A REVIEW OF CATHOLIC AFFAIRS September 2020
Issue 541 €3· £2.50· $4
Life in Prison GEORGE CARDINAL PELL
Martin Luther King and the religious motivation for social change BISHOP ROBERT BARRON
Books: Night's Bright Darkness EAMON FITZPATRICK 1
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CONTENT
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Editorial 2 by Fr Gavan Jennings In Passing: A rudderless ship on a treacherous sea 3 by Michael Kirke Life in Prison 9 by George Cardinal Pell Providence in the Pandemic 14 by Rev. Donncha Ó hAodha Martin Luther King and Social Change 20 by Bishop Robert Barron Kwetu home of peace: St. Jude Chapel 23 by Fr Gavan Jennings Le Puy du Fou Re-Opens 26 by Tim O’Sullivan Books: False Alarm 30 By James Bradshaw Books: Night's Bright Darkness: 37 A modern conversion story by Eamon Fitzpatrick Books: Voyage of Mercy 39 by John Powers
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Rev. Gavan Jennings
Assistant editors:
Michael Kirke, Pat Hanratty, Brenda McGann
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Editorial
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here is no big theme for this month’s editorial, instead I would simply like to use this space to bring three things to your attention. Firstly, if everything goes according to plan the next issue of Position Papers which you pick up will have quite a new look. We are currently looking at ways at improving the magazine’s design and content. So if you have any suggestions to make we would be very glad to receive them, for example, in the area of design, possible adjustments that might improve the overall look of Position Papers, and in the area of content, issues that you think we’re missing out on. Secondly, I would like to draw attention to an interview I have done for this issue with Sr Caroline Ngatia, of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sisters of Eldoret, Kenya. She has been running a haven in Nairobi for tens of thousands of Kenyan street children and now is about to embark on a new project for these children. I would invite you to read what she has to say and to consider helping out with her very worthwhile work. Thirdly, I would like to extend my sincere condolences to Brenda McGann on the sudden death of her husband Cyril on July 6 while on holidays in the West of Ireland. Brenda is part of the Position Papers team and does trojan work in promoting the magazine. Naturally she along her late husband Cyril as well as the rest of her family are in our prayers these days.
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In Passing: A rudderless ship on a treacherous sea by Michael Kirke
O
ne of the many, many revealing things which historian Tom Holland brings to our attention in his important book, Dominion, (reviewed by James Bradshaw in last December’s issue of Position Papers) is the distinction between the secular and the religious which Christianity brought to our Civilization. Properly understood, this distinction is embodied in Christ’s own words, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God, the things that are God’s.” Philosophically the great elaboration of this teaching is rendered to us by St.Augustine in his City of God,
where the journey of humankind in this world is described in terms of our harmonious – or otherwise – engagement with the affairs of the planet in the Earthly City and the life of the spirit in the Heavenly City. What this distinction does not mean, of course, is that these two realms do not mix and merge with each other. They do, but ultimately do so in the consciences of each one of us, either well or badly – a good conscience requires that our actions in one realm are at peace with our actions, beliefs and understanding in the other. If not, our lives will be on a short road to the horror of rank 3
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hypocrisy. All of which brought me back to reflect on a book written about two years ago by Isabel Hardman, now assistant editor of The Spectator. Why We Get the Wrong Politicians is a worrying book. It places before us a picture which tells us that all is not well in the affairs and workings of the Earthly City. She wrote this book in the context of British political life but our own everyday observation makes it clear, however, that the malaise in that system is one which is mirrored in many if not most western democracies. Nor is it just the rise of what we rather lazily call “populism” which is at the heart of our current winter of discontent. That is just a symptom of the deeper problem infecting our political souls. Hardman’s book is the fruit of more than two years research carried out largely in the heart of the mother of parliaments. Essentially, the concerns she raises about modern political life stem from the breakdown of that vital connection between the 4
governed and the governing. This crucial element in the structure of a functioning political system has been damaged to the degree that it no longer seems fit for purpose. The challenge which Hardman lays before us now is that of finding a solution to this rift. It is a good book, descriptive and anecdotal rather than severely analytical. Despite its provocative title, it is a very balanced and honest examination of the workings of British parliamentary democracy, a kind of limited version of de Tocqueville’s nineteenth century masterpiece, Democracy in America. On the one hand the elected governors have to be wise enough and willing enough to address both the deficiencies in the system and the personal inertia which for decades – if not for the best part of a century – has prevented them from doing so to date. On the other hand, the governed have also to be wiser and more willing to appreciate the very nature and limitations of the system they
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expect to serve their common good. As a consequence they must demand integrity and better leadership from their politicians. Among the things she highlights as blighting the judgment of all those who are seeking – or who should be seeking – the common good in the earthly city is the debilitating phenomenon which we now call the “bubble” effect. The Westminster Bubble, she tells us, was first identified in the late 1990s. It was a description of the tight community of politicians, researchers, think tanks and journalists around Parliament. “It has gained increasingly negative connotations as an insular community in which insignificant things seem enormous and the things that matter to everyone else are ignored. Bubble members are out of touch with the rest of the world, and their lack of understanding of the people they purport to represent leads them to make serious mistakes on a regular basis.” It is this which is at the root of
the distrust which so many now harbour about the assemblies of their representatives in many jurisdictions, including Ireland. Hardman observes that MPs are the least trusted professional group, surveys tell us – below estate agents, bankers and journalists – with just 21 per cent of Britons saying they’d trust an MP to tell the truth. A YouGov poll Hardman commissioned for her book asked those who wouldn’t even consider standing for Parliament what put them off. Forty-one per cent of them said, “I don’t like politicians and the way politics works”, and 16 per cent said, “none of the main political parties reflects my views”. This is serious and is, to an extent, a form of disenfranchisement. If 16 per cent is bad, think of the 30 plus percent of the Irish who now consider themselves disenfranchised. Over 90 per cent of Irish legislators passed an extremely liberal abortion law (they deny that it is extreme, of course) with the effect that the 33 percent who clearly opposed 5
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abortion in a referendum in 2018 now consider that they have no effective representation in parliament. In the Irish context two major factors have produced this chronic dysfunction in that country’s political life. The first is the fatal three-way nexus which characterises politics there. The system is essentially one where a group of, at best, marginally trusted parliamentarians, locked into a rigid party system, represents the people. In her book Hardman does a great job of describing how the “necessary evil” – de Tocqueville’s term – of the party system militates against genuine
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choice in the British system. It is even more limiting in Ireland. That group is assisted in the work of government by a cadre of elite public servants – particularly in departments with a brief for social policy – seriously infected with the leftleaning ideology dominating the Irish universities in which they were educated. This elite has been perpetuating itself in that ideological image for decades. Both these elements in turn are manipulated by a media establishment of the same essential colour. This part of the machine cheerleads when things are going according to its ideological principles. When
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they veer off course, pressure is applied to bring them back by seeking to mould public opinion to the desired shape. This is done partly by the cultivation of a range of pressure groups driven by the self-same secular liberal principles. The second factor behind this effective disenfranchisement is effectively the child of the first – the collapse of trust in anything said by any of the people in power within this nexus. Surveys of this trust factor don’t exist in Ireland – suggesting perhaps the extent of control which the protagonists in this story have over the narrative about themselves. Almost twenty years ago the late David Foster Wallace summed up what he saw as a major factor behind the killing of political interest among the young in America. Guess what? It was distrust. Things have moved on inexorably since then but there is little doubt but that what America is now experiencing politically is the direct descendant of what Wallace drew attention to.
Wallace was commissioned by Rolling Stone magazine to cover the late Senator John McCain in the primaries for the US election of 2000. At that time McCain, rightly or wrongly, was the face of honesty in US politics. As such he seemed to electrify youth with a promise of integrity. Eventually his campaign was snuffed out by his party’s power-brokers, but before that happened Wallace explained McCain’s appeal in terms of his express commitment to telling the truth. McCain often finished his rallies with this refrain: “I’m going to tell you something. I may have said some things here today that maybe you don’t agree with, and I might have said some things you hopefully do agree with. But I will always. Tell you. The truth.” (sic) Wallace did not think it was that simple. “But you have to wonder,” he wrote. “Why do these crowds from Detroit to Charleston cheer so wildly at a simple promise not to lie? Well, it’s obvious why. When McCain says it, the people are cheering 7
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not for him so much as for how good it feels to believe him. They’re cheering the loosening of a weird sort of knot in the electoral tummy. McCain’s résumé and candour, in other words, promise not empathy with voters’ pain but relief from it. Because we’ve been lied to and lied to, and it hurts to be lied to. It’s ultimately just about that complicated: it hurts. We learn this at like age four — it’s grownups’ first explanation to us of why it’s bad to lie ‘How would you like it if. . . ?’”.
be a world of misery and barbarism. A political life in which political activists work as if God did not exist will be grim indeed. For as long as the earthly city lasts it needs to be inhabited by souls whose consciences tell them the difference between truth and falsehood, justice and injustice – and ultimately between good and evil. The secular world, devoid of the perceptions which the City of God brings to it, is like a rudderless ship on a treacherous sea.
“Render to Caesar...” The truth, a foundational truth of our Christian civilization, is that without each of us rendering to God that which God asks us to render – honouring truth, serving justice and loving each other as children of a Father who is God himself – rendering to Caesar will be a meaningless sham. A world without God, as Nietzsche tragically foretold, will ...the author Michael Kirke is a freelance writer, a regular contributor to Position Papers, and a widely read blogger at Garvan Hill (www.garvan.wordpress.com). His views can be responded to at mjgkirke@gmail.com 8
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Life in Prison by George Cardinal Pell
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here is a lot of goodness in prisons. At times, I am sure, prisons may be hell on earth. I was fortunate to be kept safe and treated well. I was impressed by the professionalism of the warders, the faith of the prisoners, and the existence of a moral sense even in the darkest places. I was in solitary confinement for thirteen months, ten at the Melbourne Assessment Prison and three at Barwon Prison. In Melbourne the prison uniform was a green tracksuit, but in Barwon I was issued the bright red colours of a cardinal. I had been convicted in December 2018 of historical sexual offences against children, despite my
innocence, and despite the incoherence of the Crown Prosecutor’s case against me. Eventually (in April of this year) the High Court of Australia was to quash my convictions in a unanimous ruling. In the meantime, I began to serve my sentence of six years. In Melbourne, I lived in Cell 11, Unit 8, on the fifth floor. My cell was seven or eight meters long and about two meters wide, just enough for my bed, which had a firm base, a not-too-thick mattress, and two blankets. On the left as you entered were low shelves with a kettle, television, and eating space. Across the narrow aisle was a basin with hot and cold water and a shower 9
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recess with good hot water. Unlike in many posh hotels, an efficient reading lamp was in the wall above the bed. Since both my knees had been replaced a couple of months before entering prison, I used a walking stick initially and was given a higher hospital chair, which was a blessing. Health regulations require each prisoner to have an hour outside each day, and so I was allowed to take two halfhours in Melbourne. Nowhere in Unit 8 was there clear glass, so I could recognize day from night, but not much more, from my cell. I never saw the eleven other prisoners. I certainly heard them. Unit 8 had twelve small cells along one external wall, with the “noisy” prisoners at one end. I celled in the “Toorak” end, named for a rich Melbourne suburb, exactly the same as the noisy end but generally without bangers and shouters, without the anguished and angry, who were often destroyed by drugs, especially crystal meth. I used to marvel at how long they could bang their fists, but a warder explained that they kicked with their feet like 10
horses. Some flooded their cells or fouled them. Once in a while the dog squad was called, or someone had to be gassed. On my first night I thought I heard a woman crying; another prisoner was calling for his mother. I was in isolation for my own protection, as those convicted of the sexual abuse of children, especially clergy, are vulnerable to physical attacks and abuse in prison. I was threatened in this manner only once, when I was in one of two adjacent exercise areas separated by a high wall, with an opening at head height. As I walked around the perimeter, someone spat at me through the fly wire of the open aperture and began condemning me. It was a total surprise, so I returned furious to the window to confront my assailant and rebuke him. He bolted from the front line out of my sight but continued to condemn me, as a “black spider” and other lessthan-complimentary terms. After my initial rebuke, I remained silent, though I complained afterward that I would not go out to exercise if this fellow was to be next door. A day or so later, the
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unit supervisor told me that the young offender had been shifted, because he had done “something worse” to another prisoner. On a few other occasions during the long lockdown from 4:30 in the evening to 7:15 in the morning, I was denounced and abused by other prisoners in Unit 8. One evening, I overheard a fierce argument over my guilt. A defender announced he was prepared to back the man who had been publicly supported by two prime ministers. Opinion as to my innocence or guilt was divided among the prisoners, as in most sectors of Australian society, although the media with some splendid exceptions was bitterly hostile. One correspondent who had spent decades in prison wrote that I was the first convicted priest he had heard of who had any support among the prisoners. And I received only kindness and friendship from my three fellow prisoners in Unit 3 at Barwon. Most of the warders in both prisons recognised I was innocent. The antipathy among prisoners toward the perpetrators of
juvenile sexual abuse is universal in the English-speaking world – an interesting example of the natural law emerging through darkness. All of us are tempted to despise those we define as worse than ourselves. Even murderers share in the disdain toward those who violate the young. However ironic, this disdain is not all bad, as it expresses a belief in the existence of right and wrong, good and evil, which often surfaces in jails in surprising ways. On many mornings in Unit 8, I could hear the Muslim prayer chants. On other mornings, the Muslims were a little slack and did not chant, though perhaps they prayed silently. Language in prison was coarse and repetitive, but I seldom heard cursing or blaspheming. The prisoner I consulted thought this fact was a sign of belief, rather than a token of God’s absence. I suspect the Muslim prisoners, for their part, do not tolerate blasphemy. Prisoners from many jails wrote to me, some of them regularly. One was the man who had set up the altar when I celebrated the final Christmas Mass at Pentridge 11
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Prison in 1996, before it closed. Another announced simply that he was lost and in the dark. Could I suggest a book? I recommended that he read Luke’s Gospel and start with John’s First Epistle. Another was a man of deep faith and a devotee of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. He had a dream that I would be released. It proved to be premature. Another told me that it was the consensus among the career criminals that I was innocent and had been “stitched up” – adding that it was odd that criminals could recognize the truth, but not judges.
Melbourne with twenty-five years of experience, who does a fine job – one man convicted of murder told me he was a bit scared of her! – acknowledged that Unit 8 is well-staffed and well-run. After I lost my appeal to the Victorian Supreme Court, I considered not appealing to the Australian High Court, reasoning that if the judges were simply going to close ranks, I need not cooperate in an expensive charade. The boss of the prison in Melbourne, a bigger man than I and a straight shooter, urged me to persevere. I was encouraged and remain grateful to him.
Like that of most priests, my work had brought me into contact with a wide variety of people, so I was not too surprised by the prisoners. The warders were a surprise and a pleasant one. Some were friendly, one or two inclined to be hostile, but all were professional. If they had been resolutely silent, as the guards were for months when Cardinal Thuận was in solitary confinement in Vietnam, life would have been much harder. Sister Mary O’Shannassy, the senior Catholic chaplain in
On the morning of April 7, national television relayed the announcement of my verdict from the High Court. I watched in my cell on Channel 7 as a surprised young reporter informed Australia of my acquittal and became still more perplexed by the unanimity of the seven justices. The three other prisoners in my unit congratulated me, and soon I was released into a world locked down for the coronavirus. My journey was bizarre. Two press helicopters followed me from
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Barwon to the Carmelite Convent in Melbourne, and the next day, two press cars accompanied me all 880 kilometres to Sydney. For many, time in prison is an opportunity to ponder and confront basic truths. Prison life removed any excuse that I was too busy to pray, and my regular schedule of prayer sustained me. From the first night, I always had a breviary (even if it was out of season), and I received Holy Communion each week. On five occasions I attended Mass, though I was unable to celebrate it, a fact I particularly lamented at Christmas and Easter.
months. For many years, I had told the suffering and disturbed that the Son of God, too, had trials on this earth, and now I myself was consoled by this fact. So, I prayed for friends and foes, for my supporters and my family, for the victims of sexual abuse, and for my fellow prisoners and the warders.
My Catholic faith sustained me, especially the understanding that my suffering need not be pointless but could be united with Christ Our Lord’s. I never felt abandoned, knowing that the Lord was with me – even as I didn’t understand what he was doing for most of the thirteen ...the author George Cardinal Pell is prefect emeritus of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy. This article first appeared in First Things magazine, and is reprinted with the kind permission of the editor. 13
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Providence in the Pandemic by Rev. Donncha Ó hAodha
“W
hy?” “What is the meaning of this pandemic?” “What is God saying to the world through Covid 19?” “Is this some sign, a special message?” A valid question with myriad answers in public and private discussions. The search for a global interpretation of this exceptional and tragic experience is more than understandable. At the same time it may also be fruitful to ask the personal question: “What is the Lord saying to me in and through this experience?” Nothing happens by accident. Everything falls within what is permitted by the loving Providence of God. But divine Providence is not just God’s overall care for creation as a 14
whole, but has to do with each one of us personally as beloved children of God in Christ (cf. Catechism 303). Perhaps it would be worth following Our Lady’s example by keeping and pondering in our hearts what is happening in these extraordinary times (cf. Lk 2:19. 51). The Lord is probably saying different things to different people through the current situation. For many this experience is surely a providential opportunity to grow in patience, in small or great matters. “Will I be able to go back to work?” “Will we be able to take a family holiday soon, or go to visit our relations overseas?” “When can I get back training with the team?”
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“What about our social life?” Often there is no clear answer just yet. No definite plan can be made. There is nothing for it, in many aspects of life, than to embrace the present fully… and with patience. For some, the pandemic is requiring a much deeper and essential level of patience, through being sick, caring for the sick, or being bereaved, or even dying. Perhaps this lesson in patience is timely in a society where we are so focused on productivity, results, meeting our targets, and having immediate responses and access to information – “I want it yesterday!” We are being helped to simply be, in the here and now. We are rediscovering that we have our being from Another. We find that in reality we are not in control and, mercifully, that we do not need to be. Rather we can live truly free lives, abandoning ourselves to God’s love. As Benedict XVI put it: “We can fall, but in the end we fall into God’s hands, and God's hands are good hands.” Patience and Passion The words “patience” and
“passion” both come from the Latin words pati (“to suffer”) and passio (“suffering”). Patience is a form of the virtue of fortitude or moral strength. St Thomas Aquinas teaches that “a person is said to be patient because he acts in a praiseworthy manner by enduring things which hurt him here and now and is not unduly saddened by them”. For a Christian, living in a patient way is a free decision to share in the suffering-of-love of Jesus in his “Passion”. Being patient is thus a participation in Christ’s love for the world and a collaboration with him in the work of salvation. Patience is always necessary. In his essay entitled “God’s patience”, Romano Guardini observes that “life without patience is impossible. For patience bears with the imperfect and uses restraint in dealing with the defective. Yes, he who created this existence made patience the condition of human life in this world”. The fact is that this world, for all its beauty and goodness, is not perfect and nor is any one of us. This is why Guardini says that “impatience is 15
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a protest against facts”. This imperfection of the world is perhaps more palpable these days due to the pandemic and its accompanying restrictions, and therefore the time is ripe for us to grow in the supremely Christ-like virtue of patience. Patience and Holiness Holiness consists in identification with Jesus Christ. Our Lord freely exercised patience in embracing the limitations of the human condition. “He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6-7). Moreover Jesus was patient in his daily life of work as a carpenter during the thirty years of his hidden life, and then in the intense effort of his public ministry. Jesus was patient in the face of rejection (cf. Jn 1:11), and supremely so in his Passion and death. With sovereign freedom and patience, Christ “bowed his head and gave up his spirit” only when his hour had fully come and when all was had been accomplished (Jn 19:30). 16
In The Way (no. 815), St Josemaría offers a concise recipe for holiness: “Do you really want to be a saint? Carry out the little duty of each moment: do what you ought and concentrate on what you are doing”. It sounds so simple, and yet we find that in practice, daily faithfulness to the ordinary bits and pieces, some of which are exciting and more of which are not, requires heroic patience. It is sometimes said that the hardest thing about seeking holiness is putting up with ourselves! Indeed it does take patience to keep our hope alive when faced with our bad habits and dominant defects, and with temptations from outside or inside ourselves as well as the danger of tedium or weariness. There is an ancient Irish prayer from the oral tradition of Connaught, asking for the three theological virtues. It is a prayer of great wisdom surely born of the lived experience of seeking holiness: “Dóchas, creideamh agus grá bíodh go brách ‘na stiúir do m’chroí,
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agus cuir leosan foighid, a Dhé, -ba chabhair thréan don triúr í”. [Hope, faith and love, may these always guide my heart, and put along with these o God - patience, it will be a sturdy help for these three”.] Suffering of whatever kind is a special school of patience. However it is not the suffering itself that forms the person’s holiness, but rather his or her attitude in its regard. A sentence found scratched by prisoners on a wall in the Tower of London reads: “It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear with adversity”. The Power of Patience Patience bears witness to Christ, since to embrace the limitations and sufferings of life with hope and serenity is ultimately a profession of faith in the love of God. In his charming autobiography Adventures in Two Worlds, the doctor and novelist A.J. Cronin (1896-1981) recounts that during his university days he was sceptical of his Catholic faith: “When I thought of God, it was with a superior smile, indicative
of biological scorn for such an outworn myth”. His attitude changed however as he came into close contact with the “patience” of his “patients”: “But when, as a qualified doctor, I went out into the world, to the mining valleys of South Wales and, in the practice of my profession, saw life at first hand, observed the courage and good humour of my follow creatures struggling under great hardships, for the first time I began to penetrate the world of the spirit. As I assisted at the miracle of birth, sat with the dying in the still hours of night, heard the faint inexorable beating of the dark wings of death, my outlook became less self-assured. Through the slow pangs of experience, new values were made apparent to me. I realised that the compass of existence held more than my textbooks had revealed, more than I had ever dreamed of: In short, I lost my superiority, and this, though I was not aware of it, is the first step towards finding God”. Bernard Nathanson (1926-2011), who was once infamously known as a leading proponent of abortion and subsequently 17
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converted first to the cause of life and subsequently to the Catholic faith, also indicates the evangelizing power of patience in his autobiography The Hand of God. A significant step towards his religious awakening was the patient witness of pro-life people outside abortion clinics. He recounts: “Now, I had not been immune to the religious fervour of the pro-life movement. I had been aware in the early and mideighties that a great many of the Catholics and Protestants in the ranks had prayed for me, were praying for me, and I was not unmoved as time wore on. But it was not until I saw the spirit put to the test on those bitterly cold demonstration mornings, with pro-choicers hurling the most fulsome epithets at them, the police surrounding them, the media openly unsympathetic to their cause, the federal judiciary fining and jailing them, and municipal officials threatening them – all through it they sat smiling, quietly praying, singing, confident and righteous of their cause and ineradicably persuaded of their ultimate triumph – that I began seriously to question what 18
indescribable Force generated them to this activity. Why, too, was I there? What had led me to this time and place? Was it the same Force that allowed them to sit serene and unafraid at the epicentre of legal, physical, ethical and moral chaos?” Patience in Proclaiming Christ Patience is not a go-slow. Nor is it stoic inertia. Rather, patience is to move at God’s pace. The patient suffering of Jesus, his slow steps towards Calvary, his trembling limbs and his faltering breath as he carried the Cross, were bringing about the most radical and wonderful revolution ever, the redemption of the world. Patience means listening to God, moving forward with his rhythm, which is not slow or weary, but full of energy and enthusiasm for the Gospel. In 1928 St Josemaría found himself with the divine call to found Opus Dei, but bereft of people, money or influence to carry out such a mammoth task. He wisely discerned where the strength for the Work of God would come from. For this reason he asked the sick and dying in the hospitals of Madrid and the poor
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of the city’s slums to pray for his special intention. Those who were suffering, those who had “patience”, were those who could bring this work forward at God’s vibrant pace. The same is always true in the life of the Church. Patience is a gift We have seen that patience is a virtue. It is also a divine gift, one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Catechism 1832). So while exercising our patience we can also ask for the grace to grow in it. John Cassian (360-435) relates that an old man in Alexandria was surrounded by the mob uttering insults against him for being a Christian. He stood in the middle, like a lamb, suffering in silence, with great peace of heart. They mocked him and gave him blows. Among other things, they shouted at him with scorn: ‘What miracles has Jesus Christ performed?’ He answered back: ‘One of his miracles is that suffering the injuries that you are
doing to me, I feel no indignation or anger against you, no irritation or passion within me’”. It is always time for patience, but perhaps especially and providentially at the moment. We need patience in order to love, in our daily work and in our apostolate. We need patience to move forward in building up the Church in us and around us. Patience is humble, serene, quiet and powerful. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit and a real proclamation of Christ. “In patience, it seems to me”, says Guardini, “we come, at last, to that lowliest thing of all upon which, nevertheless, all earthly life depends. He who is keenly aware of this truth has nothing more to lose, for has already relinquished everything. It lies deeper than all else. It is the very heart of the matter”.
...the author Rev. Donncha Ó hAodha is the Regional Vicar of the Opus Dei Prelature in Ireland, author of several CTS booklets and a regular contributor to Position Papers.
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Martin Luther King and Social Change by Bishop Robert Barron
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principal reason why the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was so successful both morally and practically was that it was led largely by people with a strong religious sensibility. The most notable of these leaders was, of course, Martin Luther King. To appreciate the subtle play between King’s religious commitment and his practical work, I would draw your attention to two texts – namely, his Letter from the Birmingham City Jail and his “I Have a Dream” speech, both from 1963. While imprisoned in Birmingham for leading a nonviolent protest, King responded to certain of his fellow Christian ministers who had criticized him for going too fast, expecting social change to happen 20
overnight. The Baptist minister answered his critics in a perhaps surprising manner, invoking the aid of a medieval Catholic theologian. King drew their attention to the reflections of St Thomas Aquinas on law, specifically Thomas’ theory that positive law finds its justification in relation to the natural law, which finds its justification in relation to the eternal law. Aquinas means that what makes a practical, everyday law righteous is that it somehow gives expression to the principles of the moral law, which in turn are reflective of God’s own mind. Therefore, King concluded, unjust positive laws, such as the Jim Crow regulations that he was contesting, are not just bad laws; they are immoral and finally offensive to God.
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Here is King’s own language: “One may well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws.” But then King contrasts this with obedience to an unjust law: “Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’” And in clarifying the difference, he turns to Aquinas: “Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.” This is not pious boilerplate; rather, it reveals what gave King’s movement its justification and purpose.
The very same dynamic was on display six months later, when King addressed the throng who had gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington. He was not giving a sermon. He was making a political speech, advocating in the public place for social change. But attend to some of the language that he used: “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; ‘and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.’” He was directly relating the social revolution he was advocating to the mystical vision of the prophet Isaiah. And listen to the magnificent conclusion of the address in which he artfully blends the lyrics of an American patriotic song to the lyrics of a song he and his family sang in church: “And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day 21
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when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” Once again, on King’s reading, the political nests within the moral, which nests within the sacred. Martin Luther King derived from his religious heritage not only the metaphysics that informed his social activism, but also the nonviolent method that he employed. What Jesus reveals in the rhetoric of the Sermon on the Mount (“Love your enemies”; “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who maltreat you”; “If someone one strikes you on the right cheek, turn and give him the other”; etc.) and even more strikingly in his word of forgiveness from the cross is that God’s way is the way of peace, nonviolence, and compassion. As
a Christian, King knew in his bones that reacting to oppression with violence would only exacerbate the tensions within society. He sums up this principle in one of his best-known sermons: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hat e cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” Within the confines of this brief article, I cannot begin adequately to address the social upheaval occurring in our culture today. But I will say simply this: it is indisputably clear that there are severe moral deficits in our society that must be addressed, but the best way to do so is from within a moral and finally religious framework. May Martin Luther King’s model of leadership in this regard be a lodestar.
...the author This article first appeared at: www.wordonfire.org. Bishop Robert Barron is an author, speaker, theologian, and founder of Word on Fire, a global media ministry. This article has been reprinted with the kind permission of the editors. 22
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Kwetu home of peace: St. Jude Chapel by Fr Gavan Jennings
L
ast summer I accompanied a group of Irish university students on a three week volunteer project in Nairobi, Kenya. One of the things we did was to help out in the Kwetu Home of Peace – a small complex of tiny school-rooms, and even tinier dorms and offices to care for homeless boys rescued from the streets of Nairobi. When we arrived we found a young Kenyan nun, Sr Caroline Ngatia and her small team of volunteers looking after a group of thirty young boys, some of them as young as eight years of age. We were given a very sobering introductory talk about the lives these thirty homeless boys had been experiencing on the streets of Nairobi. Over the course of the week it became clear to our team of Irish university students that these boys were like young boys anywhere: delighting in football,
in games, songs and practical jokes, but most of all relishing the genuine love and affection they had been starved of during the first years of their very young lives. Before leaving I resolved to let people at home in Ireland know of their work, and to seek assistance for their wonderful work. To this end I’ve asked some questions about the work she does in Kwetu and also her new project called Comarock. Can you tell me about the background to the Kwetu Home of Peace? Kwetu Home of Peace was established in 1993 by Fr Michael Meunier, a Missionary of Africa priest as a care and feeding centre for Nairobi street boys. KHP has grown from being a feeding centre to a rehabilitation centre. The boys – some as young as six – are taken from the streets where 23
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they easily fall into drug-taking and crime, and can stay in Kwetu for some weeks, before they decide if they would like to continue with their education. Since 1996 the Assumption Sisters of Eldoret, the order I belong to, have managed the home. Actually our congregation was founded by someone from your own country! Joseph Brendan Houlihan was born in Kerry, came to Kenya as a missionary and became Bishop of Eldoret in central Kenya. In 1962 he founded my order. When our group was there I said Mass there on a makeshift altar in a classroom. But now you have built a brand new chapel! Can you tell me about this project? A while ago I undertook to build a chapel for the Kwetu children. This was recently completed, and though simple in structure, it is at the heart of Kwetu Home of Peace, reflecting the fact that Christ is at the heart of the work
done there. This is what one of the boys recently wrote me something very nice about the chapel: “Sunday school is something which I can’t wait for each week. I get to see all my friends, laugh, and play and learn about Jesus! The stories that are told are so exciting and I love learning about Jesus and all the things he did. He is my Superhero! And gone are the days when bad weather could lead to cancellation of Sunday Mass.” The construction of the chapel has cost approximately €15,000. The donors have not only done a big favour for our boys, but also helped the entire Kwetu Home of Peace. This is because the Chapel will also be used for many other things, other than Sunday school, like all meetings, band practices, fundraising events and much more. With this new chapel we will be able to provide for these children in a much better way. There will be no more interruptions or cancellations of the worship services due to bad
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weather, the cold and hot weather will be less of an issue, and quite simply an indoor building with seats and proper facilities will just mean so much for the children, they will feel so much more wanted! How did you raise the money? Well I walked into people’s offices and many listened to me. I knocked on the windows of cars on the street, and people opened their windows for me, and listened to me. Many people, though they didn’t know me, answered my calls and listened to my story and then they trusted me with their money. I am very grateful to them and may God bless them. Without them our home couldn’t make an impact on our community. Together, we can make a difference in the lives of street children. As Christians, we all know the importance of giving our children a good grounding in our beliefs about Christ and the Lord, and this is
what our Home’s main goal is! We want to teach the children in the best way possible and help them to develop into strong and honest Christian adults. There is a line from the book of Proverbs which is an inspiration for me: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it” (Prov. 22: 6). Can you tell me about your new project in Komarock? Komarock is a shrine of Our Lady in the Machakos diocese to the east of Nairobi. I have been given a little land there to start another home for homeless boys and we are starting work in September. As we have done in Kwetu, we will work to rehabilitate homeless boys from Nairobi there, thirty at a time. This time we’ll be living very close to Our Lady of Komarock. And once again I’ll be knocking on doors and on car windows looking for funds!
...the author Fr Gavan Jennings is the editor of Position Papers. For more on Kwetu see www.kwetuhome.org. See the back cover page for details on how to help support Sr Caroline’s Komarock project. 25
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Le Puy du Fou Re-Opens by Tim O’Sullivan
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n Irish Times article in late May carried the good news that the wonderful Puy du Fou theme park in western France, was to re-open sooner than expected from the lockdown – in early June. However, that good news got submerged to some extent in the report by the paper’s Paris correspondent, Lara Marlowe, which presented the early reopening as a questionable favour from President Macron to his friend, Philippe de Villiers, a former MEP and the founder of the park. The journalist also applied several unflattering labels to M. de Villiers (“right-wing traditionalist 26
Catholic and Europsceptical”, “virulently anti-EU and Islamophobic”) and suggested that he was an ally of the farright. Ms Marlowe is a respected correspondent and few would question her contention that the friendship between M. de Villiers and the French President has been helpful to Le Puy du Fou. One might nevertheless regret a media tendency to label public figures, and particularly those of a conservative disposition, in a reductive way, and to suggest that the person thus classified can safely be disregarded as unappealing or unrepresentative. The unrepresentativeness of de
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Villiers is a matter for debate. He campaigned in 1992 against the Maastricht Treaty, which was very narrowly carried in France, and was also one of the leaders of the successful campaign advocating a “No” vote in the French referendum on the proposed European Constitution in 2005. These referenda would suggest that there are many supporters in France for his strong position on French national sovereignty. While that position has not gained much favour among the French political elite since the days of de Gaulle, concerns about the EU and national sovereignty are not confined in France to an extremist fringe. The left-wing writer Olivier Todd has recently reflected, for example, on the damaging impact of the euro on the French economy and on French politics. The influential philosopher Marcel Gauchet has argued that problems of inequality and social marginalisation can be better tackled at national rather than EU level because of a greater sense of community and identity at the national level.
An international “Paris Statement” in 2017, which was signed by renowned philosophers such as Chantal Delsol and Rémi Brague, supported a “Europe of the Nations” rather than a European federal state and suggested that the Nation-State was a “hallmark” of Europe (www.thetrueeurope.eu). While Christians can, and do, take contrasting positions in “national sovereignty versus EU solidarity” debates, no-one can credibly deny that such debates are taking place in France and elsewhere and are likely to grow more intense in the years ahead. In that context, M. de Villiers can be seen as a principled and courageous supporter of French sovereignty who played a prominent role in the two referenda mentioned above. He is also someone who has succeeded, along with others, in re-awakening national interest in the suffering of the Catholic population of the western, Vendée region during the French Revolution – when its revolt against the Revolutionary Government was ruthlessly 27
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suppressed. When I was studied French history, with an excellent teacher, more than forty years ago, there was relatively little focus on the Vendée rebellion but things have changed in the years since, thanks to the efforts of pioneering researchers like Reynald Secher and of prominent politicians like de Villiers. De Villiers also established a strong friendship with the towering Russian writer, Alexander Solzhenitysn. He brought Solzhenitsyn to the Vendée in 1993, when the author of The Gulag Archipelago reflected in depth on the links, similarities and differences between the French and Russian Revolutions. De Villiers was also an honoured guest, and one of the very few French people present, at Solzhenitsyn’s funeral in Russia in 2008. De Villiers went to the same prestigious national school of administration (ENA) as many leading French politicians and public servants but has questioned its way of operating and written amusingly about it. For example, in his book, Le 28
moment est venu de dire ce que j’ai vu, (Albin Michel, 2015), he recalled some idiosyncratic questions which were asked at ENA’s entrance interviews. Example: What is the depth of the Danube at Vienna? Good answer: Under which bridge, Sir? The question is absurd in that noone in this setting could reasonably be expected to know the answer and the answer is equally absurd but demonstrates that the interviewee has the ability to think on his or her feet. However, is this type of questioning, de Villiers asked, of much value in selecting France’s future leaders? His critique of French leaders can be linked to his views on Islamist radicalism. He thus argued in his 2015 memoir that the French political elite and media have not properly taken the measure of the threat posed to French traditions and freedoms by Islamist movements and campaigns. Such concerns cannot be ignored in a country which has had painful experiences of Islamist terrorism but Christians must also keep constantly in mind the beautiful vision of brotherhood between
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Christians and Muslims, which Pope Francis has often emphasised. De Villiers is a combative and caustic commentator on French life, politics and media. If his success in politics, against the odds, was moderate, his major life achievement was arguably outside politics and is indeed the magnificent Puy du Fou theme park (www.puydufou.com). It is France’s second largest theme park and is definitely worth a visit, or even a major detour, when French visits become possible again for those from overseas. As I can attest from my own visit there in 2017, Le Puy du Fou offers a great variety of spectacles, deploys an impressive army of volunteers and provides superb entertainment for people of all ages. It also offers a moving celebration of France’s history and Christian heritage.
During my all too short visit, I was nevertheless able to watch an impressive range of performances, from Roman chariot races to the Vikings in France, to Joan of Arc, to wonderful displays of medieval falconry and to presentations of the struggle of the Catholic Vendée in the 1790s. This theme park is an interesting model for those in other nations who wish to help their own citizens to reconnect with their past and has indeed established significant international partnerships with projects in countries such as Spain, England and the Netherlands. As the Irish Times report acknowledged, Le Puy du Fou is now one of Frances’s most popular theme parks, with 2.3 million visitors in 2019. Its reopening in June was indeed a cause for celebration!
...the author Tim O’Sullivan has degrees in history and social policy and completed a PhD on the principle of subsidiarity. He is a regular contributor to Position Papers. 29
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Books: False Alarm by James Bradshaw
I
t has been almost twenty years since the Danish political scientist and author, Bjorn Lomborg shot to fame with The Skeptical Environmentalist. In it, he laid out a convincing case that the widespread beliefs that our planet is in great danger are in fact unjustified when one examines the scientific evidence. Now, Lomborg has honed in on the subject which is rapidly becoming the most consequential area of political and social debate: climate change. The author is admirably clear in his writing style and very persuasive in his approach. The risks posed by climate change, Lomborg argues, are exaggerated. Furthermore, the 30
False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet Author: Bjorn Lomborg Basic Books, 2020 320 pages
policy measures which governments around the world have embraced – such as the subsidising of solar and wind power – are failing miserably. Most importantly of all, a continuation of this fear-driven approach will result in serious costs to the world’s population over the next century, particularly poorer people in developing countries who cannot enter the middle-class without access to the affordable and reliable energy which comes from fossil fuels. In spite of the obvious trade-off, it has almost become an axiom that climate change is an existential threat to mankind, and that all measures which could be taken to cut emissions should be taken, regardless of the financial
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or practical cost.
mankind’s extinction.
Fear about environmental damage has been replaced by fear about environmental catastrophe.
The alarmism is particularly evident among the young: a Washington Post survey last year showed that 57% of Americans between 13-17 feel afraid about climate change. Generation Greta is being radicalised by worry.
The name of the vanguard organisation within the Green movement starts with “Extinction,” and the demands of environmental campaigners are becoming increasingly extreme. Just a few years ago, for instance, calls for a 50% reduction in carbon emissions over the next decade would have been dismissed as being completely unachievable. Yet now, that target is part of a Programme for Government which Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have happily signed up to. These policy changes could not have occurred if a large segment of the population was not deeply worried. A narrative this dominant inevitably seeps through to most of society. This is shown in polls cited by Lomborg which show that significant percentages of the world’s population – including four in ten Americans – believe global warming will lead to
Here, as he has done in previous books such as Cool It, Lomborg calmly examines the facts and argues that this extreme pessimism is unfounded, given the undeniable progress which humankind has made. Since 1900, average life expectancy has more than doubled, from 33 to 71. Rates of absolute poverty and illiteracy have shrunk and child labour has become more rarer. On the whole, people are living longer, healthier, more prosperous and more peaceful lives than ever before, and there is a very good chance that this progress will continue, with UN researchers estimating that by 2100 average incomes will be at 450% of today’s levels. This much is hard to dispute given the abundance of data 31
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available, but interestingly Lomborg also asserts that the health of the planet is actually improving in ways which benefit us substantially. “In the past half-century, we have made substantial cuts in indoor air pollution, previously the biggest environmental killer. In 1990, it caused more than 8% of deaths, this has almost halved to 4.7%, meaning 1.2 million people survive each year who would have died. “Higher agricultural yields and changing attitudes to the environment have meant rich countries are increasingly preserving forests and reforesting. And since 1990, 2.6 billion more people gained access to improved water sources, bringing the global total to 91%,” Lomborg notes. “Many of these improvements have come about because we have gotten richer, both as individuals and as nations.” This is a core point in his overall argument. While many selfdescribed environmentalists and socialists (these days, the two groups are scarcely distinguishable) claim that 32
economic prosperity threatens the planet, Lomborg takes the opposite viewpoint. Not only does greater wealth improve the quality of life, enhanced affluence also allows us to focus more attention on preserving the world around us, and enables us to take preventative measures to guard against challenges brought on by our changing climate. To be clear, Lomborg is not a “climate change denier”. A committed environmentalist, he refrains from eating meat, and welcomes the recent tendency to avoid giving the oxygen of publicity to those who dispute the science about rising temperatures. The book contains a clear description of how the greenhouse effect works. As more and more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere due to human activity, the planet gradually becomes warmer, resulting in rising sea levels among other effects. Although not all of the consequences are baleful – the
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increase in carbon dioxide in recent decades has boosted plant growth and contributed to a “global greening” across the world’s vegetated areas – Lomborg believes that climate change will have a negative impact overall, and insists it needs to be tackled.
which is automatically attributed to climate change and used as yet another excuse for supporting measures such as new taxes, the closure of high-emitting industries, anti-car policies or dramatic changes to farming practices.
He does now, however, believe that this is an insurmountable challenge, and he takes aim at those who have exaggerated the damage which is occurring.
True, the costs related to increased flooding or forest fires have increased, and rare events such as hurricanes or tropical storms can also pose enormous challenges.
In the wake of any extreme weather events, politicians and campaigners are quick to point to the enormous economic toll,
This, to Lomborg, is a false alarm.
But this increased cost comes at a time when we are much better able to afford to repair what
33
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nature has wrought, and where our improved material conditions mean we are far less likely to be physically harmed. As Lomborg observes, deaths from climate-related disasters have dropped dramatically over the last century, at a time when carbon emissions and temperatures were going up. In the 1920s, such disasters killed almost 500,000 people annually, but now claim fewer than 20,000 lives annually, in spite of the world’s population having increased fourfold over the last century. Higher incomes make for better and more secure housing, and as the developing world continues to make economic advances, the numbers dying needlessly due to natural disasters will likely fall even further. While increased economic damage over the next century is very likely, yet there is an explanation for this too. As the world’s population has increased, so too has the number of houses and the amount of infrastructure in place. The same sized flood or storm 34
today will cause more financial damage than it would have a century ago, but recent economic growth means we are better able to afford this. A similar process exists when it comes to fire damage. Millions more people have built homes in high-fire-risk zones in recent decades, which makes serious forest fires more damaging. To counteract this, Lomborg recommends devoting more resources to fire prevention measures, while also discouraging people from constructing homes in dangerous areas. One of the areas where alarmist media coverage has been most evident is the issue of rising sea levels. Prominent media outlets frequently point to a future where many large cities are submerged below water, as if this was going to happen suddenly, and as if humans were powerless to take defensive action. Here again, Lomborg draws attention to what should be obvious. Significant portions of the world
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are already at or below sea level, and thriving regardless. The Netherlands and large areas of Vietnam, for instance, have long safeguarded low-lying areas by investing in dikes, dams and other flood protection measures. As sea levels rise, a large amount of additional investment will be needed elsewhere in the next century, but again, this is far from being beyond the means of developed – and even developing – countries. Apart from being critical of the sensationalist nature of public discussion on this issue, Lomborg also shines a light on the failure of existing policies and international accords to curb carbon emissions. Faced with a catastrophe-centric debate, attention-seeking politicians have a remarkable record when it comes to making promises in this area, and a consistent record of failing to deliver results. One of the most telling examples of this is the 2007 pledge by New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Clark to make the country carbon neutral by 2020.
Clark’s promise earned her high praise in fashionable circles internationally, and yet the country’s emissions are higher now than they were then. In 2018, Clark’s fellow Labour PM and internationally-prominent progressive Jacinda Ardern made a similar carbon neutrality pledge, but wisely pushed the deadline out to 2050. The jury is very much out on the question of whether this will be achieved or not. The greatest value of Lomborg’s analysis lies in his examination of the costs and benefits of existing policy approaches. Given the consistent failure of solar and wind power to deliver results, he is deeply sceptical about large-scale investment in those areas, but he does have a number of policy recommendations, including: the dedication of far more resources to efforts to adapt to a warming planet; a universal but modest carbon tax; and a dramatic increase in R&D spending on new technologies. Above all else, Lomborg’s message is that we need to view the 35
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problem differently. Climate change, he writes, “is not like a huge asteroid hurtling towards Earth, where we need to stop everything else and mobilise the entire global economy to ward off the end of the world. It is instead a long-term chronic condition like diabetes – a problem that needs attention and focus, but one that we can live with.”
true humanist, a man who is confident that we have the ability not just to adapt and survive, but to prosper and improve as well.
Few of his factual assertions or policy recommendations could be fairly described as controversial, and yet Lomborg’s views seem positively heretical in an environment where environmentalism is the new dogma. In this environment, where every facet of government policy is likely to be impacted by how we respond to our planet’s changing climate, remaining out of this debate is no longer an option. As such, it is well-worth taking the time to hear the views of a ...the author James Bradshaw works for an international consulting firm based in Dublin, and has a background in journalism and public policy. Outside of work, he writes for a number of publications, on topics including politics, history, culture, film and literature. 36
A REVIEW OF CATHOLIC AFFAIRS Night's Bright Darkness: A Modern Conversion Story Author: Sally Read Ignatius Press 152 pages
Books: Night's Bright Darkness: A modern conversion story by Eamon Fitzpatrick
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ally Read tells a story of breath-taking beauty. She was a poet, a radical feminist and had no time for any religion. Her writings and lifestyle conformed to her beliefs at that time. Her work as a nurse in London, exposed her to human pain that cried out to be healed. However, the death of her father, who was her rock, set her on a downward spiral that left her shattered, empty and completely adrift. In her darkest hour she took shelter in a small Carmelite Church. As she sat there with her face in her hands, she cried out “If you are there, you have to help me”! To her utter amazement, that prayer from the heart received a prompt response which she
vividly describes. Suffice it to say that; Jesus was for her no longer a figure in history, but a loving presence who had come to her rescue when she was most in need. This encounter changed her life. Her search for “the beloved” led her to find out more about the Catholic Church. As she spoke with a kind and caring priest, she was conscious of that same presence which had rescued her from her personal “hell”. Her prejudices and misconceptions melted away, and she was received into the Catholic Church. She could feel all the guilt and sins of her life being physically lifted off her shoulders when she first received the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 37
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This book is written with style, passion and stunning honesty. Sally was all too aware of the scandals and storms raging against the Catholic Church. But she had come to understand that the sins of others, no matter who they are, should not distract us from the profound love story which is meant to unfold between each person and the God of Unfathomable Love. Like Elijah of old, she had learnt that God was not to be found in the whirlwind but in “the still small voice”. But I will leave the last word to this gifted author: “I had stepped out of chaos… and found the still point in which I could sit quietly and receive the kiss of my Creator”.
...the author Eamon Fitzpatrick FCA, is a retired lecturer in accountancy 38
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Books: Voyage of Mercy by John Powers
T
he scale of Ireland’s Great Famine fills libraries with details of the misery and starvation that changed history not only in Ireland but also Britain, the United States, Canada and Australia as well as other countries around the world. The latest contribution to the literature, Voyage of Mercy, by Stephen Puleo, (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2020, 311 pages, $28.99) not only brings a gripping retelling of all the wellknown statistics, but goes more deeply into the unexpected changes that would soon impact the US as well as future AngloIrish relations. Once the potato blight’s devastation began to circulate in American newspapers, its horror stirred Americans to respond in hundreds of local initiatives to collect grain and other foods, as well as clothing, to relieve Ireland’s misery. Farmers in
Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America's First Humanitarian Mission Author: Stephen Puleo St. Martin's Press 336 pages
American states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, Virginia, throughout the South, and along the Mississippi River, set aside their own produce for collection and shipment to relieve the Irish famine. Where food was not grown, the hat was passed for financial collections. Even one Indian tribe, impoverished from forced migration to Indian Territory only 10 years earlier, contributed to what became the first humanitarian relief effort in US history. A Boston sea captain, Robert Bennet Forbes, obtained the use of a converted warship, the USS Jamestown, to carry food, clothing and supplies on the first voyage to Cork. In all, 118 ships eventually reached Ireland. In the meantime, Britain preached free market economics but did next to nothing to feed the 8 million living in its colony next door. Captain Forbes s first voyage 39
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which took place in record time spurred the outpouring of support that brought some relief, but more than anything, hope, to the beleaguered Irish. Puleo’s narrative does not limit itself to the relief effort and its immediate impact. He also brings out the impact of the other major player, Rev. Theobald Mathew, known as Ireland’s Temperance Priest” who worked tirelessly but unfortunately without much success to obtain more relief from Britain. At this point, politics takes the drama in new directions, as Puleo skillfully explains. Well known in America for his temperance work in Ireland, Mathew comes to America at the invitation of both temperance and abolitionist activists which included many Protestant clergymen. His stage appearance with the latter was none too pleasing to Boston’s Catholic archbishop. Nor were the abolitionists happy when Mathew declines to support their antislavery crusade. Nor were the few immigrant Irish signing on to abolition since they saw freed slaves as a threat to their meager wages. 40
Britain’s relief effort came in the form of subsidized passage to Canada and other colonies as well as Irish paying their own way by the millions to their newfound savior, the US. In such numbers did they arrive that their population in major East Coast cities and Chicago soon swamps the native born, stirring antiimmigrant fears which continue to this day. Fast forward 70 years in Ireland, and the resentment toward Britain leads to neutrality in World War Two which kept strategic Irish ports out of British hands. Even when Winston Churchill apparently offered Northern Ireland in return for Ireland entering the war, Eamon de Valera turned him down. Ireland went further in its noncooperation by making life difficult for returning Irish volunteers in the British Army at war’s end. ...the author John Powers works for Scepter Publishers, USA and lives in St Louis, Missouri.
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41
Komarock Home for Street Children
In September 2020 I will start work on a home for thirty street children from Nairobi. All I have at the moment is a field in Komarock, to the east of Nairobi! Komarock will be a sister school to Kwetu Home of Peace in Nairobi (see the interview with me on Kwetu inside). We will be building an office, some classrooms and a small dormitory. Anything you can send would be greatly appreciated. You can send a donation through this account, or alternatively through Position Papers. Thank you for your support! Sr Caroline Ngatia
Site of the future Komarock Home
Bank Account Details Bank: NIC BANK Bank Branch: BUNYALA Name: KWETU HOME OF PEACE Account Number: 1000421894 Bank Code: 411020