All Over Now

Well, the campaign is over!   The count is on.  After a couple of months of one scandal after another spewing out of the media as they try to dig all the skeletons out from the closets of the presidential candidates (with the interesting exception of Michael D Higgins, funnily enough), I think we are all fit for the asylum!  

It felt like Tudor England as one head fell after another just like Henry VIII uncovering one treasonable plot after another.  Actually, it got very predictable after a while - as soon as one candidate hit the top of the polls (with the notable exception of Michael D Higgins, interestingly enough), the media jumped out of the closet like that guy in the mask in the Scream movies, and "WHAM!" another head falls.  I have to say, this campaign has been the filthiest we have ever endured. 

So who is going to win?  I'd say Michael D Higgins (did I mention that, for some strange reason the media did not seem to put him through the same rigorous questioning as the others?  Funny that).  I'd say, though, we will have an interesting day ahead. 

When everything has died down, it would be a good idea to take a long, hard look at this campaign, and particularly at the way the media has behaved - in particular RTE.  There is little doubt that this election has been the media's - they set the agenda.  Have the people been manipulated by the media?   Seeing as Higgins got such an easy ride and no grilling from the media (the question of his age could be seen as a diversion to give the impression of balance - people might react - no one wants to be seen to be ageist), could we say that Higgins was their candidate?  It would be interesting to compare the many positive images of Higgins in the media in comparison with the negative images of the others. 

Ironically, if Higgins wins, we will have reverted to the former practice of putting a retired politician in the Aras.

There is a fine line at times between journalism and propaganda.  We know from recent history in Ireland that the Irish media leans towards propaganda in a number of areas, and it is a left wing media.  In reality Ireland does not really have a centre-right media, which is a problem.  The media have swung elections and referenda before - the last divorce referendum was one.  Marc Coleman on Newstalk a few evenings ago reminded us of the media's bias there and their role in persuading the people - the referendum was passed by a tiny margin.   So the questions we need to ask now: has the media become too powerful in Ireland?  Are they undermining democracy?  What can be do to curb the power of the media to restore balance in public debate?

Think about all this I ask myself how the media came to have such power?  I think the Church has had a role in that.  The scandals - exposed by the media, seems to have sharpened the media's teeth, and perhaps allowed them to become less of an organisation reporting what is going on in society, to actually becoming a player, indeed the prime player in society.  While still claiming objectivity, they have become partisan, leaders.  Ironically, they have now usurped the Catholic Church's role in influencing the people. 

Just a few thoughts.  But I think we need an objective investigation.

UPDATE:  I see that the tallies are indicating that the referendum on judge's pay will be passed - the first step taken towards bringing the courts under government control.  The referendum seeking to give the Dail more power in investigations seems to be lost: if it is I presume we will have to go to the polls again - as with recent referenda, when we give the "wrong answer", we tend to find ourselves send back to polls with a flea in our ear. 

A Quick Scan

It has been a hectic weekend!  And it looks like a very hectic week, so if I disappear without trace from the blog, don't be surprised!  I'll do my best to get a few rants in over the week.

But there have been a number of developments in various areas over the last few days.  First of all we beat Italy in the Rugby World Cup down under, so Ireland is through to the quarter finals!!   That's good news for us here in Ireland - we like our rugby!

I see the Austrian priests who are revolting against the Church and her teaching, have been reminded that they do not represent the views of ordinary Catholics.   How true this is.  When our self-styled progressives get on their high horses and demand what they call reform, which is in reality a reinventing of Christian teaching, they think they speak for the people.  In reality they don't - they speak for themselves and perhaps a small constituency within the Church. 

This is also true of the ACP in Ireland. As they too revolt against the Church and the Holy Father, they think they represent the majority of Irish priests.  They don't.  They represent a small group of disaffected liberals who are still caught up in a distorted understanding of the Second Vatican Council, one which has failed and has now been cast aside for the authentic teachings of the Council. 

In reality, back in the Sixties, a number of priests, religious and laity did not like what was coming out of the Council, so they issued their own doctrines and statements, offered these to the media and the waiting world as the teachings and decisions Council, and then when the truth came out, they called those presenting the truth as reactionaries who were trying to dismantle the reforms of the Council.  It was all about spin, and these guys and gals started spinning stories and the Church has been trying to deal with their web of deceit which has caught countless Catholics since the Sixties.  Weak and confused hierarchies and Rome's naivety, and at times incompetence, with regard to the media, made space for this web to grow. 

But things are getting back on track, thank God, though Rome and local ordinaries, still need to come to grips with the secular media.  An interesting observation from a friend of mine who is a journalist.  He attended the monster meeting of ACP in Portlaoise last year and counted the number of priests there; the figure given was somewhere between 400 and 500.  He said he counted 250 and most of them seemed to be of a certain generation.

I see Ryan Tubridy is making an ass of himself again.  In his show on Friday night he had the seven presidential candidates on talking about their campaigns and culminating in a debate.  Tubridy laid into Dana and quizzed her on the Church's position on the Seal of the Confession.  He treated her very badly and soon found that Dana is not the pushover our secular media like to think she is - this lady has teeth!  She rightly asked him why he was putting her into a box as the "Catholic candidate".  He tried to get back at her.  Later in the show Dana was the one who elicited a round of applause from the audience, which Tubridy resented and asked the audience to stop. 

It seems to me RTE and the media's tactic is clear with regard to Dana.  It can be summed up as follows:

Dana is the Catholic candidate

Catholic Church evil and bad, abuses children

A vote for Dana is a vote for the evil and bad Catholic Church which abuses children

          Don't vote for Dana

or, we might express it in another way (if he read this, my former logic professor will be tearing his hair out):

Dana is a Christian singer

Christian singers are stupid

Therefore Dana is stupid

          Don't vote for Dana    QED

Now we might also consider the following syllogism (I can see my degree in philosophy coming up for review!):

Dana is capable, warm, intelligent, patriotic, fair and grounded

A good President of Ireland must be capable, warm, intelligent, patriotic, fair and grounded

Therefore Dana would be a good President of Ireland

Like RTE and the other media outlets, I am not taking sides nor pushing any candidates - indeed like those venerable institutions I would never think of being partisan when it comes to politics, just reflecting....

Meanwhile more scandals are being unearthed about David Norris.  Interestingly the print media are carrying the stories, but RTE is doing its best to ignore them.  There seems to be a pattern emerging here - RTE may be pushing its own candidate.

To end, it seems good old Irish hypocrisy is alive and well on the political front.  In The Irish Catholic this weekend is a letter from an M. O'Brien in Castletroy, Co. Limerick, who tells us that Fine Gael were outside the Catholic church there on their annual Church Gate Collection.  This person was rightly angry - after all Enda Kenny said about the Church they have the nerve to turn up and look for our money.  I also believe one Fine Gael TD said that they would be canvasing outside the churches for their presidential candidate.  Ah yes, and you know we Catholics are worse fools if we let them.  As I told you before I had to run political candidates from Church property during the last election.  Seems I may have to do so again. 

News, news, news

I did not got time of late to post - pastoral duties.  But, as I survey the weekend, it has been very eventful in the Church and in Ireland.

The Holy Father's visit to Germany was a triumph: his homilies and talks were wonderful. I was particularly taken with his homily at the first Mass which was very consoling and felt it was a real message for us in Ireland in these difficult times. As you know there is now a push by some in the Church here to break from Rome.  Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin revealed that he has received a number of letters asking him to allow people call themselves Irish Catholic as opposed to Roman Catholic.  I'm sure he explained a few things to those making this request.   The Holy Father's homily on the vine and the branches serves as a wonderful response to these requests.  If you have not read the homily, do so.

In the last couple of days RTE has turned its attention to Direction for our Times, based in the diocese of Kilmore, and led by a lay woman, Ann.   Joe Duffy on Liveline interviewed Fr Darragh Connolly, the chaplain to the apostolate, yesterday.  I was in seminary with Fr Darragh and he is a fine man and a good priest.    I listened to the interview online - you can get it here.  No friend of the Church, he is Ireland's "agony uncle" and loves to get his teeth into controversy.  I personally do not find him very objective in his work and it seems to me that he has a chip on his shoulder with regard to Catholicism.  In his interview he brought in the topic of the divorced receiving Holy Communion - a topic that had absolutely nothing to do with the issue being discussed.  I think Duffy was trying to make hay out of the fact the Ann has had a divorce and an annulment and this was a springboard to get at the Church for her refusal to bless irregular unions.   For much of the interview Duffy was antagonistic, and in his later interview with theologian Mark Miravalle he was just as truculent.

As regards Direction for our Times, it seems Sr Briege McKenna's statement has caused a lot of concern - Sr Briege has distanced herself.   She has not given a reason for this, so I cannot comment any more on it. Personally I am not drawn to Direction for our Times - I have read some of the books and I have formed my own opinion, which is my own personal opinion, and I am not inclined to accept that they are authentic. At best, at this stage, I believe them to be personal meditations rather than locutions.  However, I do heed the wise and prudent direction of the Bishop of Kilmore, and he seems happy to allow the apostolate continue and his decision carries weight.  There is a commission examining the claims at the moment, and we await their decision.  That said, a lot of good work is being done. 

As regards the presidential election - the race is on by some potential candidates to secure nominations.  Dana is doingh her best, and I think she will get the nomination.  She has a number of County Councils to visit, and I think four will nominate her. 

Meanwhile David Norris has 18 TDs and Senators backing him - he needs 20.  Failing that he has a number of County Councils considering his application.  Disturbing news is emerging with regard to the skeletons in his closet - it seems he wrote seven letters in attempt to win clemency for his lover who had been convicted of statutory rape of a fifteen-year old boy.  But there are other skeletons: a friend of his, a journalist, has admitted that there a three other scandals in the senator's life - so when will they break?  Plus the fact that members of his campaign team resigned in July over other matters which have yet to emerge.  Is Ireland going to take the risk of giving him the highest office in the land when these scandals may become public and our Republic and the office of President is disgraced?  By all accounts it seems the answer to that question is yes.

More disturbing developments are the antics of supporters of Senator Norris: it seems some are resorting to violent threats and abuse as they try to force public representatives to back their candidate.  One independent senator has revealed that she has received abusive communications from Norris supporters because she made a decision not to sign his nomination papers.  Senator Jillian van Turnhout is chief executive of the Children's Rights Alliance, and she made the decision not to support him: in all honesty, how could she given the organisation she works for.   I am aware that she is not the only one who has fallen foul of the Norris camp - I have been reliably informed that death threats have even been made to another individual. 

I'm sure Senator Norris would deplore this and these threats by some of his supporters is not his doing.  He may need, however, to distance himself from them and clarify that these people are not representing him or his campaign.

UPDATE:   Dana has secured the nomination: a fourth County Council - my native County, Offaly, has backed her.  

Who For President?

It seems everyone is throwing their hat into the arena for the Presidential election next month. Yesterday Dana said she intended to give it a go: fair dues to her.  I do not know if she will get anywhere, the main political parties tend to have things sewn up when it comes to the nomination process.

It was Dana who broke the party-only system of nomination in 1997 when she approached the County Councils for a nomination - under the Irish Constitution to be nominated as a candidate for the presidency one must get either twenty members of the Dail or Senate, or four County Councils to back you.  Until then this right had never been availed of and so Dana was responsible for allowing the local authorities to exercise that right for the first time in the history of the state.  She did very well in that election, coming third.  When she tried to go again in 2004 the political parties imposed the whip on their members in the County Councils, so once again they were unable to exercise their democratic right. 

This time round some Councils have backed candidates, but Fine Gael has imposed the whip to prevent their councillors from exercising their right.  I hope Dana gets the nomination, indeed the presidency might be a fitting reward for a woman who, in her political career, tried to uphold our Constitutional rights - after all, isn't that one of the things our President is supposed to do? 

In the meantime, we'll all come behind our own Caroline McCamley who has announced on the St Genesius Blog, her own intention to run.  No shrinking violet our Caroline would make a superb President of Ireland, there would be no messing there - a woman we could rely on.  So now, I suppose there is no better way to start the campaign than to take up a collection.....