Catholicus

Long time readers will know that I am a regular reader of the Ottawa Citizen.  They have an interesting story on the Irish Ambassador's residence in Rockcliffe Park.  Apparently it's now the biggest house in Rockcliffe Park (though I think the enormous French ambassador's residence (enormous residence, not Ambassador, who must now all by tiny so as to reflect well on the President).

Canadians are funny people - on the one hand reserved, on the other you can always find a worker willing to talk:

Coming in at more than twice the floor space of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's official residence at 24 Sussex Drive, with a re-construction tab exceeding $7 million, the 24,000-square-foot, four-storey house is now the accommodation envy of the diplomatic corps in Ottawa.

Embassy staff did not return repeated calls requesting an interview with Kelly and a tour of the residence, but a worker on the site proudly showed me blueprints of a project packed with every conceivable luxury and ornate columns rising to the roof.

"All that's missing is a throne for Caesar," the worker grinned. "I've never worked on anything like this before."

The usual excuse of asbestos has been brought out. 

I wonder how much was spent on daffodils, always expensive in that part of the world, if I recall correctly.  Also security measures to keep out squirrels can be very costly.

I suppose that's what happens when you get years of neglect.  I expect no work had been done on the house since it was built in the 1930s.

A boy in my son's class asked the teacher the other day a question about geometry.  "Sir, if there's three dimensional things, does that mean you can have one dimensional things?"

To which the teacher replied "em, er, em I'm really not sure about that".

Michael (10) stuck his hand up and told them about lines.



Speaking of dimensions, I had an hilarious (to me) experience the other day.  I was waiting for lift - the doors opened and inside was an enormously tall woman - she must have been at least 6'6".  Beside her stood a man with a step-ladder.  It was a perfect visual joke.  I just had to back into the lift and stare at the doors while trying not to laugh.

Speaking of the comic - have you seen this story about gay "bishop" Robinson?  He claims that:

“We have to understand that the notion of a homosexual sexual orientation is a notion that’s only about 125 years old," Bishop Robinson told CNSNews.com. "That is to say, St. Paul was talking about people that he understood to be heterosexual engaging in same-sex acts.  It never occurred to anyone in ancient times that a certain minority of us would be born being affectionally oriented to people of the same sex.”

So it's a sin for a heterosexual to be a homosexual but not for a homosexual to be a homosexual.  Presumably it's also okay for a murderer to kill someone, but not for anyone else.

Glad we've cleared that up.

Was watching The Meaning of Life with Gay Byrne on RTE 1 tonight, interviewing Bertie Ahern.

I try to avoid Gay like the plague that he is - he was bad enough when he was in full employment but has become much worse since he retired.  He's like one of those annoying paintings that frequent the walls of the Headmaster's Office in Hogwarts - dead but still there annoying and advising in the smuggest way imaginable.

Bertie is very polished as usual but really it is wearing a bit thin.  The questions were all about God and life and the answers were homey and occasionally serious, giving up the drink for the Holy Souls in November, praying with Ian Paisley, a genuine belief in the Real Presence, though of course asked and answered in the slightly embarrassed way you'd expect of men of that generation.  It was going reasonably well, I was thinking "well at least he believes and tries his best to practise, even within the marital situation he created for himself" when he revealed that he hadn't been to confession in over forty years and that he didn't believe in it and he felt himself perfectly capable of talking to God himself without a priest.

In other words, he's a protestant.

I've had difficulites uploading over the last week so apologies for avid readers.

I see that news is emerging that the sub-planet Pluto is becoming redder:

"A new examination of photographs of Pluto from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the dwarf planet changing colors and at one point getting redder in what may indicate distinct changes of seasons, National Geographic News says.

The photographs, taken from 2002 to 2003, were compiled in a four-year project that involved 20 computers running simultaneously, lead investigator Marc Buie, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., tells reporters."

Failed US Presidential candidate, Al Gorge, and Rajendra Pachauri, Head of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Conspiracy (IPCC) immediately cited the news as clear and irrefutable evidence of the effects of personmade global warming.

"If we do not take immediate steps to destroy the world's economy", opined Vice President Bore, "we can be certain that Pluto's nose will dry up and his tail will wilt.  And all this by 2035.  Now where did I leave that grilled cheese sandwhich?"

Last week I had a tooth extracted - a joy and delight in itself.  I asked the dentist before hand - "is this a case of brute force?"  "Oh no" says he, "just firm, consistent pressure".  Actually it wasn't too bad and I was able to look down my nose (without feeling my nose, eyes, or lips) at the wimps who need sedation.

But the week after I developed a pleasurable little thing called a "dry socket" - when your blood doesn't clot and and you have direct access to jaw bone.  The cure, today, is lots of poking with a long pointy needle, followed by stuffing with vile antiseptic stuff which, I'm told, will melt away, hopefully quicker than the Himilayan glaciers.

What is wrong with Gerard Moloney, editor of Reality Magazine.  Of course it's legitimate to comment on the child abuse crisis, but it's his target I can't understand - promoters of the Latin Mass and anyone who supports renewal in the liturgy.  He writes:

"Something seems wrong when church leaders appear more interested in changing the language of the liturgy than trying to figure out why so many children have been harmed by clerics.  Huge effort has been put into preparing liturgical changes that scarcely anybody wants and that are completely unnecessary.

Something seems wrong when the Vatican conducts an apostolic visitation of religious sisters in the United States to make sure they are fully obedient to the Holy See - a process that is taking place right now -but conducts no visitation of dioceses worldwide to ensure children are safeguarded.

Something seems wrong when some church people appear more interested in silk robes and the Latin Mass and Eastfacing altars than in examining why our church has not been a safe environment for its most vulnerable members. Something seems wrong when trying to restore a Tridentine model of church is more important to a small but vociferous minority than building a church where all the baptised feel at home and loved and included and heard and protected. What the restorationists ignore, of course, is that most sex abusers and most bishops and church authorities grew up and were formed in the pre-Vatican II church - a model of church that had obvious systems failures (to say nothing of a theology that kept women and lay men firmly in their place)."

He's becoming a bit of an Aidan Troy in recent months, anything to get some personal publicity.

Speaking of which, a recent article by Kevin Myers, making the point that the media have not gone after Gerry Adams for covering up abuse in the same way they would have gone after a Catholic priest, mentions Aidan Troy's role in the affair:

"Of course, there's still a residual sense of Smith & Wesson and midnight burials about Sinn Fein/IRA, which is why our heroic media are not going after Gerry Adams as they would do a Catholic prelate in the same position.

This reluctance even casts its protective penumbra on associates of the Shinners. The former Ardoyne parish priest Fr Aidan Troy has confirmed that he contacted Ms Tyrell, at the rapist's initiative, "in an effort to find closure for her".

I'm not sure when 'closure' starts after a child has been raped, but it is probably after the lifetime closure of prison doors on the rapist. Certainly, any cleric who had acted similarly on behalf of a child-raping priest is unlikely to have been as untouched by media criticism as Fr Troy has been."

Have a read of this little article in the Irish Times concerning the new President of the European Council.  It's a perfect example of the snide anti-Catholicism for which the Irish media has become famous.

Scientists have suggested that a powerful aftershock that rattled Haiti on Wednesday was caused my massive tectonic shifting when Ted Kennedy turned in his grave.

You really have to wonder if our church has learned anything during this abuse crisis. 

On the 19th January this letter appeared in the Irish Times in response to a letter by Pat Buckley, Bishop of Larne, Omeath and the Isles.

Madam, – Pat Buckley (Letters, January 13th) inaccurately stated that, at the time of his “sacking”, Fr Brendan Smyth “was ministering in Down and Connor with the knowledge and consent of its then bishop, Cahal Daly”.

It should be noted that Fr Brendan Smyth, a native of Belfast, was not a diocesan priest and never held any appointment in the Diocese of Down and Connor at any time. – Yours, etc,

Fr EDWARD McGEE, Media Liaison Officer, Down and Connor Diocese.

Everyone reading such a letter will know that it's playing with words and definitions, and strict legal liability, and even then it still is untrue since he did have an appointment in Down and Connor - it just wasn't an appointment from the Bishop of Down and Connor.  Did he decide to write this letter himsel?  Was it cleared by the Chancellor or the bishop?

And Buckley duly responded - which I won't repeat, but also a letter from a former pupil of St Dominic's:

A chara, – Have these priests learnt nothing from the Ryan report? Fr Edward McGee’s weasel excuses that Fr Brendan Smyth may not have been a diocesan priest, etc, etc, etc, are irrelevant.

Smyth was my chaplain in St Dominic’s High School in Belfast during my time there.

I was oblivious to the fact he was abusing friends, classmates and neighbours while at the same time telling us how to be good Catholics in the classroom.

The time for splitting legal and clerical hairs is long gone. Priests like Fr McGee will only drive us, in disgust, to the “count me out” website sooner rather than later. – Is mise.


Here's the thing - I know it's hard to sit by and think, "well, these people aren't getting the context of the time" or "no prosecutions were brought" or "he was in a religious order".   For most people those have become subtleties and to be subtle is somehow to be an apologist or a liar.  Perhaps when you're in conversation with people you can take the time to explain things, and explore - but the letters page of a paper just doesnt' work for this sort of thing.

In a few weeks time the bishops will be in Rome.  I have no doubt most will present themselves as being there to help him understand the situation and offer advice.  I hope he tells them the episcopal conference is a disgrace.

Cardinal Daly came to my mind today.  I was listening to the news about the the attack on Peadar Heffron, the policeman from Randalstown and I recalled the many previous statements Cahal used to issue, the press releases, the long drawn out battle with the IRA over paramilitary  funerals.  It turns out of course that he was dead right.

Well about politics - still totally wrong about architecture, including St Mel's Cathedral now burnt and hopefully to be restored to a 1950s glory.  When I think of a bishop I'm still inclined to think of him, and I expect bishops' sermons to be like his, well structured, well delivered, and exactly 23 minutes long.

Cahal was bishop during most of my time as a seminarian.  He was, I have to say, considerably more supportive than his successor, or auxiliaries.  When DMcK tried to dump me the first time Cahal arranged for what he described as "very much a year in", and he subsequently came to visit me in Scotland to see how I was getting on.  One little story to tell, we met in the Nazareth House I was working in.  The nuns brought in tea and biscuits - KitKats and Breakaways - Cahal insisted I take the biscuits away with me, and suggested leaving the wrappers so the nuns would think we ate them.

Here's one of the odd things in life - when I made remarks about Cahal's Christmas cards and his taste in liturgical art it was apparently dreadful, bold, hilarious - take your pick - but when Cardinal Brady does it at his funeral it's a moving homily.

Cardinal Brady: Many of you will have received Cardinal Daly's now famous annual Christmas cards. They are a work of art in their own right. They also tell us so much about the man: about his abiding faith in Jesus Christ - the same yesterday, today and forever; about his loving devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Those Christmas cards spoke of a man who loved art and beauty, prayer and poetry, especially religious poetry, as well as Holy Scripture.

I took my daughter Mary to see him in St Patrick's Cathedral the day before his funeral.  I wish they'd put his glasses on.

May he rest in peace.