Charity points to our society’s deep failure

Christmas is a festival of consumption rather than a celebration of the universal values of faith, hope, and charity. Christmas represents the kind of rampant, out-of-control commercialism that makes Ebenezer Scrooge’s 1843 bah-humbug dismissal seem appropriate if a tad curmudgeonly.

What is entirely inappropriate though, especially in one of the richest countries in the world, is that lifeline charity the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul has warned that 2,500 families in Cork will depend on food parcels this Christmas.

This figure and our shameful housing crisis are deep indictments of this society and how we conduct our affairs.