We Must be Talking

 Different Approaches in the Catholic Church        Gerry OShea Salvation provides a central theme of Christian apologetics: who will be saved and who will be heading in the other direction presents a major talking point for believers.  Indeed, even acknowledging the legitimacy of a discussion on the topic requires religious faith because nobody has come back to settle the question about how one’s eternal destination is determined. Christians must also be open to realizing that we may well be asking the wrong question. After all, non-Christian religions like the Hindus and Moslems and Jews have very different perspectives on the afterlife. Back to Catholic beliefs. Pre-Vatican Two thinking – up to the 1960’s - offered a clear set of answers for Catholics who were taught that they were members of “the one true church.” Sunday sermons stressed the 3rd century church belief asserting that “outside the church there is no salvation.” Older readers will remember ...

 Happiness                      Gerry OShea The Harvard Study of Adult Development, better known as the Happiness Project, was started in 1938 and the latest update was completed recently. It tracks the lives of 724 men from their teenage years – about 50 of that original cohort are still alive in their 90’s and they remain part of the research, but they are joined now by about 1200 children and grandchildren, all directly descended from the original members. The group includes people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, from Harvard undergrads to teenagers from Boston’s poorest neighborhoods. All male initially, but the project was joined by female family members when it moved to include the second generation and beyond. Investigators survey the group every two years about their physical and mental health, their professional lives, their marriages, their friendships – and also subject them to periodic in-person interviews...

  Socialism in America                 Gerry OShea The two most popular senators in their home states, both with approval ratings close to 65%, are Jon Tester in Montana and Bernie Sanders in Vermont. These are surprising approval numbers because Montana is seen as having a strong conservative population, and, unlike his West Virginia colleague, Joe Manchin, also elected in a red state, Tester’s voting on controversial issues follows the progressive line of most senate Democrats. Sanders’ popularity is even harder to explain because Vermont is considered a rural state, where Republicans usually get clear majorities, and Senator Sanders runs for election as an independent socialist. He is the only member of the upper house openly using the “s” word to define his policies. The Vermont senator has sought the Democratic nomination for the presidency on two occasions. In 2016 he was defeated by Hilary Clint...

  The Leadership of Jean Vanier         Gerry OShea I read recently about the enthralling and poignant story of Jean Vanier, who started L’Arche, a French name memorializing the biblical ark, where people with intellectual disabilities find a warm welcome and the promise of a vibrant and supportive life. Jean was the son of the governor-general of Canada, and as his biographer, Anne-Sophie Constant, wrote, “he was a child of privilege who had danced with princesses, dined with politicians and philosophers and circled the world twice.” In 1964, his spiritual adviser, Fr. Philippe, a Dominican priest, took him on a tour of the psychiatric facility where he was acting as chaplain. There he discovered what he called “an immense world of pain.” Asylums in those days were notorious for overcrowding and abuse, functioning more as prisons than treatment centers. They were cauldrons of misery instead of places of compassion and hope. Vanier expla...

    Monica’s Story An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick From William Butler Yeats’s poem Sailing to Byzantium I recall well an unlikely colleague coming to my office during my working years – for convenience, I will call her Monica. She was in tears, clearly distraught, telling me that she needed to talk about an important family matter. I was taken aback because while she was a respected co-worker, I had not really connected with her beyond casual conversation. She poured out her story, sobbing as she explained the details. Her father, a sixty-nine-year-old man, had started working packing shelves in a supermarket. He retired the previous year from a company in Manhattan, but he could not make ends meet on his monthly social security cheque. He lived in an apartment off Pelham Parkway in the Bronx. His wife passed away four years previously and their three daughters were all working and married in the New York area. They offered to sup...

    President Biden’s Prospects             Gerry OShea Think back just six months when Republican leaders and all the experts in Fox News were projecting a red wave, a tsunami, in the November elections. Kevin McCarthy boasted confidently that his party would gain a majority of at least fifty seats in the House. Many polls endorsed these exuberant predictions. Inflation was high and prices in the supermarket and at the gas pump were escalating every week. President Biden’s approval rating hovered around a measly forty per cent. Very few independent voters seemed impressed by his outstanding leadership of the West in confronting Putin’s ignominious invasion of Ukraine, and his success in promoting a massive infrastructure bill, admittedly mostly involving projects with future start dates, just wasn’t registering with the electorate. Most Republican candidates rejected the results of the 2020 presidential election – a...

  A United Ireland              Gerry OShea The census figures for Northern Ireland released last September show Catholics, broadly understood, at 45.7%, and Protestants or people brought up in the Reformation culture at 43.5%. Ten years earlier, the figures were 48.45% Protestant and 45.1% Catholic. The statelet that was officially designed in 1920 to have a permanent Protestant-unionist majority has failed the test of time. During the ensuing century nationalists of all stripes have   complained that they were not even consulted about the partition of the island and their leaders have always advocated for reunification. The census results are significant, but they are far from the whole story. Today, one person in fifteen – a growing number - living in the North was born outside of the United Kingdom and Ireland, and there is a vibrant Muslim community accounting for 0.5% of the population. A recent major pr...