07.27.10
Reek Sunday this year was, as usual, a misty day on the heights of County Mayo as some 20,000 pilgrims made their way up the treacherous scree, many of them barefoot, to the summit of the 2,500 foot peak. An annual event on the last Sunday of July for some 1500 years, ascending Croagh Patrick has pre-Christian origins. But it is now identified with Ireland’s patron saint who fasted there for 40 days before hurling a silver bell off the peak and, so it is said, banishing all the snakes and serpents from the island. Only 40 people fell off the track this year, and of that number only 2 were seriously injured. It was a better year than many.
This year, Reek Sunday was also notable for its conclusion, an hour-long talk show hosted by Mick Peelo on RTE One, the principal national television channel. “Would You Believe” is a regular religious feature and on Sunday the topic was “The Crisis in the Church,” which might be taken as an understatement. Traditionally Catholic Ireland has been especially devastated by the sex-abuse scandals tormenting the Church in the United States, Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere. But the appalling extent of the abuse and the following cover-up by many bishops, including the Cardinal Primate, which has led to over a half-dozen episcopal resignations and a forthcoming visitation by a special papal envoy, is only one of a host of problems racking the Church here. And all that was the focus of the lively if regrettably scattered discussion on Sunday night.
Among the dozen or so “guests” offering live and taped views before a live audience (who also got into the act) were two bishops (the retired but still outspoken bishop of Kerry, Willie Walsh, being especially noteworthy), Dom Mark Hederman, the abbot of Glenstal, several priests, sisters, a young Dominican student, and a number of prominent lay people, including Baroness Nuala O’Loan, the former police omsbudsman from Northern Ireland, Mary O’Rourke, a member of the Irish parliament, and Prof. James Mackay, a theologian from the University of Edinburgh. (The list may be read in either ascending or descending order, depending on one’s hierarchical preference.) Fr. Enda McDonagh, the esteemed theologian from Maynooth, was not surprisingly both eloquent and incisive.
The conversation dashed from topic to topic, rushed, it seemed, by the moderator, Mr. Peelo, who seemed at times to want to squeeze as many opinions as possible into the segments conveniently divided by advertisements. But it was not all a 3-ring sound-bite circus – Mackay, Hederman, and O’Loan provided a number of telling observations, mainly calling for greater transparency (or at least some) in church procedures, as well as greater lay participation, especially on the part of women, and a willingness to listen to the voice of the faithful. Not exactly revolutionary, but Ireland’s bishops have only recently and reluctantly begun to admit permanent lay deacons into ministry.
More telling was Professor Mackay’s observation that every pope since John XXIII has backed away from the vision of the great pontiff who threw open the windows of the Church to the modern world. The reigning pope did not come off well at all in that regard. Bishop Walsh’s lament that there are no real structures of accountability between individual bishops and Rome identified one of the chief areas of muddle. The clear call was for a thorough reform of policies, not belief, if the Church in Ireland and elsewhere is to regain the moral credibility it has squandered over the last decade. Apparently not a few of the snakes have come slithering back.
In the end, the daring-enough program was frustrating for lack of deeper penetration and discussion in regard to any of the many issues brought forward. Despite several moments of remarkable insight by Walsh, McDonagh, O’Loan, and others, Peelo’s prodding mainly resulted in a venting session. Still, it was a pretty amazing event for Catholic Ireland. Now to see who will lead up the mountain of reform.
06.08.10
In her career-ending off-the-cuff remarks last week, veteran Hearst correspondent Helen Thomas surely overstepped the bounds of diplomatic propriety, but she got it about half right. Israel should lift the blockade and get out of Gaza and the West Bank for good. Even many Israelis support that. The deeper issue is the ongoing campaign to eject Palestinians completely from Israel, particularly the ultra-Zionist efforts of the extreme section of the population (especially illegal settlers, many of them themselves immigrants) who have been muscling Palestinians out of their homes in east Jerusalem and other places where they have been resident for centuries. Less than half-hearted measures taken by successive US administrations have effectively given a green light to both squatters’ rights and ruthless displacement. Building The Great Wall of Israel has hardly helped ease tensions, although it may well have protected Israeli citizens from suicide bombers.
Regrettably, recent talk about a two-state solution has mainly been just that – talk. Stymied by the United States, the United Nations has done little more than fume and issue edicts that are simply ignored by both Israel and Hamas. So what if the Israelis are doing a little ethnic cleansing? Everyone else seems to have done it. The annals of ancient history are littered with accounts of massacres and the forced displacement of unwanted or recalcitrant inhabitants, not least in the ruthless invasion of Canaan by the Hebrews following their departure from Egypt.
The Romans obliterated the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars and drove the Celts out of Gaul. Goths and Huns of various stripes pushed everyone around. Similarly, the Anglo-Saxons drove the true British into the far west of the island by successive invasions and wars. Mongols and Turks created empires by subjugating and dispossessing native peoples. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries English monarchs imported Protestant Scottish settlers to reduce the rebelliousness of native northern Catholic Irish, French Canadians were driven out of the part of Canada they called Arcadia by English troops, the Cherokee and other Native Americans were routinely displaced by the U.S. government, and Jews were likewise driven into exile from Russia (and other countries). So much for the tip of the iceberg.
The post-colonial era saw Spain, France, and Belgium retract their empires. England finally abandoned southern Ireland, reluctantly departed India, and, having divested itself of control in Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and elsewhere, might someday consider returning the Malvinas to Argentina. Residual racism persists, of course, as the legacy of empire-building. Minority people suffer discrimination in England (Pakistanis, Jamaicans), the US (Native Americans, people of color generally), Germany (Turks), France (Algerians), Serbs (Bosnians, Croats, and Albanians), Thailand (Tamils), Kurds (everywhere), as well as the Roma people and religious minorities generally.
Ironically, most “developed” countries in the world are nations of immigrants, whose climb up the scale of socio-economic influence usually succeeded by stomping on the fingers of those coming up behind them on the ladder. And mistreating the dispossessed, marginalized, and conquered still seems to be regarded as part of the spoils of war or economic domination. Israelis above all seem to think they are above criticism in this respect.
It’s sad that the great old lady said too much and said it unwisely. At least she was not afraid to speak the truth, as she saw it, to power. Never had been. But branding her as “anti-Semitic” is also just part of the game, the Scarlet Letter of shame that in the end covers a multitude of other peoples’ sins.
05.31.10
Watching the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico through European eyes undoubtedly provides a richly diverse perspective. For one thing, having access to 24-hour news services from France, England, Russia, India, SKY News, CNBC, as well as CNN, Bloomberg, and especially Al Jazeera guarantees an abundance of information. Fox News is also out there somewhere, but somehow its signal doesn’t seem to be able to cut through the Irish mist. (I wish I had better reception of the Bloomberg channel because it carries “Charlie Rose” several times a day in addition to endless if informative chatter about world markets.) Incidentally, The Irish Times is still one of the best newspapers in the world.
It’s a pity that in the US I can access Al Jazeera only on line, because its coverage of the world, particularly the Middle East, is comprehensive and well balanced. With desks in Washington and London, the English-language service is almost flawless. Its reports on the unfolding ecological, political, and monetary calamity of the BP oil “spill” provides a case in point, although today that was eclipsed by coverage of the brutal Israeli assault on the emergency relief flotilla heading toward Gaza from Cyprus. While undeniably sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, the service takes pains to interview Israeli politicians and citizens-on-the-street and restricts editorializing to talk shows. (The presence of Irish volunteers on the ships has made coverage of even keener interest on this island.)
In any case, it is not difficult to keep up with events in the US, but here in Ireland I am in a privileged position to monitor developing situations from China to the Azores. And while I’m sure there are other stories besides the oil spill, that event has focused world attention like no other. There is evident apprehension voiced that the political fallout will be injurious to the Obama administration, which is generally viewed with favor in this part of the world (unlike its predecessor).
Calling the BP disaster “Obama’s Katrina” is so wide of the mark as to bespeak the partisan sniping for what it is. Government deregulatory commissions (which in fact is what they have been) were cemented in place a decade ago, when energy policy for the US was handed over to Big Oil and Gas (AKA BOG). US political memory is dismally short. The terrible events of September 11, 2001, wiped the slate clean for many. But if the movie is rolled back several months before that, there were more-or-less secret meetings between Dick Cheney, Enron’s soon-to-be indicted and dead chairman and former CEO “Kenny Boy” Lay, CEO Jeff Skilling, and other petrol-barons to ooze out an “energy policy” for the country (on Feb. 22, Mar. 7, April 17, August 7, and finally on Oct. 10… hardly a haphazard affair). Mr. Cheney has tried to keep the reports of those meetings under protection of executive privilege for understandable reasons. In this, he was quietly supported by the ever-compliant Mr. Bush, whose oil connections, like those of Condoleezza Rice and a bevy of other highly-placed administration officials, had been firmly in place for decades. (So far as I know, Ms. Rice was the only presidential security advisor and Secretary of State to have an oil freighter named for her.)
America’s creepy oil dependency has a much longer history than that, of course. But for memory-challenged Americans, recalling the antitrust suits of 1911 and the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921 must surely rank with trying to remember what the Magna Carta was all about. Out of sight, out of mind and well, barons will be barons. Still, for anyone inclined to take entertainment seriously, the release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film There Will Be Blood could serve as a kind of harbinger of present doom. (And behind it lurks Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!, which pointed an inky if gentler finger at John D. Rockefeller, Lyman Stewart, and the other great oil barons of the late nineteenth century. Don’t say we weren’t warned. But who pays attention to political prophecy? Reality is much more captivating, if sometimes stranger and in the end a lot more expensive.)
Not that there were precedents, other than the Exxon-Valdez incident (which was sufficiently long ago that my undergraduates are inclined to think it’s the name of an exotic Spanish dancer). The now defunct and absorbed Union Oil Company, once a major petro-contender, was responsible and heavily fined for a serious oil spill off the coast of California in 1969, during which as much as 100,000 barrels of oil seriously fouled the Santa Barbara channel. That led to the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970. And whatever happened to that?
Seems like small stuff by comparison – BP’s sunken Deepwater Horizon seems to be leaking that much oil into the pristine waters of the Gulf every day. And that may well continue until August.
Blaming President Obama for the BP disaster is like complaining that St. Peter didn’t act soon enough to contain the burning of Rome. (No, Virginia, I am not comparing Mr. Obama to the pope.) Experience can be a hard teacher. Especially when we don’t pay attention to the lessons of the past. But we knew that. Or did we?
05.19.10
With the far right wing-tip of the Republican Party having gone all roguey, and parts of the voting republic following after in good Tea Party fashion, it struck me as an opportune moment to check on the word, which turns out to have a checkered past, to say the least. But then, who’s perfect?
The earliest use of the word comes from the middle sixteenth century, according to the venerable Oxford English Dictionary, which may for the purposes of argument be considered definitive, so to speak. It seems to have had something to do with the French word roger (hard G), which meant “to beg.” In any case, by 1551 it had come to mean “One belonging to a class of idle vagrants or vagabonds.” By 1578 it referred to “A dishonest, unprincipled person.” But as Shakespeare might have said, what’s in an etymology?
Fittingly, perhaps, by 1859 it also referred to “An elephant living apart, or driven away, from the herd, and of a savage and destructive disposition.” (That was about 5 years after the Republican Party was organized and Mr. Lincoln of Illinois was engaged in a series of debates with Stephen Douglas. The rampaging elephant was first used as a party symbol around 1874.)
If you are still with me, boys and girls, in modern parlance, according to handy on-line dictionaries, the noun has come to signify a vagrant or tramp, a dishonest or worthless person, AKA scoundrel; a horse inclined to shirk or misbehave, and an individual exhibiting a chance and usually inferior biological variation. I kid you not. (See http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/rogue. I am not making this up. A similar entry can be found at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rogue. My students regard these sources as theologically definitive, so I assume we are still on firm ground.)
As used, “rogue” enjoys several nuances, including the notion of a charming miscreant as opposed to its more sinister and real meaning. In 2007 it was the title of an Australian movie about a big crocodile threatening to eat a party of innocent campers. But even in this day of cinematic revisionism, one should not forget the great old 1950 movie about Robin Hood’s son (John Derek in a dashingly swashbuckling role) called Rogues of Sherwood Forest. Thieves and bandits, you know. Russell Crowe might deck you if you said that to his face, however.
Rogue is also a female character in a Marvel comic book series, collectively a class of damage-dealers in the World of Warfare, and a gas-guzzling Nissan SUV. Sometimes the term is used to refer to states like Israel and Iran that flaunt international law and human decency in regard to civil rights violations, oppression of minority groups, and general bellicosity.
So before we all get on the roguey bandwagon, perhaps a moment’s reflection would be in order. Or have I got it all wrong?
04.30.10
It has been very kindly pointed out to me that my blog page has been stagnating for a while, and for that I not only take responsibility but hope to stir up the bottom a bit. (Spring-cleaning the birdbath provides a wealth of useful imagery.) I have to plead work – holding the Lund-Gill Chair at Dominican University this year added a weight of obligations that were exhilarating (like climbing Mt. Everest must be exhilarating) but time-intensive, what with teaching and other ordinary obligations. But life goes on, and so do I – at least while there’s life and breath. Downhill is easier.
Starting at the top, I have been watching the merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines with a degree of awe surpassed only by actually being able to remember how the Big Four were effectively broken up by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, which was endorsed by liberals such as Edward Kennedy and Howard Cannon and happily signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Deregulation seemed to be a very good thing in the halcyon 70s and 80s. That’s when Senators and Representatives began dismantling safeguards carefully put in place by their counterparts thirty-five years earlier to prevent unfair practices, price-gouging, oil cartels, and the like. (For what it’s worth, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 began to be dismantled a few years before that, but was successfully attacked in 1986 and thereafter, opening the sluice-gates for the Second Great Depression, but that’s another story. Banks will be banks….)
And so the big airlines, like dear old Ma Bell (broken up into a welter of “Baby Bells” in 1984 by Federal Mandate), have been slowly and carefully gluing themselves back together, if only, perhaps, to assure their survival in this dog-eat-dog economy. (I’ve never seen a dog eat another dog, but you get the point.)
I’m all for competition, especially when it works – when the playing field remains moderately even, prices come down, and the public benefits. The problem seems to be that big corporations, banks included, really don’t like competition and level playing fields, much less giving the public an even break. They do seem to believe in fiscally prompting congressmen and women to deregulate controls at periodic intervals, throwing the economy into disarray if not bringing it to its wobbly knees entirely. I suppose that’s why rules are important in real competition. The moral equivalent of economics may well be soccer. Rules have their place.
If, dear and patient reader, you lack late-night reading material, here’s a link to the back story:
http://www.super70s.com/super70s/tech/aviation/airlines/Deregulation.asp
(To be continued)
02.20.10
As Christians the world over are about to begin the first full week of Lent, a period of forty days (and, yes, nights) of penitential preparation for the coming feast of Easter, the matters of sin, contrition, confession, absolution, and reconciliation come easily enough to the Catholic mind. So Tiger Woods’ public admission of sin, guilt, remorse, and apology – his search for forgiveness (even though a Buddhist) — could hardly been timed more appropriately.
The hoots of derision and skepticism that greeted his confession seemed less so and disturbingly hard-hearted for a reputedly “Christian nation” – as we are led to believe we are by the Tea Party folks, the Moral Majority, and other nativists.
The unwillingness of many Americans to grant absolution, much less forgiveness, for admitted wrong-doing and apology has a depressingly long history. If TV talk shows and morning news specials are any guide, there is still a stack of unused scarlet letters out there just waiting for the Puritan needle and thread.
Public confession, penance, and absolution fell out of practice pretty early in Christian history, first in the Irish church in the sixth century and for Latin Christendom in the thirteenth, when private confession became the norm. In a world dominated by “news” of the antics of media celebrities it now bids fair to return in force. One recent national news report even ran a montage of famous, sometimes tearful public confessions, from Bakker and Clinton to Haggard and Swaggart, including Michael Jordan and possibly Magic Johnson (I didn’t catch them all). Americans appear to delight in public humiliation and a bit of groveling (Bernie Madoff being a cruel disappointment). However we are curiously reluctant to grant forgiveness, which means, quite simply, let the repentant sinner off the hook now. It’s a perilous stance, though, if we take Jesus’ injunction into account:
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven….” (Luke 6:37)
Or even old St. Paul’s warning:
“…you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.” (Romans 2:1)
That hurts. OK, Tiger, it’s enough. Pay no attention to all those folks standing around with stones in their itchy palms. Go now in peace. And, to be on the safe side, don’t do it again….
02.05.10
Who is Silvia? what is she,
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she…
(William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, Sc. 2)
“Sylvia” is also one of the funniest, wisest, sharpest, and best comic strips in the USA today. It is about to be dropped from the Chicago Tribune on the slow, painful trek towards oblivion of a once fine daily newspaper. Created by Chicago artist and creative genius, Nicole Hollander, Sylvia has brightened my morning for years. Fortunately, those who grieve her departure from the Tribune to make room for a few more mindless, badly drawn, and un-funny strips will be able to find her on-line through various services. Good hunting.
Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.
01.25.10
Several weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn a century’s worth of precedents and unleash the big spenders of commerce, industry, and giant trade unions on Washington (legally), Jeffrey Sachs of the Earth Institute at Columbia University wrote a thoughtful article on public policy for Scientific American. It may seem quaint and out-of-date after the ruling, but perhaps that is all the more reason to read it. It was called “Fixing the Broken Policy Process,” and appeared in the February 2010 issue.
Here’s the link to the where you can find an extended version of the article:
www.ScientificAmerican.com/feb2010
Come to think of it, this might be a good time to reconsider the old Republican enthusiasm for term limits. Remember term limits?
01.22.10
On Thursday, by a significantly split 5-4 decision, The United States Supreme Court overturned more than a century of campaign finance reform enacted to preserve the independence of the electoral process (and the sanctity of the one-man, one-vote rule) from the domination of financial empires such as those that produced the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal and other nineteenth-century excesses. Oil has always been a handy lubricant for all sorts of things.
Anthony Kennedy’s vote is simply inexplicable. But Justices Scalia and Alito, who tout themselves as originalists, should certainly be alert to the obvious fact that First Amendment “freedom of speech” pertains to speech, not financial contributions from giant corporations, and was devised to protect the rights of citizens, not industries and unions that did not even exist when the Bill of Rights was drawn up. I wonder what Peter Zenger and Tom Paine would say? Teddy Roosevelt and other reformers inaugurated regulations against the buying and selling of votes in Congress to prevent the kind of wholesaling of democracy that our esteemed Republican-appointed justices have now reinstituted. Is there no shame? (Consider that a rhetorical question.)
It must be great relief to the CEOs of phenomenally rich and powerful multinational companies such as Bechtel, Exxon-Mobil, Halliburton, and Pfizer that they can now more openly suborn members of Congress, not to say presidential candidates, rather than just dealing under the table as they have done for a good many years. Or will they even need to? It’s perhaps even more likely that the hopeful pols will come looking for them.
01.15.10
As the death toll of Christian missionaries, many of them evangelicals, as well as the native Christians of Haiti continues to rise, the remarks of televangelist and multi-millionaire Pat Robertson are being met with widespread repugnance. Other evangelicals, let it be said, have been quick to respond with assistance, contributions, and prayers.
Robertson seems to think that the people of Haiti made some kind of collective pact with Satan 200 years ago for which, at least by implication, Jehovah has cursed them far beyond the seven generations sanctioned by the Bible. Even the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass, in whose veins the milk of human kindness does not usually bubble merrily, found Robertson’s verdict well over the top. Like Sweeney Todd, the famous preacher seems to worship a dark and vengeful god, one that delights in visiting ancient wrath on the poor and defenseless people of New Orleans, the Indian Ocean, and unwary astronauts. The wealthy evangelist does not seem to sense the irony in declaring that the poorest of the poor are made to bear the weight of the sins of the rich.
The righteous TV mogul ended his tirade by advising the people of Haiti to turn to God. He might well consider practicing what he preaches.
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