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A Toss-up Presidential Election

  A Toss-up Presidential Election          Gerry OShea The polls suggest that there is at least a 50 – 50 chance that the electorate will choose a woman for the first time as president on November 5 th . This history-making possibility is even more significant because the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, is also a black woman. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by close to three million but lost in the Electoral College, a remnant of a past era baked into the American constitution. The United States, alone among the world’s democracies, does not accept the popular vote as determinative of victory in national contests. Everybody, regardless of gender, is capable of both toughness and tenderness. However, for some people, women are associated with softness and with an aura of weakness in confrontational situations, which raises questions about a female’s ability to confront foreign bullies in a crisis situation in the Oval Office.   The Republicans released a brillia
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The Decline of Trade Unions

  The Decline of Trade Unionism          Gerry OShea While defending the United Mine Workers in an arbitration dispute in 1903, Clarence Darrow, the renowned left-wing attorney, extolled unions as “ the greatest agency that the wit of man has ever devised for uplifting the lowly and the weak, for defending the poor and the oppressed, for bringing about a genuine democracy among men.” This grand and noble sentiment should be posted at the entrance of every union hall to remind members of earlier, more idealistic times when, under leaders like Cesar Chavez and Mike Quill, promoting a fairer society was an important part of their agenda. One of the main reasons for the Democratic Party's growth was that a sizable number of workers belonging to unions saw the need for a political party focused on their concerns, especially in the economic area. Nearly all the leaders of the labor movement – past and present - preach that the Democrats in Congress and in state legislatures best
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A Variety of Prophets

  A Variety of Prophets             Gerry OShea “ There are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio.” Shakespeare’s Hamlet uttered these dramatic words criticizing his friend Horatio’s over-dependence on logical reasoning for his grasp of reality.   Renaissance thinking was in the ascendant among the intelligentsia in those years with its stress on the scientific method in searching for truth. Hamlet’s words warn us that imagination and intuition also provide valuable insights into the conundrums of life. Shakespeare was not in the minds of the Mayo people when they won their second All-Ireland Football Championship in a row in September 1950, although people still discuss a post-game controversy that can be defined in terms of the disagreement between Horatio and Hamlet.     Winning the Sam Maguire Cup was and remains today the apogee of achievement in Irish sport. Saying that the people in that county were elated at this victory cer
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The Changing Catholic Church in Ireland

  The Changing Catholic Church in Ireland      Gerry OShea I spoke this week to a friend in my hometown, Kenmare, in County Kerry, about a recently ordained priest assigned to the local parish. Today, this is news, but he recalled that when he was a young man you would meet a priest around every corner in the town. Then, there were three priests assigned to the parish and many more in ancillary churches nearby. Now, one priest has to take care of all the presbytery duties. This major change in the role of the Catholic Church in Irish life highlights the wider cultural movements that have taken place throughout the island in the last half-century. The clergy statistics speak trenchantly to this revolution. Fifty years ago, there were more than 14,000 women religious in Ireland. Today that number stands closer to 4,000, with an average age tipping 80. In 1960, the national seminary in Maynooth was populated by nearly 500 seminarians; this year, that figure dropped dramatically to a
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Sexual Abuse in Irish Schools

  Sexual Abuse in Schools in Ireland        Gerry OShea Here where men sit and hear each other groan; Where youth grows pale and spectre-thin and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow; I thought of these depressing ruminations on life from Keats’ poem “Ode to a Nightingale” when I read that the awful crime of sexual abuse is again on top of the political agenda in Ireland. A preliminary investigation, named a Scoping   Inquiry, has led the Irish Government to announce that they will appoint a Commission of Investigation to examine and assess in more detail the information about the widespread sexual abuse of children by clerics, male and female, in the schools that they managed. Mary O’Toole, a distinguished barrister, has led the investigation so far.   The report details 2400 allegations of sexual abuse by 844 alleged abusers in 308 schools run by 42 religious orders across Ireland. After reading the 700-page report, Irish Times columnist, Jennifer O’Connell,
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Inequality in America

  Inequality in America                Gerry OShea   Gustavo Gutierrez, the famous Peruvian theologian, defines poverty as “premature and unjust death,” explaining that “the poor person is someone who is treated as a non-person, considered insignificant from an economic, political and cultural point of view.” A recent study asserts that poverty is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. This catastrophic situation for so many of our citizens results directly from refusing people access to basic needs, denying them a sense of economic security in this rich land, and thus cutting them off from a meaningful life and happiness. The other part of the theologian’s quote about insignificance is also interesting and needs explication. It is surely telling that our TV shows, our movies, and our children’s books do not represent life for the millions of families struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder. In reality, these sad and estranged people are sidelined to a d
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Christian Nationalism

  Christian Nationalism               Gerry OShea Christian nationalism is best understood as an ideology highlighting the belief that God’s providence was involved in the American break with English rule in the 1775 Revolution. Adherents to this creed see the divine finger of approval guiding the revolutionaries in forming a new Christian country and in a continuing influence since. It suggests that real Americans should be baptized Christians who subscribe to a country with a special moral assignment allegedly sanctified by their god. Christian nationalism exists in a spectrum from the quiet but insidious kind evident among most evangelicals to the prominent leadership roles played in our time by the likes of Representative Lauren Boebert from Colorado, Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, Senator Joshua Hawley from Missouri, Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and a multitude of others who believe that the separation of church and state was never meant to preclude their conviction ab
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