Inequality in America Gerry OShea Late in 2018 Pope Francis filled St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with almost 6000 poor people and preached to them in words that Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin would have applauded. He pointed the finger of blame for the evils of poverty at greedy and selfish people “who feast on what in justice belongs to all.” These radical words – fully in line with traditional Catholic social teaching - bring to mind a statement by Pope John Paul 11, who many historians applaud as the main driving force in bringing down the ailing communist system in Russia and its Eastern European satellites. Reflecting, later in his life, on the rampant consumerism engulfing the West with all its attendant poverty and greed, he wrote: “I wonder which of the two systems is better.” America, the richest country in the world, is one of the most unequal in the distribution of its largesse. The top 1% own 70% of the wealth leaving the bottom 90% to claim just 27%. Th
Identity Politics in Northern Ireland Gerry OShea Identity politics was the driving factor when Ireland was partitioned a hundred years ago. A section of the island in the northeast was set apart from the rest of the country strictly on the basis of allowing the people living there to maintain their allegiance to Britain, an entirely legitimate aspiration but one that was bound to lead to trouble because nationalists on the island weren’t even consulted about the division. The 1918 Westminster election ended the power of the Irish Parliamentary Party. They had fought for Home Rule for Ireland, and indeed a bill was passed in 1912 that granted a parliament in Dublin with limited power over the whole island. This was fiercely opposed by unionists in the Belfast area who refused to contemplate any allegiance to an assembly with a majority of Catholics. For them, Home Rule would bring about domination by the Catholic majority on the island, leading inevitably to the rele