Dear Sir... Readers' Views (11/08/16)
Extremists opposing Maynooth
My own archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, has made a decision in recent days to send seminarians for our diocese to Rome. It is a decision that I do not fully understand. Nor do I need to. It is a decision that I respect, not simply because he is the archbishop, but because I believe that such a decision would only come after much prayer and reflection.
It remains the prerogative of the bishop to chose where the student might study. For many years students for Dublin did not study in Maynooth but Clonliffe. In my years as a student in Maynooth, 2001-2006, there were students studying in various parts of the country and in Rome, Belgium, Spain, and elsewhere. I have no doubt the three students going to Rome will benefit from the experience.
However, the conversation in recent days has opened a much wider debate. There has been talk of sub-cultures, secrecy, and anonymous allegations. This would be intriguing if it were not so sad. It is sad for the many excellent staff who serve and have served in Maynooth, clerical and lay, men and women. It is sad for the present student body in the college. It is also sad for the Church. It is against this backdrop that I would like to put forward another angle for consideration.
I believe there is a clear anti-Maynooth agenda. I believe that this has been there for a long time. This comes from a number of different sources. It comes from some students who were asked to leave the seminary. Some students left disappointed, but with good grace. Others left hurt and angry with bitter beer in their belly. It comes from some people who, like myself, have been hurt by the Church. If we remain stuck in the hurt, and do not seek help to heal it, we can very easily become vindictive and act vengefully. It also comes from a wider group. This group is the one that worries me most. This group is very hard to reason with, mainly because they are acting on God’s behalf. They hunger for a return to a pre-Vatican II church. Sometimes, this will manifest itself in the seminarian who is very keen to get a large Roman collar on, who longs for the Latin Mass, not that there is anything wrong with either of these things in themselves, but sometimes, in my experience, they go hand in hand with a lack of compassion for people. There can be a rigidity and a harshness especially when encountering people’s failures.
When I see this group coming I brace myself. They are easy enough to spot, canon law in one hand and a smoking thurible in the other. They tend to beat people over the head with the law. I often feel Jesus himself might duck when he sees them coming. I remember one young man at the end of his first year exclaiming that he had not seen Mass celebrated properly in the previous 12 months. In fact this was more a comment on himself than the 20 or so priests that he was referring to. He was a fine young man, but sadly he had no chance really. He had arrived to discern had he a vocation to priesthood. He needed to be open to God’s grace working through the seminary community and the formation process, but sadly the odds were stacked against him. There was a group outside the seminary constantly goading him not to listen to what the seminary staff were saying, that they had got it wrong, that they did not know what they were talking about, they were not good priests. No, he had no chance.
So whilst the archbishop’s decision must be respected, let us not forget the complex and sensitive nature of priestly formation. Let us not forget that the religious extremist does not always carry a gun. When we are speaking about the national seminary let us remember we are not simply speaking about bricks and mortar, but a living faith community at the heart of the Church. The least we can do is ensure that we speak with love and only after prayer and reflection.
Denying the reality of abortion
According to Ann Fetton (letters, Irish Examiner, August 3), during abortion, “no child suffers the loss of his/her life. There is no child.” Yet the gender is discernible.
“Babies end up in buckets.” How? “There is no baby”.
Is she accepting there is a bucket?
Killeens
Celibacy is an abnormal state
Once again the Catholic Church has excelled itself.
Bishop Martin has stated that he is to remove his seminarians from Maynooth College due to rumours of sexual activity and accessing a gay website. He wants to send these trainee priests to Rome, sure the lads will have a ball. Rome, city of “la dolce vita”.
When is the Catholic Church going to accept that celibacy is an unnatural state?
Sex was a gift given to us by God to enjoy and procreate. It is a natural appetite like eating, drinking, and sleeping. Why the Church makes such a big issue of it beggers belief.
Kilvere
Recycling centres refusing waste
I now have to assume that ministers of the environment are not actually interested in the environment unless it affects their back garden.
Added to the increasingly disastrous dumping around the country, it is now becoming next to impossible to even recycle many products. The excellent recycling centre here in Tinahely is now having huge amounts of normal material returned to it by the central facility.
Several fairly normal articles of mine have been politely refused by the larger recycling centre in Arklow. The logical consequence of this will be that dumping will increase even more (not me, of course).
It is high time that a responsible environment minister took the obvious step of telling manufacturers and retailers that if a product and its packaging cannot be recycled it may not be sold.
Decreasing dumping in our rural areas by increasing the already grossly irresponsible dumping into the sea to poison our fish or landfills to poison our grandchildren or burning it to poison the air we breathe does also not seem very intelligent. But of course, such ministers are all hoping to be on fat pensions before anybody discovers their negligence.
Horrendous games at Croke Park
I had a premium position in Croke Park on July 30 for the Cork-Donegal match.
What I witnessed at that match was horrendous. This defensive system is a cancer in our game.
To watch Donegal retreat, as they allowed Cork possession from their own kick-outs, which quite often saw all 15 players inside their own 45m line, reminded me of a programme on TV where the sheep dog rounds up all the sheep and gets them into a pen, only Donegal don’t need a sheep dog because they have Rottweilers on the line.
I will say our beloved Cork are not too far behind them in the use of this “system”.
Of course, all this boils down to the present coaches which our lord from Donegal instigated.
These coaches should be ashamed of themselves as the “system” has already wound it’s way down to the U14 level.
The only bright spark at the weekend was Tipperary but I’m feeling sorry for them already, as the vultures are waiting and already planning to assassinate them.
If the GAA might listen to the one man who is trying to do something about it, there might be some hope for Gaelic football. The man I refer to is Joe Brolly.
Too many caught in poverty trap
Election promises, and platitudes that have turned politics into another branch of showbusiness, are of no use to hungry children, and exhausted mothers trying to scratch out an existence in appalling circumstances.
Hence, the result is voter apathy within the electorate, particularly with the young who are becoming more disillusioned with the passing years.
In my humble view, the answer to social change begins at grass-roots level. It originates in primary school, where the segregation between rich and poor is detrimental to the less fortunate. Trying to pay for back to school items is a nightmare for so many. Irish society has traditionally been very unequal, and has been made more so by corporate greed. Once caught in a poverty trap there are very few chances at this level to move up the social strata. Engulfed in the misery and deprivation that accompanies such demoralizing circumstances. Trying to motivate people, with such obstacles in your path, can produce a negative disposition towards the establishment. People are exasperated by savage Government cutbacks that further extend the gap between rich and poor.
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