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Words delivered at the funeral of my Aunt Mary, Sr Peter, Cork (November 16, 2016)

The last time I saw Aunty Mary really fully alive was two and a half years ago when we gathered in the nursing home in Boherbue to mark an extraordinary achievement – her platinum jubilee of profession. Alongside two others, she was celebrating 70 years as a Sister of Mercy, 70 years as a member of a religious family that has done wonderful work for God since it was founded in 1831.

Aunty Mary was in her element that day. She may have been in her 92nd year, dependent on a walker to get around and on others to manage her getting up and laying down, but her mind was sharp, and there was that familiar twinkle in her eye and bubbly smile of enthusiasm and anticipation that I always associated with her. It was the last of many wonderful times we celebrated together.

Her memory began to fail soon after that milestone event, so that for the past two years she had been gradually losing touch with home and family and community and world. A frail little woman, still smiling, but without life in her, the twinkle in her eye now no more. To see her like that, little more than a shell, not knowing who we were, not able to initiate conversation, not asking about grandnephews and grandnieces, especially whomever she had deemed was her current pet, was distressing and we are relieved that she is now free at last, enjoying the just reward of a good and faithful servant of God.

Today we gather not so much to mourn as to celebrate, and there is much celebrating to do.

There was the length of life and of good health that God gave her. She lived to see incredible change in the world and in the church. She was born in Doon, Co. Limerick in 1921, just as Ireland was gaining its independence. She left home to join the Sisters of Mercy in faraway Macroom, Co. Cork as war raged across Europe and the Far East. She made her first vows in 1944, as D-Day was about to get underway in France, and vocations were plentiful and churches were full. She was witness to the dramatic changes in the church in the period after Vatican II, from an era of strict enclosure and uncomfortable religious garb to greater freedom and less restrictive dress. Though she was no fashionista and came late to the world of fashion, she liked a nice suit and a healthy splash of colour.

The changes in the church also made it possible for her to go home more often. And that, she did. She must have been one of the very few religious sisters in Ireland to still have her own bed in the house of her birth right into her nineties. And home she came, as often as she could, until just a few years ago. She was so fortunate to be able to do that, and we were fortunate that she could.

She was, of course, a teacher. But she wasn’t just a dedicated teacher, good at her job. She was an outstanding teacher, great at her job. Time and again, her primary school classes won prizes at local and national level, in essay writing and in other competitions. One prize was a replica copy of the Book of Kells. But Aunty Mary, or Sr Peter as generations of Macroom students would have called her, wasn’t obsessed with winning prizes. She was focused on educating children, encouraging them to realise their full potential, as in one example of two special needs pupils who floundered at school until they came under Aunty Mary’s tutelage. She changed their lives, and enabled them to flourish, to be the best they could be.

There was her strong work ethic and commitment. In 1988, upon reaching retirement age at home, she headed off to Africa for two years, to teach there. She could have taken it easy, put her feet up, or got involved in some local project, but she would have none of that. She wanted to do more, to teach a while longer, if she could, while she could, and so she went to Kenya. She wasn’t the least bit apprehensive about having to adjust to such a different culture at her age. Instead, it invigorated her.

And once back home in Macroom, she remained active – arranging readers for Mass, promoting Reality magazine, assisting the local parish and community in any way she could, until finally, into her 90s, worn out, she could do no more. No one can question Aunty Mary’s zeal.

There was her love of life. She spent almost a century on this earth and she embraced it with relish. She had what seemed like an almost childlike enthusiasm about her, an effervescence, that made it easy for people to engage with her and for her to accept and embrace whatever challenges came her way, whether they were the changes in the church and religious life or the changing circumstances of her own.

There was her love of family. Everything she did, outside of her commitments in the classroom and the convent, she did for us. I experienced that love personally in so many ways throughout my life. She took me on my first grown-up holiday, to Ballyferriter in Kerry, when I was all of 10 years old. We spent a week in a B&B over a pub, she and two other sisters and myself, alongside Americans and all kinds from far and wide. Her wonderful ability to make friends meant that a nice Dublin couple with two young daughters took the three nuns and myself along with them on their daily trips to the beach. I remember, too, that every day during that week she had me do some reading. Even while on holiday, she continued to teach.

I remember all the stories she typed out for me before I got a typewriter of my own, and all the books she bought for me when I was in the Philippines and couldn’t get them myself, and all the copies of Reality magazine she sold for me, many hundreds of them, with her ledger full of subscribers and her accounts carefully tallied to the last penny. I knew the reason she did it was out of love for me.

When my sisters got married, she did their wedding booklets. Whenever we had a major family celebration, she got the younger participants to practice the readings, just as she always encouraged them with their study. She might have lived in Macroom and elsewhere for periods during her long life, but the house in which she was born always remained home.

And, of course, there was her religious vocation, which was the foundation of all that she did and represented. She loved God and she loved being a Sister of Mercy. She was a wonderful advertisement for the religious life – a simple, happy, smiling woman, without airs or issues or graces, without arrogance or resentment or regret, without a doleful hankering after the good old days of the past but, rather, a hope-filled trust in God’s promise and plan for the future. A joy-filled woman always loyal to the vows she made nearly three quarters of a century ago; a faith-filled woman who lived in love of God through humble service of others.

She was indeed a good and faithful servant. And even though we gather today to commend Aunty Mary to God and to celebrate a live well lived, there is sorrow and sadness too. For her passing is reflective of a larger passing taking place in the church in Ireland and in the West. The convent where she spent most of her life is gone now, like so many others throughout the country; that extraordinary era when so many thousands of generous women like Aunty Mary entered the religious life is now just part of history; future generations of young Irish will not have the benefit of the selfless service and sacrifice of religious like Aunty Mary, nor will the Irish church.

But enough of that… she wouldn’t want us to be morose or nostalgic today. Instead, as we say goodbye to our beloved aunt and sister, we acknowledge her wonderful legacy, and that of all good religious such as she. We thank the Lord for the many blessings with which he blessed her and the strong faith which he gifted her, and we entrust her soft, gentle soul to the merciful embrace of the God she served so well.

Trump is not pro-life

One of the most shocking aspects of the long and troubling US presidential election campaign has been the support Donald Trump received from the Christian right. Of course, the Christian right has supported the Republican nominee for president for decades. Evangelists like Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and others have always been cheerleaders for GOP candidates, using the party of Lincoln as a vehicle to promote their own socially and economically conservative agenda. Aware of the size of this constituency (though it is now shrinking fast) and the influence of its leaders, GOP candidates always make sure to have the Christian right on their side.

Whether one supported their agenda or not, it was easy to see why the Christian right would coalesce around the candidate of the Republican Party. Over more than 30 years, they have shared the same values and worldview. But this year is different. This year the Republican Party nominated a candidate who, one would have thought, could not possibly be endorsed by any respected Christian leader of any denomination. A three-times married narcissist who not only mocks the disabled, disrespects women, uses xenophobic and inflammatory language about immigrants, stirs racial tensions, and threatens anyone who disagrees with him, but who also never had any real interest in religion, should make people like Jerry Falwell Jr recoil in horror.

How could a demagogue like Trump receive the public blessing of a preacher like Robertson or the family of Billy Graham? Seemingly because he meets the only two criteria that they seek in a candidate for the office of president: that you claim to be pro-life and that you are the official nominee of the Republican Party. So what if you label Mexicans rapists and joke about groping women – as long as you say you are anti-abortion and in favour of traditional family values, then all is well and good.

Some US Catholic Church clergy have been no better than their Christian right counterparts. One Catholic parish in San Diego included an article in its Sunday bulletin saying Catholics were going to hell if they voted for Hillary Clinton and claiming Clinton was influenced by Satan. Another priest posted a pro-Trump video with a picture of a naked fetus on an altar. Some culture warrior bishops have contorted themselves in an effort to try to sound neutral while at the same time emphasising the singular importance of the sanctity of life.

Of course, the church is pro-life and must always stress its importance, but does anyone seriously believe that Trump is a pro-life enthusiast? That he would be able or willing to do what previous Republican presidents going back 40 years were unable to do?

And being pro-life is more than being anti-abortion. To be pro-life means to cherish all life from womb to tomb. It means opposing the death penalty, supporting families who are struggling to make ends meet, ensuring a fairer tax system and access to health care. To be pro-life means showing solidarity with refugees forced to flee their homes and homelands. It means rejecting racism, sexism and bigotry wherever they are to be found. A pro-life Christian is a unifier who espouses a consistent ethic of life, a person who is capable of empathy and conciliation, one who believes in building bridges not walls. Donald Trump is not such a person. His language and actions are the opposite of pro-life.

Of course, Hillary Clinton has many faults too. Her record is not unblemished and she is clearly pro-abortion rights, but she is not a narcissist or political extremist who uses inflammatory language to stir up dangerous nativist passions. She may not make a great president but she is far, far better than the alternative.

I won’t be alive to see a woman pope, but I hope that in a few hours I will see the first female president of the United States. I hope it will also mark the end of the unfortunate and unholy alliance between the Republican Party and the Christian right.

My problem with saint-making

All Saints is one of my favourite feasts. It’s an opportunity for me to remember the many saints I have known over the years who have passed from this life – family members, colleagues, friends – and to celebrate also the countless others who have lived saintly lives throughout history. I think this year especially of my father, who died 11 months ago, and my Aunt Mary, who died two weeks ago, as well as Fr Jacques Hamel, brutally beheaded in France, and of all those Christians who are being martyred every day in Syria and Iraq.

It’s a reminder also of my call to become a saint, even if I will never get to join the list of those in the official calendar of the church’s saints.

One thing’s for sure – there is no shortage of saints in the Catholic calendar. Pope John Paul II made sure of that. During his 26-year pontificate he canonised 482 saints and beatified 1,300 – far more than any pope in history. Indeed, between 1000 a.d. and 1978 a.d., fewer than 450 men and women were made saints by the Catholic Church. In other words, John Paul doubled this number all on his own.

He loved making saints. Many people would see that as a good thing. After all, we are all called to be saints, and surely we can never have too many of them.

But I have a number of problems with the saint-making process, especially as it developed under John Paul.

The first has to do with changes that made canonisation easier. The ‘Devil’s advocate’ was thrown out the window or, at least, downgraded to such a degree that the role is no longer recognisable. I’d prefer the more stringent process that existed in the past.

Then there is the speed of some canonisations. Several saints have been canonised within a very short period of their deaths. Yes, that happened occasionally in the past too, but what’s the rush? A wait-and-see attitude is always wise so that nothing might emerge in later years to cast a shadow on a particular saint.

Another issue has to do with the criteria John Paul II used when saint-making. He canonised more saints in his 26 years as pope than all popes of the previous millennium combined. He canonised all types. So, it’s extraordinary that he ignored Oscar Romero. Many people in El Salvador and throughout the Catholic world consider Romero to be a martyr for the faith, and yet the Vatican under John Paul and Benedict made no move to advance Romero’s cause. Why was Romero not canonised when so many others were? One would have to conclude that ideology and politics were at play; that JPII did not want to endorse someone so publicly associated with liberation theology, even though he was himself the most political of popes.

Pope Francis, of course, has no such hesitation. One of his first acts as pope was to put Romero on the road to sainthood.

Then there is the policy of almost automatically canonising popes. People accept that those elected to the papacy, at least in modern times, are good and holy men. Why, then, the need to canonise them? And if some popes are not canonised, does that mean they were less holy or great than those who were?

Of course, a danger with canonising popes is that it becomes all about church politics. Conservative Catholics will always refer to Pope John Paul as Saint John Paul the Great, whereas liberal Catholics – who prefer Saint John XXIII – are more likely to refer to him simply as John Paul. Indeed, it was to appease both right and left that canny Pope Francis canonised JPII and John XXIII on the same day. When I hear someone talk about Saint John Paul the Great, I know exactly where he or she stands theologically. Better not to canonise any pope than to turn the whole process into a political and ideological battle.

Then there’s the money involved. Saints don’t come cheap. Unless a group or religious order has the cash and resources to promote the cause of someone they would like to have canonised, it’s not going to happen quickly or at all. There’s something unseemly about mixing cash and saint-making.

So, let’s ease off on the saint-making and focus more on All Saints, those we have known and those who have gone before us, too numerous to tally.

New Vatican rules on cremation will only put people off

Earlier this week the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a new instruction on the burial of the dead and on cremation, entitled “Ad resurgendum cum Christo” (“To Rise with Christ”). The instruction states that because of its belief in the resurrection of the body and because the human body is an essential part of a person’s identity, the church insists that the bodies of the deceased be treated with respect and laid to rest in a consecrated place.

Burial of the remains of the deceased is the church’s preferred option, but cremation is also permitted. In fact, the Catholic Church has permitted cremation since 1963, but only now has got around to issuing specific instructions as to what should be done with a person’s ashes.

The instruction forbids the scattering of ashes (there goes my plan to have my ashes scattered over the hallowed turf of Anfield!) as well as the growing practice of keeping cremated remains at home. Instead, the urn containing the person’s ashes should be placed in a sacred place – a columbarium or tomb – that is marked with the person’s name.

It’s no surprise that there has been strong reaction to this latest Vatican decree. Some have welcomed it, saying it was necessary to have clarity on the issue. Many have ridiculed it, suggesting that it demonstrates how out of touch the Vatican is. Others have said there are far more important issues the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith should be focussing on rather than what to do with people’s remains. Others see it as a joke, just as they do the whole idea of the raising up of the dead person’s body to new life on the last day. So, their response is, let the deceased’s family decide what they want to do with his or her ashes, and how they want to mark their loved one’s death.

One of the Vatican’s chief concerns in publishing this instruction is for the respectful disposition of the dead. “A human cadaver is not trash,” said Cardinal Muller at the press briefing, and an anonymous burial or scattering of ashes “is not compatible with the Christian faith. The name, the person, the concrete identity of the person” is important because God created each individual and calls each to himself.

There is no doubt that some people, a very few people, do not treat their loved one’s ashes in a respectful way, and putting them into items of jewellery or pendants or dispersing tiny quantities around the world to different family members does not sound edifying or even proper.

But it’s also true to say that almost everybody, whether they are Christian or not, do not see or treat the dead body of a loved one as “trash” simply to be disposed of as they fit. They do try to treat it in a respectful way, often in accordance with the specific wishes of the deceased person. Occasionally, how they do this may be unconventional, but that does not mean the deceased will be forgotten in time or will be cut off from God’s embrace or the possibility of resurrection. While reasonable in much of what it has to say, to many people this CDF instruction is all about laying extra burdens on grieving families at a most vulnerable time in their lives.

And when it comes to respecting the dead, a tradition the Vatican might look at is the use/abuse of saints’ relics. How respectful is it to the body of a saint to put his or her relics on display, or have fragments of bone or hair scattered here and there across the globe?

A fact, too, that cannot be ignored is that cremations are cheaper than burials when expenses like the cost of a grave and headstone are factored in, so they are going to rise in popularity in Ireland and elsewhere irrespective of what conditions the Vatican lays down.

And if priests or bishops take a heavy handed approach to implementing this new instruction, all it will do is reduce the number of funerals held in church and further alienate people from the faith.

That would be a disaster because the Catholic funeral liturgy – its solemnity, symbols, rituals – is one of the great treasures of the church, that offers wonderful solace and support to families in their grief.

Finally, how is this new policy going to be policed? Will grieving families be forced to spell out what they will do with their loved one’s ashes before a Catholic liturgy is permitted? And afterwards, what can a priest or parish clerk or busybody do to ensure that the ashes have been disposed of as the CDF wishes?

As church, we must always strive to do what’s best for the bereaved. We should always be careful not to place unnecessary burdens on people.

Words delivered at the funeral of my aunt, Mary Kelly (Oct 20, 2016)

As we know, a bitter presidential election campaign is slowing drawing to a close in the United States. It has had many low points, and few high points. But there is a statement Michelle Obama has made a couple of times now that has resonated with many people, and that I thought of too, as I looked back on the life of my aunt, Mary Kelly. Speaking of her opponents, Michelle Obama said: “When they go low, we go high.”

Go high…

That is what Aunty Mary did all her life, both in a literal and a metaphorical sense – go high. She went high. She always went high.

She was born and bred on high ground in the hill country of Croughmarka almost 93 years ago. She crossed those hills every day to go to school. She met and fell in love with and married a young man called Paddy, also born and bred on high ground in the same hill country. They spent most of their wedded lives together living on high ground, in a house nestled in the hills of Commonaline, rearing a family in often challenging conditions, when farming was tough, and frugality a necessity, and the weather not always hospitable. But being high up in the hills didn’t matter to Mary. She loved the mountains and she loved the outdoors.

Towns, cities, exotic foreign destinations, overseas travel – none of these held the slightest attraction for her. It was on the high ground – enjoying its grace-filled natural beauty, imbibing its unspoilt, invigorating fresh air, feeling the mountain dew beneath her feet, living in tune with the rhythm of the seasons – it was in Commonaline where she felt at home and happy and fully alive.

Go high. Aunty Mary went high.

But her going high wasn’t just a geographical thing, a matter of physical location. Aunty Mary went high in so many other ways too, the ways that define and describe one’s character, the essence of who a person truly is.

She had a high moral compass – a just woman who lived by the simple truth and did not tolerate wrongdoing; values she inculcated in her children and grandchildren.

She had a highly developed work ethic and sense of responsibility. Whether outside or inside the house, she worked long hours for long years for as long as she could, no cribbing about it. For her, it was simply doing her duty.

She had high standards of cleanliness – the yards and sheds always immaculate, her house spotless, too. One marvelled at how it could be done and how she did it.

She had a high sense of respect for others, was slow to speak ill of anyone, and was always warm in her welcome. She had a knack for making everyone feel special. Her constant smile reflected that. The way those in the nursing home loved her confirmed it.

She had an extraordinarily high capacity to love. She loved Paddy in a way that words cannot capture. A long, long love stretching back almost all their lives, broken only by his passing in 2005. His unexpected death was the beginning of her end. She loved her children and grandchildren in the same lavish, selfless way. The bond she had with them and they had with ‘granny’ was a thing of rare, high beauty. She was so proud of them. The way that Anne loved and cared for her deserves special mention.

It was easy especially to witness those love bonds these past few days as she grew smaller in her bed and her breathing grew shallow and the end drew near. The love, the togetherness, the unity, the sadness were all on display and yet also a profound sense of gratitude for having had this woman among us for so long, for being lucky enough to know her and be part of her family. I found my encounters with her to be almost sacramental – an audience with a gentle, simple, smiling woman who radiated something of the warmth and tenderness of God.

And, of course, that was no surprise, because she was a woman of faith. Her love of and trust in God was high. Her faith nourished her; strengthened her; it was what sustained her through the setbacks that came her way. Dying didn’t faze Aunty Mary. Just as in life she always went high, so also when she was faced with the prospect of death.

There are many today who believe that death is the end, period. That once you breathe your last, you’re gone forever, done and dusted. The best you can hope for is to leave behind some sort of positive legacy and happy memories, and a big gap in loved ones’ lives.

For us Christians, it is different. We know that death is a door, not a wall. Death isn’t an exit to oblivion, a sorrowful slide into nothingness. It is, rather, the threshold to a new, transformed life with God forever. On Monday morning, at 6.50am, Aunty Mary crossed that threshold from life to death, from life to life. Her earthly body is empty of life now; her strong heart is quiet; her big smile has given way; all we are left with are her mortal remains. But having crossed that threshold on Monday morning, she did not journey from life to death; from a breathing, smiling, pulsating, warm, wonderful human being, a granny to everyone, into some cold, dank abyss of darkness and destruction, she passed in that moment from this life to a completely new glorified life, life with God forever.

The second reading from St Paul, read to us by Noel, contains one of the most reassuring statements in all of scripture. Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from the love we share in Christ Jesus. “For I am sure of this,” he says, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Mary, our beloved one, knew and subscribed to that good news all her life. Now, reunited with Paddy and all she loved and lost, nothing separates her from the warm embrace of Jesus, her saviour. In our liturgy today, as in every liturgy, we are reminded that in Christ Jesus, we remain united with those who have died. Mary is gone from us but not forever. She is separated from us, but not for good. In this knowledge, we find our solace, our inspiration, our consolation, our hope.

And so we say our farewells. We are left with our tears and our sadness but, even more, we are comforted with countless happy memories and with a joyous sense of gratitude that we could not have asked for a more wonderful wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, great granny, aunt, cousin, neighbour or friend – a woman was who a bastion of common sense, a beacon of light, a rock of faith, a fountain of love, a beautiful, caring, smiling woman who always, always, always went high.

My friend, the new Cardinal

Yesterday a man I know was appointed to the most exclusive clerical club in the world. He was made a cardinal of the Catholic Church by Pope Francis. It was a surprise appointment. No one expected his name to be on the list, least of all the man himself.

I have known Joe Tobin, Archbishop of Indianapolis, for more than 25 years. He was a member the Redemptorist general government in Rome when I first met him. One of his responsibilities was for youth ministry, with which I also was involved.

I remember a large gathering in Durham in 1994 – a Redemptorist mini world youth day event – when he gave up his comfortable bed to sleep on the ground in a marquee full of young southern Europeans who were frightened of the frogs that had sought sanctuary there after a day of constant rain. I remember the many football/soccer games he refereed even after he was elected head of the Redemptorists. Though some of his on field decisions were questionable to say the least, it was hard even for the most hot headed player to mouth off at the man who was the head Redemptorist. I remember how he preferred jeans and sweats to the formal clerical attire of his office. I remember his wonderful storytelling ability, his extraordinary capacity to remember names, and how grounded in the ordinary he always appeared even as he attained high office.

Once finished his two-term spell as Redemptorist Superior General, Joe went on a study break to England. Then came his surprise appointment to the Vatican as secretary for religious. It was a challenging post at a challenging time. The newly ordained archbishop found himself thrust into the middle of the doctrinal investigation of US women religious by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, an investigation he strongly opposed. He lost that battle, being considered too sympathetic to the sisters, and was hustled far outside Vatican walls to be installed as Archbishop of Indianapolis in 2012.

Indianapolis is a vibrant, sports-mad city that is only about 10 percent Catholic, but the new archbishop quickly made his mark as an approachable, compassionate, eloquent pastor, who had, what Francis calls, the “smell of the sheep.”

He wasn’t typical of the US Catholic hierarchy which was full of John Paul II and Benedict XVI appointees, who tended to be politically and ecclesiastically right of centre culture warriors, constantly at loggerheads with the modern world rather than engaging with it. Joe Tobin is not a culture warrior, and nor does he favour lace over grace. He is one of the few bishops who goes to the Catholic Worker dinner held during the annual US Conference of Bishops meetings in November, rather than the formal grand banquet held in a plush hotel.

Last year he clashed with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, now Donald Trump’s running mate, over the politically sensitive issue of resettling Syrian refugees. Pence had announced that Syrian refugees would not be welcome in his state, citing concerns about terrorism.

The Catholic Charities agency in Indianapolis had been working to resettle a Syrian family at the time of the announcement, and Pence asked that they put those plans on hold. After a meeting between the two men, Archbishop Tobin announced that the diocese would continue with its plans to resettle the family, and did so.

Archbishop Tobin is also on record as supporting the idea of women serving as deacons in the Catholic Church. Needless to say, this idea, broached by Francis himself, is controversial, so it’s wonderful to have another strong voice for greater equality for women from within the college of cardinals.

Two years ago, when I was planning my sabbatical after 23 years in Redemptorist Communications, I asked Joe if he could accommodate me in his diocese for a couple of months, where I could lend a hand in a parish while at the same time having plenty of opportunity to read, write and unwind. He could not have been more helpful. I met and ate with him several times during my six weeks in Indianapolis, a time cut short due to my developing back pain. I was grateful for his kindness and generosity. As a cardinal and still only in his mid 60s, Joe is a man I will happily trust with helping to choose the next pope, though I hope that won’t be anytime soon.

The fact that Francis has chosen as cardinals pastoral men, moderate progressives, who know the smell of the sheep, is good news indeed. He wants men (wouldn’t it be great if there were women among them before long!) who share his vision for the church and the world. In choosing Joe Tobin, alongside others like Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich, Francis has chosen well.

There is room for liberals in the Catholic church

I have always considered myself to be a liberal. Instinctively, since as long as I was able to think for myself, I subscribed to what was known as the ‘liberal agenda.’ Though I was a committed Catholic, and came from a devout Catholic family, I had no time for theocracies. I believed in the separation of church and state. I believed that any church or religious institution that relied on the state to enforce its teachings was, by definition, a weak church or institution. I felt that an unhealthy codependency had developed between civil and religious authorities in the decades after Irish independence that would be detrimental to both of them in the long run.

The relationship between de Valera and Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, and the latter’s interventions in almost every aspect of Irish life, seemed to encapsulate all that was wrong with church and state in 20th century Ireland.

When the ban on artificial contraception was being discussed in the 1970s and 80s, I was with those who wanted reform. It was the same when it came to divorce. I might personally subscribe to what the church teaches about the sanctity of marriage, but I didn’t think it should be imposed on those who were not Catholic or who disagreed profoundly with the church’s position. Similarly, when it came to legalising homosexual acts and to the vote on marriage equality, I was on the side of the reformers. I even wrote an op-ed piece for the Irish Times in support of marriage equality.

And many years ago, when I had just emerged out of my teens, I voted against the 8th amendment to the constitution, not because I was in favour of abortion, but because I thought the proposed wording was weak and was going to lead to a whole pile of trouble.

Meanwhile, I had joined the seminary straight out of school and so found myself in the difficult position where some of the views I held were at odds with the official teaching of the church. When it came to internal church politics I also found myself on the liberal side – favouring the ordination of woman and the introduction of optional celibacy, as well as a more compassionate approach to those who were gay or divorced and remarried. I identified strongly with liberation theology and the preferential option for the poor. I was enthused more than anything by the idea of a church and a clergy that stood alongside the oppressed and were willing to lose all in solidarity with them. An open, welcoming, inclusive church.

But the odd thing is that not only did I find myself in conflict with the Vatican over the years, and run into trouble with the authorities for my views, I found that many so-called liberals had no time for church people like me either. I remember being taken aback one time when Fintan O’Toole referred to me in his column as a conservative. I certainly didn’t see myself as a conservative. Then I understood that in the eyes of many secularists, being a Catholic priest was synonymous with being a conservative. That if you were a card-carrying member of the clergy then, ipso facto, you had to be a conservative. And, therefore, an ogre and an obscurantist.

Given its arrogance and abuse of power in the past, I don’t blame people for being angry at the Irish Catholic church. But what I don’t like is the way in which everybody in the church is viewed through the same lens, how all clergy and religious are regarded as the enemy, and as opponents of all that is good.

Sure, the church as institution has much to answer for, but the church is not a monolith. There is diversity within and much goodness too. To deny that fact, or refuse to see it, as some liberals do, is to replace one form of arrogance and intolerance with another.

Pain comes sweeping back

It’s just after five in the morning and I have been awake for more than an hour with pain that splits my body in two. I’m trying not to weep but I can’t stifle the tears.

I had been making progress, so I thought. I had started attending a new physio who emphasized that recovery was as much psychological as physical. She gave me some uncomplicated exercises to do and encouraged me to take less medication, stay up longer and engage more with people and with life. And I did. And I tried. And I thought I was making great strides – my colour was better, my weight up, my activity increased, my pill consumption down.

And then, literally overnight, the pain came surging back. I woke at 3am Saturday with pain in my hips and buttocks that I didn’t have before, and with my lower back feeling like a poker was buried in it. In a matter of hours the pain levels had gone from a livable with three/four to an uncopable with seven/eight. And the frustrating thing was I couldn’t understand why.  I tried to remember if I had done anything differently, if I had over or under exercised but I hadn’t. This enemy had simply attacked me again without forewarning or reason, and I was so disappointed. The pain in the hips has eased now, but my back is worse than ever.

I was going to forgo the surgery for the spinal cord stimulator, both because my new physio counseled against any more procedures and doubted it would help me a whole lot anyway, and because I really don’t want to subject my battered body to more trauma, but I am changing my mind. Pain has made my life miserable. It has left me unsure of what any day is going to bring. It has left me deeply unhappy. 

If the spinal cord stimulator doesn’t work, and this new physio regime turns out like the rest, then, as I’ve said so often before, please just let me go.

A politician’s story reminds me of why I became a priest

A profile in yesterday’s New York Times reminded me why I chose a life in the church. It focused on Tim Kaine’s time as a lay missionary in Honduras in 1980, and how that experience has shaped his life and politics. Tim Kaine, in case you didn’t know, is the Democratic candidate for vice president of the United States, and is currently a senator for Virginia.

From an Irish Catholic background, Kaine attended a Jesuit-run high school. After graduating from college with a degree in law, he decided to do voluntary missionary work with the Jesuits in Honduras before deciding what to do with his life.

Central America was a dangerous place in the late 1970s and 80s. Violence and civil war in El Salvador and Nicaragua had spread into neighboring countries. In Honduras, the American backed right-wing dictatorship was at war with Marxists and anyone else who opposed it. Many priests and religious who were considered sympathetic to the insurgents were also targeted by the regime. In 1980, the year Kaine arrived in Central America, Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in El Salvador and later that year three American nuns and a young American aid worker, Jean Donovan, were raped and murdered by El Salvadoran military. To be a foreigner in those countries at that time was to put your life at risk.

Kaine recalls some of the Jesuits he met there and their commitment to the poor. He talks too about the influence on him of liberation theology and how he got to meet Jon Sobrino, one of the fathers of liberation theology. He describes a church for and of the poor, a church that placed social justice at the heart of its message.

Of course, liberation theology fell out of favour during the reigns of John Paul II and Benedict, who regarded it with suspicion, and who appointed bishops that would drive it underfoot. But the life and example of people like Jean Donovan was why I wanted to become a priest.

Tim Kaine’s story reminds me of that difficult yet glorious time, and of all Christians who have served the poor and paid the price throughout the world. Thank God, Pope Francis has placed a new emphasis on the church’s social teaching, a teaching that challenges all Catholics, no matter who and where we are.

We need equality for women in the church

Yesterday was Women’s Equality Day, a day set aside to celebrate the progress women have made in their struggle for equality and also to recognize the very many challenges women still face in achieving full equality with the males of the species.

It’s hard to believe that one hundred years ago, women in most western countries did not have the right to vote. Now the United States is on the verge of electing its first female president. It’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, Irish women had to leave the civil service once they started a family. And while more and more women are fighting their way up the corporate and political ladders in more and more countries, there is still an enormous amount of work to be done before there is anything like full equality with men. Hollywood leading ladies are still paid substantially less than their male counterparts. Female sports stars get less recognition and reward than the men. The same is true of so many other sectors, organizations, and industries.

It is most certainly true of the Catholic Church.

It took me years before I noticed the maleness of the leadership of the church. During my youth and seminary days, I was oblivious to it, as I’m sure most others were too. Altars and sanctuaries and seminaries and synods were men only because only men could be ordained, and only men had authority in the church. I didn’t question it; it was just the way things were. And then I began to not only notice it but to become embarrassingly aware of it, especially at big liturgical events where there were lots of clergy. Here were all these men in splendid vestments assembled in solemn procession or gathered around an altar and not a woman in sight. And I wondered how that made women in the congregation feel. Some women, of course, fail to notice it or have no problem with it, but for many others it is a source of great pain. Now I do not concelebrate at Mass at all, if I have the choice. I do not want to add to the maleness of the celebration. So I prefer to sit in the pews with the people of God.

Church leaders routinely speak about the equality of women, yet a few years ago they introduced a new English translation of the liturgy that is sexist in its language and gratuitously insulting to women. The sexist language could easily have been avoided but those in charge chose not to. It boggles the mind.

The church emphasizes the importance of the family, yet at the two sessions of the Synod on the Family, which concluded last year, there was just a few women, and none at all who had voting rights. It’s hard to imagine how you can have a real debate about family and family life in the 21st century if women aren’t part of the debate.

The real problem, of course, is that power in the church is bound up with holy orders, which is limited to males. At local level, the parish priest is the ultimate authority. He can ignore the wishes of the parish council if he wants, and there’s nothing they can do about it. The leadership of the church in every diocese and in every country is male. In the hierarchical institution that is the church, lay people are at the bottom of the ladder, and because women are women and cannot be ordained, every woman is at the bottom of the ladder. Unless power is separated from priesthood, or women are allowed to be ordained, the fact is women can never have full equality with men in the Catholic Church.

One significant hopeful move towards a greater say for women in the church is the decision by Pope Francis to set up a commission to took at women deacons. Another positive step is that 50 percent of its members are female. Nothing may come of this commission, but the very fact that it was set up in the first place is a most welcome development.

I do not know if I will be alive to celebrate the day when women in the church will have full equality with men, but I hope I do. It would be wonderful to see a sanctuary populated with women as well as men, and to hear their voices as equals and partners. It would truly bring new life to this trembling church of ours.