We Must be Talking

  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

  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

  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,

  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