitigated hard-liner.Since his election, Benedict XVI has done little to signal his intention of remaining in that particular mode. In fact, his early and amicable meeting with his old theological sparring-partner Hans Kung is at variance with that hard-line image. He has been at the helm now for more than seven months. Yet he has done little to signify any great change from the pontificate predecessor. He has settled quietly into the role of caretaker and comes across as a man who is very happy with his lot! As The Tablet noted in its latest edition,

'the most considerable way the "Bavarian aesthete" emerged in contrast to the "Polish athlete" was by his almost delicate joyfulness - and his haberdashery. Photo-reporters discovered a new focus by capturing Benedict XVI's curious penchant for combining stylish shoes and fashionable sunglasses with long-discarded Renaissance-style capes and hats rescued from the papal attic!'

Let's hope that his interest in the papal attic remains exclusively sartorial!

The local Church here in Galway saw big changes too. Bishop McLoughlin's resignation was eventually accepted and a Kilkenny priest, Martin Drennan, was installed as his successor on July 3rd. During his homily that day, Bishop Drennan paid a well-deserved tribute to his predecessor:

Our first prayer is one of heartfelt gratitude for the ministry of Bishop McLoughlin. I know he is looking forward to a sos after getting through an enormous volume of work, first as priest and later as bishop, in this diocese. We wish him good health and many years to enjoy a well deserved sos.

Unfortunately, Bishop Jimmy was not to enjoy for very long his deserved 'sos' wished for him by his successor. He died suddenly, on Friday 25th November, at The Galway Clinic. He was 76 years of age.

The long awaited (and long dreaded) Ferns Report was published on October 25th, providing the Catholic Church with its very own 'annus horribilis'. It is no exaggeration to say that it represented the blackest day in the history of Irish Catholicism. The Report consisted of a layered catalogue of sordid betrayals. Bishop Eamon Walsh acknowledged as much at his press conference:

I wish to acknowledge and accept the findings of the report, that some priests who were ordained for the Diocese should not have been ordained, and would not have been, had those who made complaints, or who had expressed suspicions, been heard. Some young people were abused because some priests wrongly chose to remain silent...

It will take generations for the Church to recover the trust she built up so painstakingly, and squandered so stupidly, and at such an enormous cost to children.

Thank God, the domestic story, in the Augustinian here, was a much happier one. In fact 2005 was a wonderful, if demanding year to be involved with the Augustinian. The completion of the Church on time, and under budget, was as welcome as it was rare. But these things do not happen by accident. We had great teams at work in the form of our three committees. The perfection of the completed product stands as their finest tribute. But, the most brilliant aspect of 2005 was our relationship with the Church of Ireland. It was a joy to be part of that great adventure. Our real challenge now is to maintain those contacts and build on them. It would be such a pity to leave it at that and walk away. But we won't, and you know it! Have a very, very happy 2006. And thanks for everything.

-Dick Lyng

Other items of Interest

Christmas Collections

Once again, for want of something better to do over the Christmas, I returned to the Christmas Mass statistics and ran the comparative grid over them. The € was introduced in January, 2002. To facilitate comparison, I converted the pre-2002 collections to €s. By 2002 also, the 9.00 & 12.15 Masses had been dropped, leaving us with just the Midnight and 11.00 Christmas Masses. Despite this reduction in Masses, the actual collections for Christmas 2002 had increased considerably on the previous year. It is reasonable to assume that this also represented an increase in attendance at Christmas Masses in the Augustinian.

As is obvious from the table below, the Christmas collections increased considerably over last year, an increase of over 25% on last year in fact. (The last line of the table represents the percentage increase over 2004). Whether this reflects a similar increased in attendance or not is difficult to tell. It is particularly difficult to tell this year since our new church layout certainly makes the 'handling' of crowds so much easier. It's also likely that 'the new' attracted new people. Only time will tell.

Year Midnight 11.00 Others total
1987 660.26 615.82 387.27 1,663.36
1988 746.61 844.38 438.06 2,029.04
1989 789.78 749.15 424.09 1,963.02
1993 967.54 1,155.46 415.20 2,538.21
1994 905.32 1,079.28 505.36 2,489.96
1995 747.88 985.32 444.41 2,489.96
1996 1,015.79 965.00 693.28 2,674.07
1997 975.16 1,615.11 359.34 2,949.60
1998 1,333.22 2,606.77 286.96 4,239.66
1999 1,263.39 2,010.00 366.95 3,640.34
2000 1,276.09 2,620.36 370.76 4,275.21
2001 1,508.45 2,602.96 366.95 4,478.37
2002 1,954.13 2,728.67 None 4,682.79
2003 1,875.00 3,395.00 None 5,270.00
2004 1,687.00 2,907.00 None 4,594.00
2005 2,315.00 3,483.00 None 5,798.00
% In-crease over 2004 +37.22% +19.81% +26.20%

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