Looking at what is happening in Washington these days, it appears as if the very fabric of US democracy is breaking down. The system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers carefully put in place is creaking badly and urgently needs an overhaul.
It is damaging to democracy that scantily populated states like Vermont and Wyoming should have the same power in the US senate as California and Texas. It is damaging to democracy to have an electoral system in place that gives the highest office in the land to someone who fails to win a majority of the votes. Democracy is about honouring the will of the people – something the electoral college does not. It is damaging to democracy when the three branches of government fail to hold one other in check. When the Senate fails to hold the Executive to account, as is now happening, then the constitution is being flouted, and government is breaking down.
America is in a mess, a country deeply divided. Unscrupulous players are manipulating social media to exacerbate these divisions. The occupant of the White House has no respect for truth or integrity. The party of which he is a member has wilfully colluded in his egregious machinations so that it can stuff the federal courts with right-wing judges who will remain in office for a generation. There is every possibility that should he lose the election in November, neither he nor his supporters will accept the result, leading to an even bigger constitutional crisis. Putin, and every enemy of democracy, is thrilled by what is happening.
The fact that so many Christians have publicly aligned themselves with this president is a scandal. The occupant of the Oval Office has ably demonstrated that he is a naked opportunist with no real commitment to the pro-life cause, as his rhetoric and policies show. He may claim to be anti-abortion, but he is not pro-life. Its identification with this man has irrevocably tarnished Christianity in the US. The Christian should be identified by her concern for the poor, by her support for human and civil rights, by her determination to build bridges and promote reconciliation as well as by her opposition to the death penalty and easy access to guns. If right-wing evangelical Christianity and its ‘prosperity gospel’ is forever tarnished through its association with this president, at least that is one good thing he will have done.
Month: January 2020
Benedict needs to silence himself
Reports from Rome suggest that retired Pope Benedict XVI is co-authoring a book defending mandatory celibacy. According to the National Catholic Reporter, the ex-pontiff says he could not remain silent on the issue even as Pope Francis is considering the possibility of allowing older, married men to be ordained as priests in the Amazon region. At the close of the synod on the Amazon in October 2019 the members recommended by a vote of 128-41 that Francis allow for bishops in the region to ordain married deacons as priests, should circumstances so merit. The book is co-written with Cardinal Robert Sarah, the head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, and is expected to be published this week.
Francis is reported to be working on an apostolic exhortation in which he is expected to respond to the synod’s request to permit the ordination of married priests.
This intervention by the retired pope on an issue currently being considered by the reigning pope is both dangerous and unprecedented.
Pope Benedict aptly nobly when he resigned from the papacy. It was a courageous move, a breaking with tradition, a radical letting go. People assumed that after he stepped down, he would go quietly into retirement, careful not to step on his successor’s toes, knowing there can ever only be one pope at a time.
Benedict should have left the city of Rome and withdrawn to a monastery or retirement home in his native Germany. He should not have remained in the Vatican.
He should have cast off the papal white and worn the robes of a cardinal or simple priest.
He should have dropped the word pope from his title and used a new title, such as emeritus bishop of Rome, to indicate his altered status and so that people would not think there are two popes, two voices of authority in the church.
He should have stated his intention to remain neutral on issues affecting the church, keeping a stoic silence above the fray. Knowing he could no longer do the job himself, he should have allowed his successor the freedom to do the job, without public comment or interference.
He should have known that Francis’s enemies would use him as a weapon, a figure to rally round, in their battle to prevent any real change in the church.
Benedict acted nobly in deciding to retire. The decisions he has made subsequently have not only been unfortunate but dangerous. By speaking out publicly on such a divisive and sensitive topic as mandatory celibacy, he has placed Pope Francis in an awkward position. Benedict is encouraging dissent. He is widening the divisions in the church. He is increasing the possibility of schism.
In the past, those who dared criticise Benedict or his predecessor were summarily dealt with, told to desist, effectively silenced. Some are still being punished. Many of those who tolerated no criticism of the pope or the institutional church when John Paul II and Benedict were in office, now have no problem in openly attacking Pope Francis.
Of course, mandatory celibacy is a core pillar of clericalism. It’s no surprise that Benedict wants to maintain it. It is most disappointing that he would air his views publicly, knowing the damage it would do to Francis and the church.
Sadness and the return of the black dog
Wine makes me melancholic, but I haven’t needed alcohol to feel melancholic these days. The black dog has been nibbling at my feet all week, and the only escape is the sanctuary of sleep. Thankfully, I have had only the occasional confrontation with the black dog in the last year or so, but he has pinned me against the wall right now.
While he can appear without warning, several factors facilitate his appearance. When they coalesce, I am trapped. For how long I never know. Fortunately, it is usually a relatively quick visit, and I can scramble towards the light again.
The first Christmas without my parents left me feeling orphaned. Being a bachelor with no family of my own, my Christmas always revolved around my parents – enjoying their cosy fireside presence, being entertained by my father’s annual indictment of the appalling rubbish on the telly, taking them on mandatory visits around the family circle, the long, lazy, chocolate-fuelled days lapping up their unconditional love.
Many times this lonely festive season, I have heard my mother’s voice call out in my dreams, pictured her sitting across from me at mealtimes policing my use of the salt cellar. I have smiled at the memory of my father surreptitiously slipping sugar in his tea when her back was turned.
In the four Christmases since my father’s passing, the time spent with my mother became even more significant. She missed him as only a true lover can, her tender heartbroken, and she missed her sisters who had always come home for Christmas but were now going home to God. Though children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren surrounded her, she missed the company and companionship and connection that her life partner had brought her and I missed it too. My first Christmas without both of them was as bad as I had feared.
The dawn of a new decade inevitably induces nostalgia. I have been thinking of the fine Redemptorists who died in the last ten years and of those who have left. When I joined four decades ago, I saw life and vibrancy and young seminarians with long hair strumming on guitars. I smelled excitement and possibility. I saw my future mapped out; I’d be one of a merry band of brothers crisscrossing the country filling churches with good news.
Now I see change and decay and good men in obvious physical decline, and the black dog sneering at me about a futureless future and a life misled. I look at a clerical church that is 200 years behind the times and wonder if the changes that are needed will ever come about. I despair that the entrenched culture of clericalism and careerism that facilitated the abuse of the most vulnerable and the misuse of power and money can ever be destroyed.
I look at flames devouring Australia and waters inundating Venice and wonder whether puny politicians and myopic vested interests will ever begin to take climate catastrophe seriously. I scan social media and online comments pages and weep at the hatred and racism and sexism and homophobia and abuse that little people hurl at others and how, for all our technical and scientific progress, tribalism and fear and misogyny and insecurity continue to drive wedges between individuals and peoples and nations.
I preach all the time about the importance of practising present moment awareness, of living each day in the now, of appreciating every moment. But when my chronic pain spikes and the black dog appears, I want to flee from the present moment; I withdraw to my room. I stop reading. Even my wit dries up. I just want to disappear. I seek solace in slumber.
As long as the black dog lingers, each day is a going through the motions. I fulfil my duties as well as I can; I continue to preach to the best of my ability; I pray and place my melancholia before the God of compassion and love, and I know that any day now the black dog will scuttle away defeated and I’ll be back to myself, and those living with me will be obliged to endure my remarkable wit once again.
A decade of highs and very lows
I’m not sorry to see the back of the teens. The last decade has been the most difficult of my life, and while it hasn’t been all bleak, I have little reason to look back on these years with any fondness.
It was a decade of losses. I lost my parents and many other close loved ones. This was the first Christmas without my mother, whom I miss beyond words.
I lost my health and have had to live with daily chronic pain since the summer of 2014. During the first couple of years, the pain was so intense and my self-pity was so all-consuming that I did not want to go on living.
I lost my innocent belief in the power of medicine and medics to alleviate pain and not merely to treat a patient as just another client to cross off their list as soon as convenient.
I lost my job in Redemptorist Communications that gave me joy, routine and a sense of purpose.
I lost my reputation as a responsible, ‘reliable’ priest, having been officially sanctioned by the Vatican.
I lost my home in Dublin and my parish chaplaincy in Rathgar where I felt stimulated as priest and pastor.
I lost any lingering delusion of being a young man. I had to accept the reality of rapidly advancing middle age and that my best years, and any possibilities of new beginnings, were now behind me.
I lost hope for the future of the Redemptorists (and of religious life as we knew it) in Ireland and the Western world. I am one of the last generation of Irish religious.
As fascism, narrow nationalism and right-wing populism gained momentum across the world, I lost hope that people, brought together through the potentially unifying power of social media, would focus on what unites rather than divides.
I lost the naive assumption that social media would bring people together and be a force for good rather than become an easily manipulated tool that undermines democracy, spreads fake news, and feeds people’s worst instincts.
From being a life-long lover of US politics and the US presidency, I lost respect for the office of president and for the party of Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and Eisenhower which allowed itself to become the willing poodle of an insane, dangerous demagogue.
The tragedy of Brexit damaged the affection I had built up for Britain following the Good Friday Agreement and the queen’s successful visit to Ireland in 2011. Now we see the worst of England, a country pining for a glorious past it will never recover. It’s hard to forgive the injury the Brexiteers are doing to the cause of harmony in Europe and especially to the welfare of the people of the island of Ireland.
The last decade brought many positives too.
I have gained four family members, grandnephews and grandnieces, that are a source of wonder and joy.
I found a warm welcome and extraordinary support from the Redemptorist community in Limerick, which helped me through my early days of physical pain and wallowing self-pity. It reminded me of the value of religious life.
I have discovered that my preaching has improved with age and enjoy the task of putting a challenging and engaging homily together.
I have – I think – become more tolerant and pleasant to live with. Suffering has made me more human and improved my sense of humour.
Without deadlines to meet, I have read far more and more widely than in the past and would like to think I am more educated now.
As I have aged, I have become more liberal/progressive/lefty in my views. The downside is that I am also more intolerant of those with whom I disagree.
My reading has helped me to see the world from a feminist perspective and to be even more ashamed of my church’s failure to include women as equals.
The election of Pope Francis filled me with hope, to which I continue to cling. He is trying to effect real change in the face of stiff opposition from powerful forces in the curia and in the church who seek to stifle him at every turn.
I am delighted that the 2010s has been a good decade for the LGBTI community in Ireland and many other countries with the introduction of marriage equality and other rights. However, much remains to be done, especially concerning protecting those who are transgender.
The last decade has been good too from a sporting point of view. Limerick won the All Ireland hurling title in 2018. Having attended five finals which they lost, I thought I would never see the day when the McCarthy Cup would come back to Limerick. Their unexpected triumph filled me with happiness.
The same goes for Liverpool FC. Under the wonderful Jurgen Klopp, the team is playing with a style and panache I never dreamed possible ten years ago. When they win the Premiership in May, most of my dreams will have been completed.
frommypulpit 