Sunday Newsletter

Masses Today

6.30: (Vigil): Michael Murray, (Anniv).
11.00: Jim & Teresa Tully; Maureen Loughnane, (Anniv).
6.30: Laura Carr, (Anniv).

As I Was Saying...

Twenty years ago tomorrow, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. This marked the collapse of Soviet communism. Its failure was not merely economic and political; it was also a moral failure. Over time, communism created a deep revulsion among those who lived under it. Any semblance of legitimacy that still attached itself to the ruling elite soon evaporated and the system unravelled.

At the same time, there was (and still remains) a remarkable moral ambiguity in the West concerning the atrocities committed under communist systems. Tens of millions of people perished as a result of communist policies. By contrast, there has been a great deal of impassioned condemnation of the outrages of Nazism. The most important reason for treating Nazism and communism differently has been the perception that communist crimes were unintended consequences of the pursuit of lofty goals whereas the goals of Nazism themselves were unmitigated evil.

In the outside world, the magnitude of Stalin's tyranny was scarcely grasped. Most of those who travelled to Russia were either businessmen, who came to trade, or intellectuals who came to admire, and to believe! Paul Hollander, in his book "Political Pilgrims" (1981) shows how Western intellectuals embraced Marxist tyrants at the very moment when their Russian colleagues were rotting in prison cells. Meanwhile, the supposed objects of everyone's concern, the common people, were starving.

The decline of religious faith among the educated elite of the West left a spiritual vacuum that was easily filled by a secular superstition. Communism's Utopia replaced Christianity's Heaven. How else can we explain the credulity with which scientists, accustomed to evaluating evidence, and writers, social critics by trade, accepted the crudest Stalinist propaganda at its face value? They needed to believe; they wanted to be duped.

These Western admirers of the Soviet system have done very little soul searching regarding the roots of their beliefs. Their intellectual tradition had long associated idealism with animosity toward commerce, capitalism and religion. They believed that the Soviet system was established in direct opposition to those three 'values' too. How then could they criticise it? The old adage remained true: "The-enemies-of-my-enemies-are-my-friends!"

While the fall of Communism cannot be attributed to any one person, Mikhail Gorbachev was convinced it would have been impossible without John Paul II. "Berlin and Bucharest have become stages in a long pilgrimage toward liberty" John Paul stated in 1989. "In these events, entire peoples spoke out, their irrepressible thirst for liberty speeded up developments, made walls tumble down and opened gates."

However, the Pope never implied that the fall of Communism signified the victory of Capitalism. On the contrary, he remained an unrepentant critic of Capitalism, constantly chiding it for its failure to foster Social Justice.

-Dick Lyng

Happenings

Advent Preparation

SCRIPTURES FOR ADVENT: Don't forget our Advent Scripture sessions:

The Ryan Report

Over the years I have met several survivors of sexual abuse. I have some idea of their terrible pain and certainly do not wish to add to it. Even still some of us tend to treat them as outsiders of whom we are a little afraid in case they may want to get at us. They are our brothers and sisters whom we have treated very badly and who deserve our most sensitive and deepest respect.

I have also met with a number of abusers. I have been taken to task recently by a victim for suggesting that I do not see these abusers as monsters. He pointed out to me that a small child will see a giant sized adult abuser as a monster and I accept his logic. I haven't seen them as monsters, however. They have generally been lonely broken people who for a variety of reasons mostly related to their own childhood have become abusers.

What if you or I had the same childhood experience? We all share a common humanity with a wonderful depth of goodness and also a capacity for evil deeds.

The Ryan Report, shocking though it is, can do us a real service if we resolve as individuals, as Church and as society that we will do all in our power to try to ensure that we will never again treat any group of people as outsiders and that we will treat every person, child or adult, with the respect and dignity which is their right.

-Dr. Willie Walsh, The Furrow, November, 2009.

'What's in a Name?'

New parents Wayne and Coleen Rooney were delighted to announce the birth of their son, Kai Wayne Rooney, this week. But the Manchester United footballer and his wife - who are both Catholics and were married at a converted monastery in La Cervara, near Genoa, in June 2008 - may need to choose an extra name should they wish to have Kai baptised. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a baptismal name can be either a saint or express Christian virtue (such as 'Patience'!) or mystery. It must not be anything that is "foreign to Christian sentiment".

However, Fr Edward Quinn, the priest who married Mr and Mrs Rooney, explained that the name Kai, the sixty-eighth most popular in Britain, means "rejoice" in Finnish so this could be thought appropriate.

Parish priests know all about fashions in names. As Fr Quinn said: "We already have a Kai on the baptismal register and I won't be pressurising them to do anything. Young people these days tend not to choose traditional names, and even at confirmations bishops are presented with names that have more to do with The XFactor than anything else. Sometimes in baptismal cases we do recommend parents choose a third name." (Bishops might not be as indulgent in these matters as parish priests).

Mr and Mrs Rooney will want to avoid more ecclesiastical controversy: the local bishop's office advised them against using the church at La Cervara for their wedding because it was deconsecrated and therefore invalidated the marriage.

Juliet recognised the problem, but failed to address it:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

-Adapted from The Tablet, 7 November, 2009

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