Position Papers – October 2018

Number 522 October 2018 €3 · £2.50 · $4

A review of Catholic affairs

The Crisis in the Church BISHOP ROBERT BARRON

Reflections on the visit of Pope Francis PAT HANRATTY

Film: Black 47

JAMES BRADSHAW

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Number 522 · October 2018

Editorial

by Fr Gavan Jennings

In Passing: The Devil you don’t know is the problem

by Michael Kirke

Turmoil in the Church An interview with Bishop Barron

The Vocation to Beauty

by Fr Kevin O’Reilly

“I found God in a beggar on the metro”

by Giampiero Autiero

Reflections on the visit of Pope Francis

by Pat Hanratty

Books: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

by Andrea Picciotti-Bayer

Films: Black 47

by James Bradshaw

Editor: Assistant editors: Subscription manager: Secretary: Design:

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Rev. Gavan Jennings Michael Kirke, Pat Hanratty, Brenda McGann Liam Ó hAlmhain Dick Kearns Eblana Solutions

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Editorial

O

n the Saturday of his Apostolic Visit to Ireland, Pope Francis had a brief meeting with a group of Irish Jesuits. During the course of the reunion he good humouredly remarked that: “The provincial told me that I am making the faith joyful. Really? As long as it is not a circus!” While the remark was light-hearted it contains an important lesson: we need to take the Pope’s visit to Ireland seriously; it would be a pity if were nothing more than a circus, a species of Catholic jamboree. Individually and as a Church it should have practical consequences, “action-points” points if you will. It strikes me that the Pope himself suggested two such action-points: one for the Church at large in Ireland and the second one for each Catholic individually.

The practical thing suggested by the Pope for the Church at large was that it engage in a profound examination of the role played by clericalism in the crisis of Irish Church. In fact the Pope suggested this twice in the course of his visit: firstly and explicitly to his fellow Jesuits and later in a more passing way to the bishops of Ireland. To his confrères in that meeting he said the following: There is something I have understood with great clarity: this drama of abuse, especially when it is widespread and gives great scandal – think of Chile, here in Ireland or in the United States – has behind it a Church that is elitist and clericalist, an inability to be near to the people of God. Elitism, clericalism fosters every form of abuse.

And sexual abuse is not the first. The first abuse is of power and conscience.

And then the following day, in his farewell address to the Irish bishops, he made mention of the clericalism which has been a feature of the Church in Ireland: I ask you, please, to be close – this is the word, “closeness” – to the Lord and to God’s people. Closeness. Do not repeat the attitudes of aloofness and clericalism that at times in your history have given the real image of an authoritarian, harsh and autocratic Church.

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It would be a missed opportunity if we were to overlook this insight of the Pope, indeed something which he says he has “understood with great clarity”. Francis clearly sees that the problem of clericalism lies at the root of the clerical sexual abuse scandals and it seems to me that his insight is spot on. Again and again he has spoken of a clericalism as a “perversion of the Church”. In his recent Letter to the People of God of August 20, in response to the abuse crisis in the USA, he wrote that clericalism is: …an approach that “not only nullifies the character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people” (Letter to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (19 March 2016)).

Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today.

It would be wonderful to see the Church in Ireland take this suggestion by the Pope seriously and undertake some kind of deep examination into the nature of clericalism and ways to remedy it in the Church. In reality this is a study which should have been undertaken eight years ago in response to Pope Benedict’s 2010 Pastoral Letter to Ireland, in which he asked the Irish Church for a careful examination of “the many elements” which had facilitated abuse by Irish ecclesiastics and Church institutions, saying that such an examination was a precondition for remedying the crisis. (I’m not aware that any such examination was ever instigated by the Irish Episcopal Conference). Among elements Pope Benedict identified as contributing to the crisis in the Irish Church were some clearly “clericalist” in nature: “… inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries

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and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal…”.

Incidentally, while the crisis in the Church, in Ireland and elsewhere, is more a crisis of clericalism than of Catholicism, there are some who rather simplistically equate clericalism with the pre-conciliar model of priesthood. It does not appear that Pope Francis makes any such identification, especially since the crisis of clerical sexual abuse is a predominantly post-conciliar phenomenon. It can be argued that indeed clericalism was even given a new lease of life by the Council through clericalist interpretations of the reforms, especially in liturgical matters. This is certainly the opinion of Joseph Ratzinger, who argues that “an unprecedented clericalisation” followed the Council, in particular in a new centrality given the priest in liturgical action (in misapplications of the tenets of the Council’s 1963 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium). In the pre-conciliar liturgy says Ratzinger “the priest himself was not regarded as so important” but this has now changed: Now the priest – the “presider”, as they now prefer to call him – becomes the real point of reference for the whole liturgy.

Everything depends on him. We have to see him, to respond to him, to be involved in what he is doing. His creativity sustains the whole thing. Not surprisingly, people try to reduce this new created role by assigning all kinds of liturgical functions to different individuals and entrusting the “creative” planning of the liturgy to groups of people who like to, and are supposed to, “make a contribution of their own.” Less and less is God in the picture (The Spirit of the Liturgy).

If clericalism is a Catholicism unduly focussed on the priest, this “presider-priest” model appears to be the embodiment of clericalism, and of course this post-conciliar neo-clericalism will have ramifications far beyond liturgical action.

The second “action-point” for individual Catholics to come from the

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Pope’s visit is a very simple one: to be “encouragers” of one another!

In his homily in the Phoenix Park the Holy Father asked that this would be one of the fruits of the World Meeting of Families: “As one of the fruits of this celebration of family life, may you go back to your homes and become a source of encouragement to others, to share with them Jesus’ ‘words of eternal life’.” This may appear a little vague to us, and yet it appears to me to be of crucial importance, especially when we Irish Catholics might feel that, looking at the state of our Church, anything short of grim pessimism would be tantamount to naivety. However such pessimism would not only reveal a lack of faith, but also a lack of objectivity. The upheavals of recent years have, as the Pope pointed out to the Irish bishops, “offered the opportunity for an interior renewal of the Church in this country and pointed to new ways of envisioning its life and mission.”

I sense that this renewal is already happening at a “grassroots” level of the Faith in Ireland. As a priest I come across it everyday: faithful who have come begun the practice of frequent confession and spiritual direction; parents who have begun saying the family rosary at home; young Dublin schoolboys whose fidelity to Christ remains unshaken although nobody else in their class practices; university students who don’t hide their Catholicism despite the almost daily derision it receives on campus. These are the seeds of the Church in Ireland in the decades to come.

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In Passing: The Devil you don’t know is the problem

by Michael Kirke

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ainstream media doesn’t talk too much about the devil.

That is probably because they don’t believe much in anything that they can’t see, touch, taste or hear. He is happy enough with that. He is happy so long as they give plenty of publicity to the things he does – or the things which he can get us poor mortals to cooperate with him in doing while he remains in the shadows.

The media does plenty of that. In fact, doing it is a fair share of their bread and butter.

accusing them of cooperating with this great Deceiver.

Vatican News reported that in a homily during his Mass at Casa Santa Marta on September 11, the Pope told bishops that they seem to be under attack from the devil.

He said: “In these times, it seems like the Great Accuser has been unchained and is attacking bishops.”

The Pope was not defending the crimes or misdemeanors of anyone. He was indeed saying that what had been done by ministers of Christ’s Church – which is Christ’s own Mystical Body – was something far greater than crimes and misdemeanors.

They were sins. “Sins”? That’s

But the Pope does talk a good deal about the devil – and did so again last month. Again, the mainstream media did not pay too much attention. It is a pity – for he was getting close enough to

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another word that doesn’t appear very often in mainstream media.

offend God by our despicable and unspeakable acts. Then he gets us to offend him again with the scandal we give to others, causing them to lose their faith in Him.

The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s searing account of the twenty-four hours over which Christ’s arrest, trial and execution took place is, for many, very hard to watch. That is a pity. It teaches a very valuable lesson – showing, as it does, the true consequences of sin. Crimes and misdemeanors are the constructs of human lawmakers and are measured by the offence they give to man. Sin is measured on a scale which transcends the laws of man. It is on a scale which for its atonement required all the sacrifice portrayed in The Passion – and even that did not reach the infinite depth of the terrible thing that sin is.

Knowing very well the words of Sacred Scripture, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us”, (1 John 1:8), Pope Francis said in that homily, “True, we are all sinners, we bishops.” But the devil “tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible in order to scandalize the people. The Great Accuser, as he is described in the first chapter of the Book of Job, ‘roams the earth looking for someone to accuse’”.

This is calling it as it is.

Remember these words: “it must needs be that scandal comes – but woe to him through whom it comes.” Yes, woe! The great dilemma for any journalist as he confronts wrong-doing in this world, the evil that men do, is how to justly report this and at the same time not do more evil by reporting it. There is no question but that justice often requires the reporting of injustice. But doing so with integrity makes onerous

Crimes against humanity are terrible, but ultimately they are terrible because they are sins – offences to, denials of the loving, merciful and infinite God. Their origin is always to be found in one source – the one who first denied that God, the “father of lies”, whose burning passion is to make us all follow in his footsteps.

The Pope seemed to be reminding us that the devil wields a double edged sword – first he gets us to

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demands on those who choose to carry this responsibility.

Men cooperate in and with evil but we fool ourselves in thinking that we are the sole agent in the evil actions we perpetrate. We are not.

If, for you, the devil is a figment of the imagination then what the Pope is saying will be a great deal of nonsense. But if Lucifer is part of the real world then these are words which should have been spoken long ago about the nature of the times we live in. The prophets of old spoke words like these to the elites of their time.

One third of the meaning and function of the office of the Vicar of Christ on earth is to do the same. As such, he is Priest, Prophet and King. That was the symbolic meaning of the triple crown popes used to wear. The crown may be a thing of the past.

The meaning of the office remains what it always was.

We might hope that these words of Pope Francis, the supreme prophet of our time, will awaken from slumber those who profess to know that the Great Accuser exists but go about their business as though he didn’t. If they read the signs of his existence a little more carefully they might be in a better position to convince those who do not profess a faith in anything other than their own judgment that something else is needed to unravel the evils we have to confront.

The best way for bishops to fight the evils around them, he added, is by being men of prayer who remain close to the people, and who have the humility to remember they were chosen by God. He went on to say that prayer is “a bishop’s consolation in difficult times,” because “Jesus is praying for me and for all bishops.”

Many of the prophets of old were killed for exercising their teaching role – which is what prophesy is all about. Who was behind their killing? Who is behind every martyrdom?

Evil has never been absent from the world. It never will be absent until the “end days” when it will finally be vanquished. The world recognises evil but does not recognise it for what it is, evil.

“Let us pray, today, for our bishops: for me, for those who are

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here, and for all the bishops throughout the world.”

handling of widespread clerical sex abuse of children over the past several decades.

Now, even as he spoke these words calling for a spiritual response to the evils the Church has been beset by, the Pope is diving in with hands-on measures to deal with the institutional malaise apparently affecting many of those who administer – and those who have mismanaged - the affairs of the Church. Catholic leaders from around the world will assemble at the Vatican next February for a summit to finally contend with the global crisis of sexual behavior of clerics. Leaders from each bishops’ conference around the world will convene at the Vatican for an emergency meeting to discuss the Church’s

Don’t hold your breath if you are waiting for a similar response from all those other organisations and institutions – state agencies, media organisations, sporting organisations – which have been found to harbour abusers of one kind or another . Their mea culpas are few and far between.

This unprecedented meeting in Rome in February is seen by many as showing that the Vatican is finally treating the sex abuse crisis as a global, not a localised, crisis. Of course it is global; the Great Accuser does not recognise borders.

ABOUT 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.

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Turmoil in the Church

An interview with Bishop Barron

QUESTION: We wanted to do this dialogue to talk about all the recent events going on in the Church, from the Archbishop McCarrick scandal, to the Pennsylvania grand jury report, to the Archbishop Viganò letter. Let’s start off with a general question: What was your initial reaction when you first heard about the McCarrick news, and then about the Pennsylvania grand jury report?

BISHOP BARRON: Well, it was one of shock, and dismay, and depression – whatever negative words I could possibly summon. I think with the Pennsylvania report, certainly we had known about sexual abuse by clergy going back

many decades. But some of the gross and terrible details that came forward were just stomach-turning. And I don’t hesitate to say that there was really a demonic element that you see in these things. So that’s what struck me in that awful Pennsylvania report.

With the McCarrick situation, I was struck by the fact that the abuse was going on at such a high level, that the corruption had reached that part of the Church’s life. I also was struck by the similarity to the “Me Too” movement, because not only was it a sexual assault – it was certainly that – but also a terrible abuse of power. These young men wanted the

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priesthood, and this was the man that could give it to them or deny it of them. So it was a terrible abuse of power and authority. There’s some of the novelty or some of the different texture, I think, in these two cases.

history, for sure. It’s important, I think, for all of us Catholics to realize that we’re passing through this particularly terrible time, and that we have to seize the moment. It’s time for us to act. We can’t simply be passive in the face of this terrible crisis.

QUESTION: I know you’re a student of Church history.

You’re familiar with the long history of problems and scandals in the Catholic Church.

How do you see this crisis comparing to past crises?

BISHOP BARRON: It’s the worst in our history, meaning American Catholic Church history, for sure. If you’d asked me twenty-five years ago, I would have said that terrible period in the nineteenth century when churches and convents were being burned down, and when there were political parties organized in an explicitly anti-Catholic way. But the scandals from 2002 and now in this time far surpass that in terms of their damage to the Church and their damage to people’s lives. So it’s the worst in American Catholic Church

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QUESTION: I know the first instinct for a lot of people, and I’m sure you share it, is: “What are we going to do? We want to take action to not only bring justice to these situations but to make sure they don’t happen again.” And we’re going to discuss what we can do here in just a moment. But before we do, I wanted to ask you about how important it is to keep the focus on the victims of these egregious crimes and to call them what they are. They’re not just boundary violations.

They’re something more specific and serious. Talk about that need.

BISHOP BARRON: I think that was actually a helpful thing in the Pennsylvania report.

They did away with a lot of those euphemisms, and they

named what was going on, which was a great criminal act: the sexual abuse of children and of young people, the sexual assault of human beings. So I think we shouldn’t play word games, and we shouldn’t cover up. We should say what these things are. Terrible crimes were committed, and they were committed by people who were dedicated to Christ and to the Church, who were meant to embody the presence of Jesus in the world, which made those crimes that much greater and that much more destructive – physically, psychologically, spiritually.

Maybe fifty years ago people didn’t quite understand how lives were shattered by these acts. If we don’t understand it now, we’re blind, deaf, and stupid. Lives were shattered, broken, destroyed by these acts.

So I think it is important for us to name them as crimes of sexual assault and sexual violence.

QUESTION: What’s your take on the suggestion that many people have made that at the

root of all of these problems is clericalism? What’s your take on that?

BISHOP BARRON: Anything as complex as this phenomenon has multiple causes. One of the fallacies in logic we talk about is the fallacy of single causality.

Almost every event has multiple causes.

Now, I don’t hesitate for a minute to say clericalism – by which I mean, this terrible abuse of privilege and power – is one of the causes. When a member of the clergy, who should see himself as in service to the community, takes his position as an opportunity to exercise violence and power over people, to that degree I’d say clericalism is part of the problem.

But I also go back to what Richard John Neuhaus said many years ago during the first wave of this crisis: the three causes of this problem are infidelity, infidelity, and infidelity. Lack of faithfulness to one’s priestly vows, one’s priestly identity, is absolutely

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basic. Is homosexuality also something we should mention?

Sure. I think 80 percent of these cases involve males sexually assaulting other males. Now, we also have to be careful, and it’s important to make distinctions.

This is not to say that every homosexual person is apt to sexual violence, or that priests with same-sex attraction are necessarily going to engage in this kind of activity. Obviously not; there’s no evidence for that. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the vast majority of these cases involve males inflicting sexual violence on other males. Is that worth looking at? Yes, absolutely. So I would look at a range of causes – those and others besides.

QUESTION: Let’s talk about the effects of all of these instances of abuse. As we mentioned, the focus should obviously remain on the victims who are directly affected by this horrific abuse. But beyond that, how do these crimes affect the greater Body of Christ?

BISHOP BARRON: I’ve said this scandal is a diabolical

masterpiece, because it undermines the work of the Church in practically every way.

In my case as an evangelizer, my mission is to propagate the Church’s teaching, to make the Church attractive to people, to draw them to Christ. What would be a more effective way to undermine and undo that work than to have priests engaging in the sexual abuse of young people? In terms of our credibility, in terms of our role in the public forum – choose your issue – we’re undermined in every way by this, which is why we have to come to grips fully with it. We can’t rest until the thing has been solved.

And I say that with a lot of passion, because the three great tasks of the Church – to worship God, to serve the poor, and to evangelize, as Pope Benedict XVI said – are all undermined and compromised by this crisis. Just think for a moment of the money – well in excess of billions of dollars – paid out, money that could have and should have gone to the care for the poor, the building of institutions, etc. Just in that

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way, the Church’s work is dramatically undermined. So until we come fully to grips with it, the Church is not going to move forward.

QUESTION: One proposed solution that I've seen a lot, especially on the internet, is this: the American bishops are so compromised that we need to just clean house and get rid of all the bishops. What’s your reaction to that?

BISHOP BARRON: I never think that injustice is solved by more injustice. I understand the emotional appeal of that: “Let’s just clean house. All these guys are guilty.” But that’s simply false. Not all these guys are guilty. And I’m not saying that in some self-serving way. It’s simply the case that the overwhelming majority of priests and bishops are not guilty of these crimes. And so that sort of indiscriminate sweeping away actually produces more injustice, not less. It doesn’t solve the original problem by adding more injustice to it.

Secondly, more pragmatically, it would produce chaos overnight in a bishops’ conference the size of ours. You’re talking about 270-some active bishops in this country. You’d invite chaos overnight. But the more fundamental problem is it’s just a deep injustice. So I know it’s emotionally appealing, but I don’t think it’s a morally attractive option.

QUESTION: It seems that there are really two responses that are both necessary when it comes to the abuse crisis. One is the spiritual renewal of the Church, the spiritual response.

The other is the response of practical action, which I know a lot of people are demanding.

After the McCarrick scandal broke, you wrote an article proposing one immediate practical response. You said: I would suggest (as a lowly back-bencher auxiliary) that the bishops of the United States – all of us – petition the Holy Father to form a team, made up mostly of faithful lay Catholics skilled in forensic investigation, and to empower

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them to have access to all of the relevant documentation and financial records. Their task should be to determine how Archbishop McCarrick managed, despite his widespread reputation for iniquity, to rise through the ranks of the hierarchy and to continue, in his retirement years, to function as a roving ambassador for the Church and to have a disproportionate influence on the appointment of bishops. They should ask the ecclesial version of Sen. Howard Baker’s famous questions: “What did the responsible parties know and when did they know it?” Only after these matters are settled will we know what the next steps ought to be.

You wrote that after the McCarrick news first broke. Do you still think that’s the right way forward?

BISHOP BARRON: Yes. And I’m not trying to claim any great credit, but it was not long after I wrote that statement that the USCCB leadership came out with a very similar proposal –

namely, that we have to petition the Vatican, because only the Vatican can police bishops. We can’t really police ourselves in that strict sense. The conference cannot impose sanctions on bishops. So they said we have to petition the Vatican to sponsor a largely lay-led investigation to look into what made the McCarrick debacle possible. I fully supported that. They were echoing a lot of things I had said in my own article, and I still think that’s the best way forward.

And we should keep our eyes on this particular issue. I know we’re tempted to run in every possible direction, to solve every relevant problem. And maybe in time we'll see all of those implications. But I think for the moment, we have to figure out what happened with McCarrick – and how it happened – and get at the responsible people. And we have to do it in a way that gives the priority to laypeople skilled, as I said in the article, in forensic investigation. I’m not skilled in that. I don’t know all the right questions to ask, all

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the ways to analyze documentation. But let’s get laypeople that are. Secondly, the Church ought to give full access to the relevant documentation, to provide access to the relevant people, etc. So yes, I would fully support and continue to support that approach.

etc. That’s extremely important as well.

QUESTION: Let’s talk now about the spiritual response to a crisis like this. In times of great crisis and depravity, how ought the people of God respond spiritually?

BISHOP BARRON: I know it can sound like a glib platitude, but first of all through prayer.

We have to invoke the Holy Spirit. We have to recommit ourselves to Christ. We also ought to return to the spiritual sources – not run from them. I understand the temptation.

People in their frustration will understandably say, “I’m through with the Church.” No. This is the moment to return to the great spiritual sources. That means the Gospel, it means the Mass, it means the saints, it means all the vehicles of prayer,

And I have no quarrel whatsoever with laypeople making their voices heard. I made my voice heard as a member of the bishops’ conference. Nothing prevents a layperson from saying, “Here’s what I think the Church ought to do.” Bring it to the attention of the relevant authorities. The people of God have that kingly responsibility themselves. All baptized people are priests, prophets, and kings. Well, this is under the “kingly” rubric of the governance of the Church.

I’m not proposing the Church as a democracy. But the baptized have a kingly responsibility, so I think that’s an altogether valid thing for the laity to do.

QUESTION: Let’s talk now about the recent letter that Archbishop Viganò produced, this eleven-page report where he makes some pretty blunt accusations against many highranking Church officials. First of all, what was your initial reaction to that letter?

Secondly, where do we go from

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here now that the letter’s been sent out?

figure out what happened with McCarrick.

BISHOP BARRON: Well, it was a bombshell. I was in Ireland for the World Meeting of Families. I was sound asleep, and I got a phone call to say, “You have to read this.” And it was the middle of the night, so I just got an overview of it. The next morning, I actually did a first cursory reading of it. And it was indeed a bombshell. There are extraordinary charges being made, including against the Holy Father himself. So it was a bit shocking, especially in that environment – in Ireland, with the Pope, for the World Meeting of Families. So I think it was, to say the least, unnerving for any Catholic.

And I would say this. If you had asked me two weeks ago, “If you were advising that committee, whom would you say they should talk to?” Well, on my short list of people to talk to would have been Carlo Maria Viganò, the Apostolic Nuncio during some of these relevant years. Well, now that he’s come forward with a statement, I’d say, “Okay. Fair enough. He’s made his testimony.”

Now, what do we do going forward? Here, I’d like to add my voice to that of the executive committee of the USCCB. Cardinal DiNardo, the president of the conference, issued a statement reiterating what was said a couple weeks prior – namely, that we should proceed with a Vatican-sponsored but largely lay-led investigation to

Now, do we buy it hook, line, and sinker? Well, no. In fact, as I read the document, there were things that seemed highly speculative to me. Some things seemed very driven by emotion.

But other things seemed far more substantive and specific and – at least he claims – tied to documentation. Is it worth looking at? Yes. You bet. This is not some minor player. This is the former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States. When I was at my first meeting after first becoming a bishop, it was Archbishop Viganò who rose to speak to us on behalf of the

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Pope. So this is not an insubstantial figure, and he’s making some serious claims. I’d say look into them. Let’s take an honest, objective look at what’s being claimed here.

Finally, the question that matters is: What’s the truth?

The truth will set us free. It’s so easy to get distracted from that question; you see it all the time.

And I totally understand that people’s emotions are stirred up, and they want to run off and look at all kinds of other related issues. But finally, in regard to the McCarrick situation: What’s the truth? Let’s do all we can to get at that. It seems to me that’s the most important thing. It’s also what I’d recommend in regard to the Viganò testimony.

Let’s honestly and objectively analyze it and let this group we’re talking about – a Vaticansponsored, largely lay-led group of people skilled in forensic investigation – look into these claims. And then I think we'll get the best access to what the truth is.

QUESTION: I like what Cardinal DiNardo said in the

statement you just referenced from the USCCB’s executive committee: “The recent letter of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò brings particular focus and urgency to this examination.

The questions raised deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence. Without those answers, innocent men may be tainted by false accusation and the guilty may be left to repeat sins of the past.” He’s saying that, either way, we should take it seriously and look into it, right?

BISHOP BARRON: Right.

Amen; I agree with that. What’s the truth? Let’s find out.

Anything else is going to get us distracted and will lead to moral trouble, as he’s describing there. Either guilty people get off, or innocent people are blamed. What’s the truth? Let’s find out. Only the truth will set us free. Should we be frightened or limited in that quest? I would say no. We should give this investigation full rein, and let it have access to all the relevant documentation.

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QUESTION: The Church is not merely a non-governmental organization or charity. We’re Christian; we’re Christocentric.

So where does the Lord come into all this? What role does Jesus have to play in a crisis of this magnitude?

BISHOP BARRON: He has every role to play, in a way. One of the great mysteries is what they call the mysterium iniquitatis – the mystery of evil.

There is physical evil – the mystery of why innocent people die in hurricanes and tsunamis and so on – but then this maybe even more troubling issue of moral iniquity. Why does God permit it?

The classical answer of our tradition is that God permits certain evils to bring out of them a greater good. Therefore, we should always look at the possible good that might come out of this evil situation. What are the signs of life we could look for? How is Christ cleansing and purifying his Church? To me, this time witnesses to Christ. It’s not a

sign of his absence. It witnesses to Christ.

Think of John the Baptist, when he announces the coming of the Lord: “His winnowing fan is in his hand.” Well, what is that but the separating of chaff from wheat? It’s a purifying, harsh process. Is the Christ who purifies his Church now at work? Yes – and I would say, as a good Thomist, he is at work through secondary causes: for example, the indignation of the Catholic people, the anger of the laity, the anger of priests and bishops at their brothers who have done these terrible things, this investigation team that I hope gets formed, etc. Christ, with his winnowing fan and working through instrumental secondary causes, does his work of purifying the Church. So engage with him. The Christian life is not an abstract philosophy. It’s a friendship with Jesus, a relationship with him. How is Christ alive in his Church today? Precisely in this cleansing mode.

He also says, in regard to himself, “I am the way, the

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truth, and the life.” What’s repugnant to the truth is repugnant to him. What is congruent with the truth is congruent with him. The closer we get to the truth of things, the more we’re cooperating with the Lord who operates in his Church.

I'll say maybe a last thing about spiritual warfare. I just spoke to 300 priests at our inaugural Word on Fire National Conference for Priests. On the Feast Day of the Queenship of Mary, I talked about why it’s not a twee, sentimental feast.

On the contrary, Mary the Queen is associated with Christ the King. And in the Israelite tradition, the king and his queen mother are warrior figures. They do battle with the enemies of Israel. And so now Christ and Mary, his queen moher, are warriors in the great spiritual struggle.

Does anyone doubt that the demonic power has been at work in this terrible time? I think you’d be naïve in the extreme to deny it. What’s our job? Get in the army. Get in the

army of Christ the King and Mary the Queen Mother, and fight with them for the purification of our Church: through prayer and penance, through abstinence and fasting, through raising of one’s voice and calling of the bishops – whatever means you want to use, cooperate with Christ the King in his cleansing and purifying work. That’s the spiritual call of our time.

QUESTION: Any final words about the whole sexual abuse crisis?

BISHOP BARRON: I’d say this: there are so many different angles on this thing, and so many things we can look at, and people have been doing that over the past many years. But I would want to bring into clear and very sharp focus that we’re talking about the victims of these terrible crimes. We’re talking about young people who were sexually assaulted, who were raped. And we should keep that crime first and foremost in mind. That we’re fighting in this thing is true, but we’re fighting on their behalf. We should look

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at institutional issues and all that, of course. But finally, it’s about these people who were terribly, terribly victimized.

We’re here to advocate for them.

bishops. So that should be the focus of our attention.

We can’t be silent. We can’t duck the question. We can’t play games. And the reason is that these victims of violent sexual assault need to be addressed and reached out to. Pope Francis says the Church is a field hospital. Well, some of the people who are most wounded right now in the life of the Church are those who are victimized by priests and by

ABOUT 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.

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The Vocation to Beauty

by Fr Kevin O’Reilly

“We pray continually that our God will make you worthy of his call.”

I How appropriate are these words of St. Paul at the beginning of this academic year!

Indeed, how appropriate they are for a group of people who have devoted their lives or are preparing to devote their lives to a vocation in architecture. How appropriate are these words for people who have a desire to further the cause of goodness in the world in the form of beautiful buildings.

St. Thomas Aquinas in one of his comments concerning beauty

quotes Dionysius the Areopagite, a famous and crucially important thinker both in Western and in Eastern Christianity, to the effect that “Goodness is praised as beauty.”

Thomas agrees, all the while making an important distinction and making an important contribution to our understanding of our experience of beauty.

In the first instance he writes: “Beauty and goodness in a thing are identical fundamentally; for they are based upon the same thing, namely, the form; and consequently goodness is praised as beauty” (STh I, q. 5, a.

4, ad 1). Then, however, he adds that “they differ logically, for

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goodness properly relates to the appetite” while “beauty relates to the cognitive faculty; for beautiful things are those which please when seen” (ibid.).

II The experience of beauty arises when we delight in what we perceive with our intellects. As in the case of goodness, however, our sense of what is truly beautiful can become distorted. As a result we can delight in things that objectively lack beauty: they are either ugly or, even worse, simply banal.

Banality is perhaps the aesthetic equivalent of the Nietzschean “beyond good and evil”.

To reiterate: our experience of beauty or the lack thereof relates to the intellect in the first instance. Art and architecture thus play a powerful role in shaping the way we think and behave. Indeed, art and architecture are all the more powerful when, as is unfortunately the case, most of us remain oblivious to the ways in which they shape our thinking and, ultimately, our behavior.

III If my memory serves me correctly, Martin Mosebach writes that in bygone times secular architecture took its cue from sacred buildings, which in turn were shaped by the celebration of the Eucharist.

Human reason, shaped by faith in Christ really and truly present in the Eucharist, designed and crafted fitting abodes for the Eucharistic Lord. This faithfilled reason spread its influence beyond the confines of church buildings and, in that way, helped to shaped a general consciousness in society.

I do not wish to argue that beautiful churches designed and constructed within the flow of Tradition – for as the Dominican theologian, Marie-Dominique Chenu, points out, art and architecture are monuments of Tradition – are sufficient to bring people to a strong, orthodox Catholic faith. I would argue, however, that the rupture with Catholic traditions in music, painting, sculpture, and architecture over many decades has probably helped to

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undermine people’s faith. Put simply, such work embodies and communicates a philosophy that is not compatible with the faith.

IV Jesus said: Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who shut up the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces, neither going in yourselves nor allowing others to go in who want to.

Thus begins today’s Gospel passage. As people who have a special vocation to participate in God’s creative power by bringing beauty – and therefore goodness – into being, it’s necessary always to be conscious of the duty that attends such a privileged call, a call that extends to all of one’s work and not simply to sacred buildings.

Artists, sculptors, musicians, architects, and so on possess a certain power. Whether they are conscious of the fact or not, they mold the vision and values of the societies in which they live.

Much contemporary art, music, sculpture, and architecture in

Western society acts as a dispositive cause in obscuring a sense of the transcendent in general and of extinguishing the light of faith in particular. It shuts up the kingdom of heaven.

Christian artists, musicians and architects are called to be courageous and prophetic in their work as they act as a leaven in society. Persecution and trouble may well be their lot as a result. As Christians who espouse the one, true, holy, Catholic, and apostolic faith, however, none of us is exempt from Christ’s call to us to take up our crosses on a daily basis and to follow Him. V A vocation to beauty may well bring suffering in its wake but suffering will never have the final word. The crucified Lord has risen from the dead and thrown open the gates of heaven for us. In this life a vocation to beauty will bring many glimpses of the glory of the world to come.

The artistic beauty inspired by the incarnation of the second Person of the Holy Trinity offers

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an index of the transformation that the grace of the Gospel has wrought in Western civilization over two millenia.My plea to you is to immerse yourselves in that grace in the sacramental life of the Church, particularly in the Eucharist. With St. Paul in today’s reading to the Thessalonians

grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We pray continually that our God will make you worthy of his call, and by his power fulfil all your desires for goodness and complete all that you have been doing through faith; because in this way the name of our Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified in you and you in him, by the

ABOUT THE
 AUTHOR

Fr. Kevin E. O'Reilly, is a member of the Irish Province of the Order of Preachers. He is the author of Aesthetic Perception: A Thomistic Perspective and The Hermeneutics of Knowing and Willing in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. He currently teaches moral theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome.This homily was given during Mass at San Clemente, Rome to the professors and students of Notre Dame's Architectural School's one-year programme in Rome.

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“I found God in a beggar on the metro”

by Giampiero Autiero

I

want to tell you how I found Jesus in the person of a beggar. My name is Giampiero Autiero. I work in a hospital in Germany and I am one of the many Italians who have emigrated in search of a job opportunity.

At first, it wasn’t easy to adapt to the German culture. Working in another language, living in a tiny apartment, losing contact with childhood friends and giving up watching your parents grow older are sacrifices that emigrating to another country involves.

Five years later, despite all the hardships at first, I am happy living in Germany with my wife

and children. It isn’t easy to leave behind so many persons who are dear to me, and the sites and even smells of my childhood spent growing up in Naples. But my family gives me the courage and strength to keep going.

Besides, here in Germany is where I found God. It happened like this.

A beggar on the metro One day, after attending a conference in Munich, I took the subway. When only one stop was left before the airport, where I was to catch a flight home, a poorly dressed beggar staggered through the subway car and stopped beside me. Looking at me intently, he asked me if I

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could give him the metro ticket I had used, so he could continue the trip with it. But I felt uncomfortable at his request, and refused. Without complaining, he walked away.

On getting out of the car, I found him again at the foot of the stairs leading to the surface. He repeated the same request, and I refused again, even though I wasn’t going to need that ticket any more.

Later, while chatting with some colleagues, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have my mobile phone with me. Right away the image of the beggar came to my mind. I immediately reported the loss to the security service and went to the lost property office, but the phone wasn’t there.

With a friend’s cell phone, I sent a message to my own phone, hoping that whoever had it would contact me. I was desperate. I had on the phone memories and contacts from all my years in Germany. I called my number again and finally a friendly voice answered.

Someone had found it on the metro seat, and he told me I could meet him three stops from there.

Even though I knew I was risking missing my flight home, I went to meet the unknown person who had answered. It turned out to be a well-dressed young man, who recognized me right away by the concerned look on my face. I wanted to offer him some money as a reward, but he wouldn’t accept it. And he told me, “Here, take my ticket for your return trip on the metro. I don’t need it anymore.”

My heart froze at his words. I realized how heartless I had been, by denying help to my neighbour in need. I had been arrogant and selfish. I had had the opportunity to help someone less fortunate, and had misused it. And now this person was helping me. I had met our Lord dressed as a beggar, and I hadn’t been ready to serve him.

At other times in the past I had offered my help to people in need, but that day I wasn’t able to. All that made me reflect. My lack of compassion led to the

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decision to try to do more for our Lord, and several days later, when back in Naples for a few days, I wrote an email to the Opus Dei website.

meeting along with other people who go to activities organized near Hamburg, where I now live.

Two years have gone by since then and my life has changed. I An immense panorama have learned to pray in another language. I thought it would A cooperator of Opus be impossible, but I Dei contacted me have succeeded. In and invited me to the thousand and an evening of one difficulties recollection at each day, in the the Monterone demanding work residence. The of a surgeon, in meeting lasted family life filled only a few hours, with both joyful but I could sense and difficult Dr. Giampiero Autiero the atmosphere of moments, I thank God serenity and peace there. for having found this path.

And I felt the desire to share in And he helps me find the time the happiness that I saw in the needed for prayer each day, so as people there. to confront together—God and I —all the challenges. As When I returned to Germany, I a supernumerary of Opus Dei, I continued to go to the activities just want to be a good Christian, of Christian formation offered by able to pass on to my children Opus Dei. I learned to offer God my love for God. I have found my work, to serve others in my God, and I want to love him ordinary activities, and to more each day. provide those in need with a word of comfort and support. In This article first appeared on the center of Opus Dei in Berlin, www.opusdei.ie.

I met Father Wolfgang Weber, and we agreed to continue

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Reflections on the visit of Pope Francis

by Pat Hanratty

I

n his very brief visit to Ireland last August, Pope Francis left us a lot to think and pray about.

Many of the events attracted widespread media coverage during and after the visit – in this article I want to focus on some of the things the Pope actually said that I found particularly helpful.

It should be remembered that the visit had the specific context of the World Meeting of Families, so it was hardly surprising that he addressed issues relevant to the family today, such as during his address in Croke Park where he clearly addressed families in ways consistent with the theme of the World Meeting, The

Gospel of the Family: Joy for the World” and his Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia issued in 2016. Not surprisingly the media highlighted his admonition to families to communicate and for example not to be distracted by their mobile phones while at meals.

There was less attention paid to his exhortation to his remarks on infant baptism: Today in Dublin we are gathered for a family celebration of thanksgiving to God for who we are: one family in Christ, spread throughout the world. The Church is the family of God’s children. A family in which we rejoice with those who are

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rejoicing, and weep with those who grieve or feel knocked down by life. A family in which we care for everyone, for God our Father has made all of us his children in Baptism. That is one reason why I keep encouraging parents to baptize their children as soon as possible, so that they can become part of this great family of God. We need to invite everyone to the party!

It is true that I like to say that in our families we need to learn three words: “sorry”, “please” and “thank you”.

When you quarrel at home, be sure that before going to bed you apologize and say you are sorry. Even if the argument tempts you to sleep in another room, alone and apart, just knock on the door and say: “Please, can I come in?” All it takes is a look, a kiss, a soft word... and everything is back to the way it was! I say this because when families do this, they survive. There is no such thing as a perfect family; without the practice of forgiveness, families can grow sick and gradually collapse.

He went on to speak of the joy we should have in our faith: God wants every family to be a beacon of the joy of his love in our world. What does this mean? It means that we, who have encountered God’s saving love, try, with or without words, to express it in little acts of kindness in our daily routine and in the most hidden moments of our day.

And, of course, he touched on the theme he has often spoken and written about – forgiveness:

Indeed, as I attempt to write this piece, I realise I could quote the whole address from Croke Park, including his several references to remarks made by the people who gave testimonies during the concert, but the whole text can be found on the Vatican’s website.

And then there was the Phoenix Park!

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Not surprisingly the Pope’s dramatic and unscheduled Penitential Act attracted the most attention, but his homily was also hugely significant and contained several nuggets. He used the Gospel of the day from Chapter 6 of St John. We know the scene: Jesus has recently fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes but then he foretells the Eucharist and the necessity to eat his body and drink his blood – a hard saying – and many leave him. He asks the twelve if they too want to go and Peter says “Lord to whom should we go? You have the message of eternal life.”

can repeat: “We too will serve the Lord, for he is our God” (Jos 24:18).

He reminded us too of Ireland’s rich missionary history, citing the example of St. Columbanus (543-615 AD) and his companions (who) “brought the light of the Gospel to the lands of Europe in an age of darkness and cultural dissolution” and went on to encourage us with the words: Of course, there will always be people who resist the Good News, who “murmur” at its “hard words”. Yet like Saint Columbanus and his companions, who faced icy waters and stormy seas to follow Jesus, may we never be swayed or discouraged by the icy stare of indifference or the stormy winds of hostility.

Pope Francis applied these words to our situation in the modern world: Yet it is precisely at those times that the Lord asks us: “What about you, do you want to go away too?” (Jn 6:67). With the strength of the Spirit to “encourage” us and with the Lord always at our side, we can answer: “We believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God” (v. 69).

With the people of Israel, we

In parting, he asked us to

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… renew our fidelity to the Lord and to the vocation he has given to each of us.

Taking up the prayer of Saint Patrick, let each of us repeat with joy: “Christ within me,

Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me” [repeated in Irish]. With the joy and strength given by the Holy Spirit, let us say to him with confidence: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68).

When I look back in times to come on the wonderful visit of Pope Francis to Ireland, I hope it is these and other words of his that will be foremost in the memory, rather than the utter negativity that we endured from the media, the rotten weather on the Sunday, the miles we had to walk etc. Of course we’ll also

remember with joy the many other stand out moments - at Knock, Sean McDermott Street, the Pro Cathedral and the thousands lining the streets of Dublin on the Saturday afternoon. We’ll also remember with joy and gratitude the thousands of volunteers who gave so willingly of themselves, and helped make the days of the World Meeting and the Papal Visit days we will remember forever.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pat Hanratty taught Science/Chemistry in Tallaght Community School from its inception in 1972 until he retired in 2010.

He was the school's first Transition Year Co-ordinator and for four years he had the role of Home School Community Liaison Officer.

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BOOKS

Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived

by Andrea Picciotti-Bayer

S

calia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived, a compilation of public speeches given by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, opens a window into the thoughts of one of the country’s most well-known jurists. The speeches are entertaining to read, many touching upon matters of interest outside of the law, and reveal – as the book’s introduction promises – Justice Scalias “warmth, wisdom and humor.”

The book groups Justice Scalias speeches into a number of thematic collections. Speeches grouped under the title “On Law” – the chapter of most interest to lawyers and

comprising a good 150 pages of the 400-page book – offer a layman’s primer on Justice Scalias view of the Constitution and the role of a judge. In 1991 speech given at Brown University, for example, he urged listeners to accept that “a bill of rights has value only if the other part of the constitution – the part that really ‘constitutes’ the organs of government – establishes a structure that is likely to preserve, against the ineradicable human lust for power, the liberties that the bill of rights expresses.” In that same speech, Scalia rejected the notion that the Constitution prohibits that which is “intensely bad” or requires what is “intensely good” and denounced

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as “plainly unhistorical, therefore, to regard the Constitution as simply a shorthand embodiment of all that is perfect – to think that whatever element of perfection does not appear there explicitly must be contained within more vague guarantees, such as the guarantee of due process, or freedom from unreasonable searches, or equal protection.” He warned that such an attitude – commonly promoted by advocates of the idea of a “living Constitution” – “will, in the long run – indeed, in the not so long run – destroy the ability of the Constitution to preserve the guarantees that is does contain.”

The justice’s faith most certainly guided his vocation, but not in the way that most might assume.

Granted, when speaking in 1992 before the Judicial Prayer Breakfast Group – which included judges of diverse faiths – he objected to the Kennedyesque idea that “religious affiliation” can be easily isolated from a person’s work. Such an idea, he claimed, “reduc[es] the most profound

commitment of a man’s life to a mere membership preference.”

But in another speech entitled “Faith and Judging,” Scalia shared his belief that Christ’s charge to “Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” meant striving for perfection “in all things, including that very important thing, the practice of one’s life work.” With a helpful and fairly humorous image, the justice explained: “No matter how good a Catholic a shortorder chef may be, for example, there is no such things as a Catholic hamburger. Unless, of course, it is a perfectly made and perfectly cooked hamburger.” Applying this standard to his understanding of the role of a judge, Scalia continued: “Just as there is no Catholic way to cook a hamburger, so also there is no Catholic way to interpret a text, analyze a historical tradition, or discern the meaning and legitimacy of prior judicial decisions – except, of course, to do those things honestly and perfectly.”

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These speeches evidence that Scalia strove for honest and perfectly performed work, rather than importing Catholic doctrine into his decision making. He described, for example, his longstanding opposition to Roe v. Wade as follows: “that position is not a virtuous affirmation of my religious belief, or even a sagacious policy choice, but simply the product of lawyerly analysis of constitutional text and tradition; and that if legal analysis had produced the opposite conclusion I would have come out the other way.” Reading his explanation of how faith guided Justice Scalia gives greater depth to appreciating not simply outcomes he advocated as a

jurist, but the conscientious offering he made of this work to God. Cherishing what is good and beautiful – God, family, friendship and country – Justice Scalia’s speeches offered those in the audience at the time and those who will enjoy reading them today opportunities to celebrate the unique character of Americans and appreciate the laws creating and governing our country. Scalia Speaks reveals Justice Scalia, using his own words, to have been a man who served his country with conviction, sincerity, incredible intelligence and culture, and a really great sense of humor.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is Legal Advisor for The Catholic Association Foundation. Her legal career has been dedicated to civil rights advocacy. This article first appeared on www.catholicnewsagency.com and is reprinted with the kind permission of the editor.

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FILMS

Black 47

by James Bradshaw

D

irected by Lance Daly, the historical drama Black 47 centres around a battlehardened Connaught Ranger, Feeney (played by the Australian actor James Frecheville), who deserts his unit and returns home to Connemara at the height of this most calamitous period in Ireland’s history. Upon discovering that his mother has died, and that his brother has been hanged for resisting eviction, Feeney resolves to take his remaining kinsfolk to America.

Fate intervenes however, and having witnessed true cruelty first-hand, Feeney sets about exacting a bloody vengeance on those responsible for the tragedy

that has been befallen his people. This challenge to the authorities cannot go unchecked, and Feeney’s former comrade from the war in Afghanistan, Hannah (played by familiar face Hugo Weaving), is employed to track down his old friend.

In spite of the abysmal standard of history education here, the majority of Irish people know the central truths of An Gorta MĂłr, which need no elaboration here. It is incredibly strange, though, that an event which shaped our nation like no other has not been dramatised in film before. Even within our literature, the Famine is left

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mostly untouched, though it is frequently alluded to.

The death of a million Irish men, women and children, and the departure of a million more from these shores, is a catastrophe that has been beyond the imagination of most of our storytellers.

Its long-term effects, however can scarcely be overexaggerated. Ireland has never fully recovered in population terms, and possibly never will.

Its remnants are all around us, and yet little reflected upon.

Workhouses and Famine memorials are dotted throughout the country, along with Famine graveyards. These small empty fields contain the remains of thousands of dead: too numerous to be listed, too deprived to have obtained headstones.

with historians as well as visits to Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, which houses the most extensive collection of Famine-related art work in the world. Painstaking analysis of contemporary visual representations has been undertaken, to help to know how people at the time tended to be dressed, what sort of homes they lived in, and so on. This certainly pays off.

The haunting beauty of Connemara is a sight to behold, particularly given the contrast between the glorious landscape and the appalling human misery all around. Enthusiasts for Irish culture will also appreciate being transported to a place where Irish is the spoken language, and where soulful Irish melodies are sung before a roaring fire, where entire families huddle to stay warm.

The challenge of bringing this hellish reality to light has fallen to Daly and his crew, and the final product is highly admirable in many ways. Black 47 is the result of exhaustive research, which involved much interaction

The central narrative is a compelling one, with Frecheville’s solitary Feeney being chased by Hannah, who like his erstwhile comrade struggles with past demons. The

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frequent action scenes are wellperformed, and the villains – the cruel landowner Lord Kilmichael, and the selfrighteous British officer Pope, who Hannah is accompanying on his quest to find Feeney – are suitably loathsome.

A story such as this, however is as only as good as its protagonist. Feeney’s actions speak louder than his words, and his losses are terrible, but it is difficult to establish any emotional connection with such a distant figure. Black 47’s failures are, for the most part though, not the fault of the leading man or those who produced it. This is a lowbudget movie, part-funded by the Irish Film Board. While the effort to depict the rural peasantry accurately produces some good results, without considerable expense on largescale sets or CGI, no movie could come close to showing what the Famine actually would have looked like. This is particularly true when one considers the situation in Connemara, which appears to be very sparsely populated in Black 47.

Yet Galway county had a population of over 440,000 in 1841, compared to just over 250,000 in 2016. Isolated areas which are now unoccupied would have teemed with people, packed together as they were in tiny homes spread all across the land, which often consisted of mere holes in the ground. By minimising the scale of the population, the film’s makers have also – through necessity and through no fault of their own – minimised the gravity of what truly occurred.

The makers of this film sadly lacked the financial resources to create a truly authentic visual experience, and unless Hollywood producers decide to produce a Famine drama, Daly’s artistic vision might not be bested in future.

It would be difficult to produce any substantive drama about nineteenth century Ireland which does not address the two elephants in the room. While none of the central characters are motivated by faith, in an interesting move, one very contentious religious issue is

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highlighted: souperism.

Protestant missionaries – clearly imbued with an obvious Anglicising purpose in linguistic policy as well – are shown dispensing alms to impoverished Irish people, on the condition that they renounce their Catholic faith. Feeney’s mother, the hero finds out, died rather than following the example of others and risking her damnation.

Revisionist figures in recent time – one thinks of Eoghan Harris of The Sunday Independent for instance – have devoted considerable efforts to downplaying such inconvenient facts of history. But this did occur.

Far more emphasis is placed on the political questions facing in Famine-era Ireland. The film actually begins with an interrogation of a Young Ireland prisoner, and several of Feeney’s pursuers speak in dark terms of the Ribbonmen whose violent resistance threatened to upset the status quo. Other characters bemoan the fact that Feeney ever enlisted in the British forces.

Feeney’s bloody rampage leaves the audience with a key question, one which is not posed openly but which is clearly in the mind of the director: should more have followed his lead?

Why did a nation in such desperation not rebel against its occupiers?

There are many possible answers: the lack of awareness as to what was happening elsewhere in the country; the limited influence and reach of revolutionary movements such as the Young Irelanders; the restraining influence of the Catholic clergy; the physical weakness of a starved population; and perhaps above all, the knowledge that such a rebellion would have been crushed, and crushed mercilessly.

If ever there were a case where violence was justified, 1847 Ireland was it. And yet we should probably be glad that our ancestors chose not to engage in it. Nor does Black 47 to argue that they should have. Unlike Ken Loach in The Wind That

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Shakes the Barley, Daly chooses not to pronounce upon what should have happened, and the film’s portrayal of Feeney’s choice to use force is ultimately an ambiguous one. Even for someone who is free of Loach’s ideological extremism, historical film-making is a very difficult art. When done well, such films can become valuable resources for students of a particular era, event or figure. Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi is one such example; Dunkirk is a more recent one.

exactly how significant these years were, and why they should never be forgotten.

Black 47 isn’t it. But it is worth seeing nonetheless.

A day may come when a film is made that fully captures what happened during the Irish Famine, and explains to generations of Irish viewers

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Bradshaw works in an international consulting firm, based in Dublin

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Nazareth Family Institute Pre-marriage preparation.

Marriage enrichment, restoration & healing.

Dates of marriage preparation weekends: 2/3 November 2018 Venue: Avila retreat centre, Donnybrook, Dublin.

Extended course: A seven week course by arrangement with the course directors Course director, Peter Perrem 01-2896647 For more information see: www.nazarethfamilyinstitute.net

Interdiocesan Retreats For Priests Monday 19 Nov (9pm) - Friday 23 Nov (10am) 2018 Monday 11 Feb (9pm) - Friday 15 Feb (10am) 2019 Monday 1 Apr (9pm) - Friday 5 Apr (10am) 2019

The retreat will be preached by a priest of the Opus Dei Prelature and will also include plenty of time for silence and private prayer.

SEE WWW.LISMULLIN.IE FOR FURTHER DETAILS.