Homosexuality - Like Fr Blake we should all get real

AS has been seen on so very many occasions, great institutions that imagine they exert a powerful influence over our existence can lag behind society and how we lead our lives.

These institutions – parliaments, churches, banks, justice and educational systems, as well as the media – often observe mores no longer relevant to the lives of considerable sections of the societies that sustain them.

This divergence between theory and reality was at the heart of the storm that forced John O’Donoghue to step down as Ceann Comhairle. Mr O’Donoghue contended that he did no more than follow the norms applied to ministerial expenses. That might have saved him once upon a time but a society angered and frightened by an economic crisis was in no mood to turn the other cheek, and he had to resign.