Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: Delia Heanue, (Anniv).
11.00: Jackie   Annie Nee, (Anniv).
6.30: Bridie Ryan, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

There are 166 lucrative positions falling vacant on Wednesday night next. You will be asked to help fill all those position by Thursday evening. It's an interesting exercise for us, the employers. But Thursday will be a very traumatic day for our 166 redundant employees! Will we rehire, or fire them? They have three days to convince us that they are worth what we pay them.

Our politicians are very, very well paid today. The Taoiseach's salary is now €258,730 a year, while the Tánaiste earns €222,256 and other Ministers get €204,020. An ordinary Dáil deputy earns €96,650. I guess many of you will protest, 'But this is far too much!' or, 'What do we get in return for our money?' (The old adage, 'Pay peanuts and get monkeys' should not be lightly dismissed.)

Understandably, the findings of the various tribunals have left us cynical. But this cynicism can be as corrosive of democracy as the corruption it purports to disdain. In extreme cases, it can lead some to conclude that there are more effective alternatives to democratic debate. Remember the political impotence that paralysed Northern Ireland life in the pre-1969 period?

As we approach the ballot box on Thursday next however, we might do well to check our cynicism by reminding ourselves that politics has served this country very well, especially in recent years. It was politicians (of all shades) who finally transformed the murderous landscape of the North and, who in the process, were themselves transformed by politics. It was politicians too who transformed the south through creating wealth and unprecedented opportunity for our people. Their recent achievements have been spectacular.

So are politicians in it for the money? They are of course. But aren't you working for money! Politicians are generally in politics for much the same reasons as most people are in other occupations; because it suits their talents, because it offers them a living as well as power, status and satisfaction. They live in a world where they are constantly on the edge of success or failure, where they are constantly required to make snap judgments or comments that can turn out to be inspired or disastrous. It is a highly public world, where they are pitched against opponents who are always on the alert for, and trying to encourage, a faux pas, and in the bright light of the media which is equally eager to fall on any infelicitous word, gesture or decision.

Politics will continue to decide our future as much as it did our past. As we cast our votes on Thursday, we should remind ourselves of this fact. We should also treat seriously the men and women who put themselves forward to take on that task. If they betray that trust, as some did, they then deserve all the opprobrium that comes their way. If we fail to play our part by voting, we too deserve a measure of opprobrium.

-Dick Lyng

Items of Some Interest

St. Rita of Cascia Annual Triduum

Beginning on Saturday, May 19th Rosary, Sermon & Benediction Each Evening at 7.30

Preacher: Fr. Michael Brennock, OSA

Mass of the Feast on Tuesday May 22nd, 11.00

The Irish Church and Affluence

Among the social elites and in media circles, there is not much respect for religious faith. Part of this stems from a lack of understanding; some of it has its roots in the Church's handling of the sex abuse cases but, in large measure, it arises from what the sociologist, Emile Durkheim, once described as a sense of anomie, a rejection of any externally imposed norms of behaviour.

There is an almost adolescent quality to the Irish use of the new freedom afforded many of its citizens by growing affluence. Freedom is mistaken for licence and the embrace of hedonistic life-styles. There are so few fixed points to anchor people that many find little meaning in their lives, and affluence frequently cloaks a sense of aimlessness and hopelessness.

Few look to the Church for guidance and comfort: its pedigree is flawed. The institution retains many of the appurtenances of status but the one essential quality - credibility - is lacking. Church leaders may lay the blame for this on a few aberrant sexual deviants in the ranks, but the real failure has been in pastoral leadership. This failure of leadership is evident in many ways but most astonishingly in the loss to the Church of the allegiance and support of the working class poor. There are working class areas in Dublin, for example, where regular Church attendance is less than 10%. That is a leadership failure of lamentable proportions and results from a lack of courage and vision.

-Oliver Moloney in 'The Furrow', May, 2007.

Suicide in Ireland Today

Between 1960 and 1965, an average of 64 people died each year by suicide. In the last 5 years an average of 477 died. In 2005, 431, 353 males and 78 females, took their own lives. This represents a more than a seven fold increase since the sixties. In 2005, 399 died in road traffic accidents. It is accepted that there is a measure of under reporting of suicides.

Therefore many more die by suicide than by road traffic accidents. Some road accidents are suicide. In Mayo in 2002 the coroner brought in a verdict of suicide on 2 road deaths. There are extensive resources allocated (and rightly so) to promote road safety. The amount spent on suicide prevention, in comparison is dismal.

Suicide is now the most common cause of death among 15 to 24 year olds in Ireland. A disturbing feature is the level of the male suicide rate, which accounts for 80% of deaths.

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