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● Cholera epidemic changed doctor’s life

● Catholic schools in self-destruct mode

● Big brother wants control of your kids

Helping thevictims of acollegeeducation

Cohen remarkhits nail onthe head

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Why is publicswitching offRTE news?

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!No. 180 ● July/August 2012

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● The content of the newspaper Alive! and the views expressed in it are those of the editor and contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Irish Dominican Province.

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Catholic Monthly Newspaper

‘Cohabitationeffect’ hitsMyleene● See Page 6

● See Page 3

Forwardnow tothe Yearof Faith

Eucharistic Congressgives major boost toChurch renewal

St Edith SteinFeast Day 9th August

2 Alive! July/August 2012

Bishop challenges Catholicsto be what they claim to be

He also criticised the secu-larist outook that shapesmuch of the thinking inmodern social services,remarking: “There is no suchthing as ‘humanism withoutGod’. It never endures, andit ends by debasing thehumanity it claims to serve.”

Speaking to a nationalmeeting of Catholic socialworkers, ArchbishopCharles Chaput stated:

“If our social work isn’tdeeply, confidently andexplicitly Catholic in itsidentity, then we should stopusing the word ‘Catholic’.It’s that simple.”

The Archbishop alsostressed the need for hope.Real hope, he said, “hasnothing to do with emptypolitical slogans. It has noth-ing to do with today’s addic-tions to progress or opti-mism or positive thinking.”

The only enduring basis forhuman hope, he pointed out,“is faith in Jesus Christ.”

Becomes goodNow based in Philadelphia,

Dr. Chaput made severalpoints about Catholic identi-ty. First, just as a person whodoes good becomes good, soan institution becomes whatit does, he said.

So, for example, “the morethat Catholic universities orhospitals mute their religiousidentity, the more thatCatholic social ministriesweaken their religious char-acter, the less ‘Catholic’ they

are, and the less useful to theGospel.”

Second, communities aswell as individuals haverights. But “the individual’sright to resent the Church orreject her beliefs does nottrump the rights of theCatholic community tobelieve and live according toits faith.”

In other words, said theArchbishop, “Catholic ser-vices have the duty to faith-fully embody Catholic beliefson marriage, the family,social justice, abortion andother important issues.”

So, if the state uses “legal orfinancial bullying” to preventCatholic agencies from beingfaithful to their beliefs, then,“as a matter of integrity, theyshould end their services.”

Archbishop Chaput saw anew kind of America, morehostile to religious faith,emerging in the future.

“In the years ahead,” hesaid, “we’re going to seemore and more attempts by

civil authority to interfere inthe life of believing commu-nities.

“We’ll also see less and lessunchallenged space for reli-gious institutions to carry outtheir work in the publicsquare.”

Because of this, “no one inCatholic social work canafford to be lukewarm abouthis or her faith or naïve aboutthe environment we now face– at least, if we want Catholicsocial work to remainCatholic.”

Not optionalFor Catholic teachers,

social workers, etc, beingfaithful to the Church’smoral teaching is not some-thing optional, “it is basic totheir identity.”

Church teaching, he point-ed out, is not just a list of dosand don’ts. Rather, it is partof a broad view of thehuman person, whichincludes his dignity and hiseternal destiny.

In other words,“Christianity doesn’t beginby telling people what theymust do, but by telling whatGod has done for them. Giftcomes before duty.”

Service to others shouldnever attempt to impose orpressure others into faith, theArchbishop stressed.

At the same time, “it mustbe motivated to share God’slove with others, in additionto offering material aid.Christian charity is alwaysboth a material and a reli-gious act.”

However, the archbishopwarned, given the present

state of Catholic organisa-tions, striving for Christianideals “will involve seriouscultural change within manyCatholic agencies.”

It will also require peoplewho “first, believe in realhuman development, asunderstood in the light ofJesus Christ and the Catholicfaith; and second, who havethe courage to speak thetruth and act on it confident-ly.”

AN AMERICAN bishop has urged all those involved inCatholic social groups, such as schools or charitableagencies, to uphold and strengthen their religious iden-tity.

THE Australian state of Victoria is to consider introduc-ing a law to give all children conceived with “donor”sperm the right to find out about their natural fathers.

A major report from the LawReform Committee in Melbournehas recommended the move.

At present children conceivedafter 1997 have unconditionalaccess to identifying informa-tion, but those conceived before1988 have no rights at all in thisregard.

“It is likely that thousands ofchildren were born throughsperm donation during this earli-er period, and that there werearound 500 donors,” said thereport.

But a culture of secrecy pre-vailed and most children con-ceived unnaturally in those yearswere never told of their origins.

“It is probable that only a fraction of these people are actu-ally aware that they are donor-conceived,” said the report, aremark that is likely to cause widespread questioning, distressand insecurity.

Finally recognisedAfter years of lobbying by “donor-conceived” people, now in

their twenties or older, their rights are finally being recognised.The chairman of the committee explained:

“Donors who donated their gametes before 1988 did so onthe basis of anonymity, [but] the Committee considers thatdonor-conceived people have a right to know the identity of theperson who contributed half of their biological makeup.”

One problem is that record-keeping was chaotic during theearlier period, so that for thousands of people, tracing theirreal fathers may be impossible.

One commentator explained “the records linking children todonors either do not exist or are mouldering away in hospitalbasements.

“Some donors were told to use pseudonyms; sometimes thesperm of a spouse was mixed with the sperm of a donor.

“Some doctors may have provided donations themselves.Some records may have been falsified.

The procedure completely ignored the responsibility of afather to care for his child. One specialist told the committeethat, in the 1980s, it was his job to go marketing for donors.

“I used to talk to groups of medical students saying: Look,come and be a sperm donor. We need people to donate, wehave got all these infertile men; the women are waiting,” hesaid.

Oz children may getright to know ‘donor’sperm fathers

WSJ says renewal is coming to Church in US LAST year there was one priestfor every 2,000 Catholics in theUS. This compared with onepriest for every 780 parishionersin 1965.

Despite this, “the future isencouraging,” said a Wall StreetJournal article, pointing out that inthe past 30 years the number ofAmerican Catholics has rocketedfrom 50 million to nearly 78 mil-lion, an increase of 56%.

Recalling Pope Benedict’sremarks that renewal in the Churchcomes only through “the joy offaith” and the “radicalism of obedi-ence”, the article affirmed that“renewal is coming.”

After the scandal about sexualabuse by clergy in the US, “pro-gressive Catholics were predictingthe end of the celibate male priest-hood in books like Full Pews andEmpty Altars and The Death of

Priesthood.”Today, however, “the number of

priestly ordinations is steadilyincreasing,” said the article. Lastyear 467 priests were ordained, upfrom 442 a decade ago.

And the Vatican’s statistics officenotes that worldwide, there were5,000 more priests in 2009 thanin 1999.

BostonBoston is a case in point.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley recentlytold the National Catholic Registerthat when he was appointed therein 2003 he was advised to closethe seminary.

Now 70 men in Boston are study-ing to be priests, and the seminaryhas had to turn away candidatesfor lack of space.

Other cities are also “booming”.Washington DC, for example,

ordained 18 new priests last year,and Chicago 26.

“Our preliminary research revealsthat the dioceses with the largestnumbers of new priests are led bycourageous bishops with faithfuland inspirational vocationsoffices,” wrote the authors.

The two, Prof. Anne Hendershottand Christopher White of WorldYouth Alliance, will shortly publisha new book, Beyond the Catholic

Culture Wars.They noted that Catholics make

up only 16% of the population ofLincoln, Neb., but the diocese had10 men ordained last year.

The bishop there, FabianBruskewitz made national newssome time ago when he stated thatmembers of dissident Catholicgroups including Call to Action andCatholics for Choice had automati-cally excommunicated themselves.

‘Exhausted project’Again, the longtime leader of the

Chicago archdiocese, CardinalFrancis George, on one occasioncaused surprise by declaring liberalCatholicism “an exhausted pro-ject… parasitical on a substancethat no longer exists.”

He also called on bishops tostand as a “reality check for theapostolic faith.”

According to the WSJ article, “anaging generation of progressivescontinues to lobby Church leadersto change Catholic teachings onreproductive rights, same-sex mar-riage and women’s ordination.

“But it is being replaced byyounger men and women who areattracted to the Church because ofthe very timelessness of its teach-ings.”

The young people are attracted tothe philosophy, the art, the litera-ture and the theology that makeCatholicism countercultural.

They are also drawn to the beau-ty of the liturgy and the Church’scommitment to the dignity of theindividual.

“They want to be contributors tothat commitment,” said the article,“alongside faithful and courageousbishops who ask them to makesacrifices.”

• Narelle Grech, 29, whosefight for information abouther biological father tookon new urgency last Maywhen she was diagnosedwith terminal bowel cancer.

‘Christianitydoesn’t begin by

telling peoplewhat they must

do, but by tellingwhat God hasdone for them.

Gift comesbefore duty.’

Against goodmedicalpractice?THE Royal College ofPhysicians has failed togive proper advice on sex-ual health and infectionsdue to a fear of being seenas “judgmental or moralis-tic”, David Quinn has sug-gested.

He found it remarkablethat a report from theDublin-based College“couldn’t bring itself to saythat sticking to one long-term sexual partner dra-matically reduces yourchances of contracting anSTI.”

The journalist pointedout that that a doctor whotells a patient to stopsmoking or cut back onalcohol is never seen asjudgmental.

But “this dogmaticrefusal” to warn peopleabout the danger to theirhealth from multiple sexu-al partners, he believed,was “against good medicalpractice.”

Priests during ordination

3Alive! July/August 2012

JJUUSSTT AA TTHHOOUUGGHHTT

IRISH Catholics have beencalled to have both confi-dence and joy as they livetheir faith and to bear wit-ness with enthusiasm totheir Christian hope to allthose around them.

They have also beenencouraged to use the uni-versal ‘Year of Faith’, whichPope Benedict will launch inOctober, to promote a vigor-ous renewal of the Church inIreland.

“Rejoice and be full of con-fidence, because the risenLord is our home and oursafety,” Cardinal MarcOuellet told pilgrims at theclosing Mass of the 50thInternational EucharisticCongress.

The papal Legate alsourged pilgrims to call othersto faith by bearing witness towhat the faith means in theirown lives.

“Faith is the most preciousgift we have received withbaptism,” said CardinalOuellet. “Let’s not keep it pri-vate and fearful! Let it growas a splendid tree throughsharing everywhere!”

Speaking to pilgrims frommore than 120 countries, heprayed that the coming Yearof Faith will strengthen peo-ple’s decision to recommitthemselves to the Lord.

The week-long Congress,with more than 220 speak-ers, far surpassed expecta-tions, and turned into a festi-val of faith for both young andold alike.

The Eucharistic processionon the Wednesday eveninglasted an hour longer thanplanned, having attracted somany people that the routehad to be extended.

A taxi-driver leaving a groupof young volunteers home

after a long day listened asthey chatted enthusiasticallyabout their experience of theday’s events.

Arriving at their destination,he asked the priest who waswith them to wait back, andthen asked if he could go toconfession.

A special Youth Spacecatered for young adultsaged 17 to 25, while work-shops on a broad range oftopics were packed to therafters every day.

The English Dominican friar,Fr Timothy Radcliffe, beganhis talk an hour early, as thehall was already full, thenrepeated it immediately after-wards to cater for a re-filledhall.

Week offAmong the 2,000 volun-

teers were loads of youngpeople, some of whom hadtaken a week off work orfrom their holidays to helpout.

From Derry to Kerry andfrom Trinidad to Taiwan thepilgrims came. A strikingsight was a large group fromZimbabwe, dressed in brightgreen garments which wereprinted with the Congresslogo.

Some Irish people whomade their own way to thefaith celebration were goinghome to find out why theirparish had not done more topromote it locally.

In his video message, afrail Pope Benedict recalledthat “Ireland has beenshaped by the Mass at thedeepest level for centuries.”

A prolonged standing ova-tion at the end of hisaddress was clearly intendedto affirm the people’s lovefor the Holy Father and theIrish Church’s bond withRome.

In his closing remarks,Archbishop Diarmuid Martincalled on pilgrims to take

from the Congress “arenewed passion for theEucharist,” for the Mass.

He also hoped that one ofthe fruits of the week-longevent would be enthusiasmfor “a dynamic NewEvangelisation” in Irelandand further afield.

“We must go away with arenewed love the Church,”he said. “We must go awayfrom here wanting to tell oth-ers about Jesus Christ who,in giving himself in sacrifice,revealed to us that God islove.”

Going forward from theCongress, the Archbishopfocused once again on theYear of Faith, proposing PopeBenedict’s vision as a pro-gramme for the future.

“We want this Year,” saidBenedict, “to arouse in everybeliever the desire to pro-fess the faith in fullness andwith renewed conviction, withconfidence and hope.”

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They stumbledor crawled■ Speaking at theEucharistic CongressCardinal Seán Bradystressed the importance offaith in the real presence ofJesus in the BlessedEucharist.

He recalled the experienceof a British soldier involvedin the liberation of a con-centration camp at the endof World War II.

Walking through the campthe soldier noticed a youngPolish priest clinging to amakeshift altar with onehand, while celebratingMass.

At his feet lay the body ofanother priest, who haddied during the night. Noone had had the energy tomove the body.

The soldier, an Anglican,reported: “the young priestdid his best to distribute theconsecrated elements. Somerecipients were able tostumble over the rough,scrubby ground of thecamp.

“Others crawled forwardto receive communion andthen crawled back to shareit with others unable tomove. Some almost certain-ly passed on to another,probably better, worldbefore sunset.”

The soldier commented:“Whatever one’s race orreligion, one can only beuplifted and impressed bythat truly remarkable proofof the ultimate triumph ofgood over evil.”

Children’sspirituality■ At a theology symposiumbefore the Congress a youngDublin woman reported onher research into children’sspirituality.

This involved sitting chil-dren aged 11 or 12 beforethe Blessed Sacramentexposed on the altar for ashort time, and then record-ing their remarks about theexperience.

A member of the audience,however, pointed out thatfor many children, the con-secrated host is simply“holy bread”.

To the surprise of visitorsfrom abroad, the researcheragreed that that was howthe children in her studyviewed the Eucharist.

The question then arose,how the children couldhave a personal friendshipwith “holy bread”, Orwould it have made any dif-ference if the children hadbeen sitting before a flower?

But this was outside theyoung woman’s area ofresearch.

Limits to ourhelp?■ At the above symposium aquestion arose aboutChristians serving non-Christians who are in need:is it enough to provide themwith material assistance orshould they also be offeredan opportunity to knowabout Christ and salvation?

An African nun recalledattending a conference in aMuslim country where per-secution of Christians regu-larly flares up.

This issue arose in onegroup at the conference, andthe view was widely sharedthat simply helping the poor,without mention of Christ,was enough.

Then a priest spoke. Thegist of his words were: “Eachone of you was brought upas a Christian, you alwaysknew Christ. You do notknow what it is like not toknow him.

“I, however, was broughtup a Muslim. I know what aloss it is not to know him.You have no right to keepthe Good News, and the joyit brings, from other people.”

Pope John XXIII■ Another story with rele-vance today concerned PopeJohn XXIII. As the SecondVatican Council got underway he was faced each daywith countless difficulties.

Getting to the end of oneday, and still weighed downby anxieties, he simplyprayed, “It’s your Church,Lord. And I’m going tobed.”

Forward now tothe Year of Faith

Irish Dominican nuns and friars at the Eucharistic Congress.

JOE CLANCY— SOLICITORS —

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Women show newinterest in religiousvocationFIGURES released by the CatholicChurch in Britain show that lastyear 17 women entered religiouslife in the UK, nearly three timesthe number who entered in 2009.

Sr Cathy Jones, based in theNational Office for Vocation, alsoreported “a significant increasein those thinking of entering reli-gious life.”

Asked if this might mark thebeginning of a revival for womenreligious in Britain, Fr RichardNesbitt of Westminster wouldonly say, “something is definitelyhappening.”

Katrina Alton, a former Baptistwho converted in 2001, plans toenter the convent in September.

She believed that attitudes tovocations were changing. There isnow more focus on “igniting thespirit in every Catholic to discerntheir role in the Church,” shesaid.

AUSTRALIA has given its highestcivic honour to the country’s mostfamous philosopher, a man whoargues that healthy pigs have a greaterright to life than disabled children.

Peter Singer (right) received theaward for what was called his “eminentservice to philosophy and bioethics as aleader of public debate and communicator of ideas in the areasof global poverty, animal welfare and the human condition.”

Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University since 1999,Singer is one of the few public thinkers to draw his moralconclusions, without compromise, from his religious unbe-lief.

Rejecting the notion that human life is sacred, and arguingfor animal “liberation”, he has had enormous influence onseveral generations of secularists.

Described as the “most notorious messenger of death” bythe bishop of his hometown of Melbourne, he is infamous forhis open promotion of bestiality, and experimentation on thementally disabled.

The award has been described as “a commentary on thepresent government”.

It is usually given to people who make an outstanding con-tribution to medicine, science, the military and the arts.

Honour for advocate of infanticide

4 Alive! July/August 2012

Most of us, however,would conclude that thewriting was done by ahuman being who knew ourname. And nothing wouldconvince us otherwise.

In other words, if some-thing bears the marks ofintelligence, then we lookfor an intelligent cause.

And if we can say thatabout writing in the sand, apainting or a computer, wecan certainly say it about thecomplexity, wonder andbeauty of nature.

Only a mind crippled andprejudiced by modern edu-cation could fail to see theextraordinary intelligenceand love behind creation.

And a bit more reasoningwould lead us to God, thesupreme being with thisintelligence, love and cre-ative power.

Give thanksHaving got this far we

might soon begin to realisethat the reasonable andappropriate response to ourcreator is to give thanks.

In fact, we might come tothe conclusion that onlysomeone really dense, or atragic victim of moderneducation, would refuse tooffer such thanksgiving toGod on a frequent basis.

An authentic education, ofcourse, does not have adamaging impact on stu-dents. It opens their minds,rather, to the great realitybeyond what can be seen,weighed and measured.

So, where are Irish educa-tional institutions goingwrong? How have theybecome intellectual knickknack shops, flogging dudgoods? A glance at historythrows some light on thesubject.

Part of the problem is thatmany college disciplineswere founded or influenced

by people like Comte,Freud, Wendel Holmes, anda host of others, who simplyopted not to recognise Godand naively thought hisexclusion made no differ-ence.

But, in fact, their unbeliefchanged everything, leav-ing them with a deformedunderstanding of thehuman person and his orher purpose and destiny.

Disciplines such as sociol-ogy or psychology, biologyor law, then embody andbecome channels of theirfounders’ defective versionof human dignity.

Such crippled views maketheir way into textbooksand into the outpourings ofdim-witted college lecturerswho cannot tell the differ-ence between genuineknowledge and academicnonsense.

At the end of the chaincome the unfortunate stu-dents, especially those wholack a strong Catholic faithor who haven’t the ability tospot when they’re beingconned.

And lecturers can go onfor decades, never chal-lenged by their bosses ortheir intimidated studentsabout the poisonous non-sense they are belching outon society.

Surely it is time for a prop-er investigation into what ishappening in Irish collegesand universities, and a fulldebate about the meaning ofeducation.

Monthly Musingswith guest columnist, Rosemary Swords

They end up with theirB.A.s, Ph.D.s or M.Sc.s, andnot knowing God, or withno vibrant relationship withhim. Yet, having thus

become no-brainers and no-hopers, they think they areso cool.

But what could be moreidiotic than to look at this

wonderful world in whichwe live, and think that it issimply the result of a billionbillion freaky accidents?Even primitive tribes hadmore gumption than that.

Professor RichardDawkins, if he found him-self on a desert island,

might wake up one morningto find his name written inthe sand and think, “Gosh,the crabs around here arevery evolved.”

ONE tragic side effect of modern education is that itleaves many young people more obtuse than they werewhen they first entered college or university.

SPECIAL FEATUREby Gerard Murphy

Helping victims of a college education

Writing in the sand

DURING the Eucharistic Congress Iwas involved, with a large team ofyoung volunteers in Our Lady Queenof Peace Church in Merrion Rd.

The church was open day and nightfor Eucharistic Adoration, with specialemphasis on families, children andyoung teens.

That week nearly 2,000 young peopletook part in the primary schools pro-gramme, the teens events, and the fam-ily events.

Many remarked on how they enjoyedtheir time spent with Jesus.Parishioners were moved by the sightof children, even young children,being led with song, prayer and silenceto spend time with Jesus.

Some children were already oldhands at adoration, as their parentshave wisely made it part of the familyspiritual life, but for too many it was anew experience.

Anyone wanting to prolong the fruitof the Congress might ensure thatEucharistic Adoration becomes a cen-tral part in teaching children to love

Jesus. They learn to know him in the quiet

of their heart. They relax as they tellhim of their troubles, ask for help andshare their joys.

The Children of Hope team, whoendeared themselves to the children asthey led adoration, have manyresources on their website, www.childrenofhope.org.

SYMPHISIOTOMY is a medicalintervention used during labour towiden the pelvis, saving both moth-ers’ and babies’ lives.

To read some media reports, it wasdreamt up by Catholic doctors, hos-pitals and bishops to torture women.

Clearly, for some people any histor-ical situation in Ireland with an unde-sirable outcome means only onething – it must be the fault ofCatholics.

For some women symphisiotomywas a successful, life-saving opera-tion; for others it began a lifetime ofpain and difficulty.

These women deserve the best carewe can give, and redress of anywrongs done to them.

The Institute of Obstetricians &Gynaecologists has listed the benefitsof symphisiotomy at a time whencaesarian section was a developingpractice with many risks.

C-section carries risks even today; ittook time for it to win out over the

older procedure, as the ability to treatblood loss and infection improved.

In parts of the world where infec-tion control remains a problem, andin rare types of complication, sym-phisiotomy is still “a valid option”.

Medical practice changes with newtechniques. But often choosing a newprocedure remains a medical judge-ment, gradually tipping towards newpractices as evidence mounts.

Again, one person can dominate ahospital department, helping or hin-dering medical progress there. It is nosmall thing to work where one mis-take can lead to a patient’s death.

No evidenceThe medical profession needs to be

open about past mistakes. But if wedeal with everything in terms ofblame accompanied by media frenzy,we will hinder that openness.

From my reading, there is no evi-dence whatever that the Churchmandated this procedure, nor anylink between it the Church’s teaching

on marriage or procreation. This allegation seems to have been

manufactured out of the simple factthat in Ireland the hospitals wereCatholic, and nuns who were alsoqualified nurses were in attendance.Such journalism is not good enough.

In the late sixties, my mother diedof an infection contracted from whatwas meant to be a routine bloodtransfusion.

Aged 39, she left behind a dis-traught husband and six children. Itwas a medical mishap which todaywould be malpractice, but was not aspreventable then.

The lives of all my family werechanged utterly by this tragedy. Butfailing to see it in its proper contextwould compound the tragedy for me.

It would ignore the good intentionsof those who attended her and wereonly trying to help.

Certainly let us call the negligent toaccount, but let us also keep a senseof perspective.

All called to be soldiersin battle against evilPOPE Benedict has reminded Catholics of a traditional titlefor the Church on earth, one that has fallen out of use today,but captures to need for all to be part of the on-going com-bat with evil.

“The words ecclesia militans (Church on the march) issomewhat out of fashion,” according to the Pope, but thetruth it bears is as important today as it ever was.

“We see how evil wishes to dominate the world” and that,while loving wrong-doers, “we must enter into battle withevil,” said Benedict.

“We see how evil seeks domination in so many ways:bloody, with the different forms of violence; but also maskedwith goodness, and precisely this way destroying the moralfoundations of society.”

The Pope recalled the insight of St Augustine that “thewhole of history is a struggle between two loves: love of selfto contempt of God; love of God to contempt of self, in mar-tyrdom.”

• Students from St Pius’s School,Magherafelt, County Derry at theEucharistic Congress

Media: ‘It must be fault of Catholics’

Nuns ‘looked likeAudrey Hepburn’AS a bevy of young, cheerful nunspassed him, habited from headto toe, an elderly gentlemanremarked “It’s a long time since Isaw a nun that looked like AudreyHepburn.”

The Congress was an interest-ing study in Church life. The influxof people from 120 countriesshowed that the Church is noteverywhere in decline.

The Pope spoke well when hesaid that the teaching of VaticanCouncil II, vital for the task ofbringing Christ to people today,has been subject to ‘misunder-standings and irregularities.’

The presence of so many youngvolunteers and participants, fromhome and abroad, being gener-ous with their time and talents,was striking.

It should encourage us to returnto the sources of renewal, espe-cially Mass, and to spend time inworship of Jesus present in theEucharist.

Kids enjoyed their time with Jesus

5Alive! July/August 2012

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What he saw during cholera epidemicchanged US doctor’s life

Then aged 19, Hornerwent on to become one ofAmerica’s most famousearly doctors. He becameprofessor of anatomy atPennsylvania University,discovered an eye musclethat is named after him andwrote the first US pathologytextbook.

But in 1832, aged 39 andmarried with a young fami-ly, his life was changed for-ever by what he witnessedduring a cholera epidemicin Philadelphia.

Years later another doctorfrom the city, Dr Samuel D.

Gross, recounted howdeeply impressed Hornerwas by the fearless efforts ofCatholic priests and nuns toserve the victims.

Dying“When other ministers

fled in dismay from thedread pestilence,” wroteGross, “there was theCatholic (priest) bendingdown to catch the last whis-pered word of penitencefrom the dying.

“And when nurses werenot to be procured, thesenoble women (the nuns)

stepped forward to offertheir services without fee orreward. They tended thesick and soothed the dyingagony; they looked to heav-en for their reward.

“Here then were peoplereally practising what theypreached, really willing, nayanxious, to brave death indoing duty.”

According to Gross,Horner’s curiosity “wasexcited to know more of thefaith which produced suchworks. He studied theirtenets (beliefs).

“His inquiries were notthose of the excited enthusi-ast, ready to believe allthings, but the calm investi-gations of the wise andlearned man, who soughtfor a rock on which to planthimself to withstand the

AS THE Church prepares tocelebrate a Year of Faith,beginning in October, anIrish bishop has expressedthe hope that Catholicswho no longer practisetheir religion will return toSunday Mass.

“My hope is that they willfind their place again at thetable of the Eucharist, whichis their right as baptisedmembers of the body ofChrist,” he wrote in a pastoralletter to his diocese.

Bishop John McAreavey wasparticularly concerned for “ageneration of young parentsand families for whom the cel-ebration of Mass is simply nota regular part of their lives.”

In his letter on theEucharist, he regretted thatfor many families, First HolyCommunion is an isolatedevent, not an entry to a regu-lar practice of receiving theBread of Life.”

The bishop believed that thefall off in Mass attendanceindicated a crisis of faith, acrisis of prayer and a crisis incommunion with one another.

“It seems to me that thisdrift away from the Eucharistrepresents a malaise at theheart of the Irish Church,”said the Bishop of Dromore.

His aim is to put the crisis offaith “at the centre of our pas-toral thinking and efforts inthe years ahead.”

The bishop also announcedthat the diocese is to appointa director of Adult FaithFormation in September, whowill work with priests and peo-ple in parishes to promotegrowth in faith and prayer.

Bishop invites Catholicsback to Sunday Mass

William Edmonds Horner

AS THE US remembers its 1812 war against the BritishEmpire, attention has turned to some of those involved,including trainee doctor named William Edmonds Hornerwho tended wounded soldiers on the border withCanada.

storms of life and to rest hishopes of salvation in theworld to come.

“The record of his privatethoughts shows howearnestly prolonged werehis researches and howabiding the convictionswhich were the results.”

RecordHorner himself kept a

record of the slow, carefulprocess of his conversion.

“I have risen early in themorning,” he wrote, “andin undisturbed solitude,giving my whole heart andunderstanding to myMaker, prayed ferventlythat I might be enlightenedon this momentous subject.

He asked “that I might befreed from the errors of anexcited imagination, fromthe allurements of personalfriendship, from the preju-dices of education, and thatI might, under the influ-ences of divine grace.”

He wanted to be be per-mitted to settle this ques-tion upon its own true mer-its.

He noted, “it has been thelast subject of reflectionbefore falling to sleep andthe object of my thoughts inthe interruption to my nat-ural repose.”

After seven years ofprayer and study, theAnglican doctor finallyasked to be received intothe Catholic Church in1839.

YEARS of salting the roads dur-ing freezing weather in the UKhas caused major damage tomany of them, the HighwaysAgency has revealed.

The salt is rusting the steelcables in the reinforced con-crete, causing the metal toexpand up to 5 times its normalsize and bursting the surround-ing concrete.

In one case a half-mile long fly-over in London, which carries theM3, M4 and Heathrow traffic,has had to be shut.

Last year it cost £2.7millon torepair Birmingham’s famousSpaghetti Junction, the inter-change which many motoristsare too afraid to use.

When the roads were beingbuilt, said an expert, “water-proofing was not done as care-fully as it might have been. Nowwe are paying the penalty.”

The Highways Agency inspects18,500 road structures onceevery two years, with moredetailed inspections every sixyears.

Rust is wrecking roads in UK

• Spaghetti Junction, near Birmingham

Your money goes furtherAlive! is a registered charity.

● If you pay PAYE and your total donation to Alive!

is €250 or more in a year we can reclaim your tax. Please ask us for a form when sending your dona-

tion, or Tel 01-4048187 for further information.● If you are self-assessed or a company and your

donation to Alive! is €250 or more in a year youcan claim tax relief on your donation.

New statue ofSt ColumbaA new statute of StColumba (died 8 June 597)has been unveiled in a pri-mary school named afterthe saint in Newbuildings,Derry.

Sculpted in white mar-ble, it shows Columbaimparting a blessing withhis right hand while hold-ing a scroll in his left.

School chaplain FrRoland Colhounexplained that as a childthe saint was given the petname Colmcille, Dove ofthe Church, because hespent so much time inprayer.

6 Alive! July/August 2012

with Anne Nolan

The

FORUMYYYYOOOOUUUUTTTTHHHH

Facebook was in thenews recently because itmade big money for a

lot of people who werealready very rich. But anoth-er Facebook story got lessattention. It was about a babyborn with a rare birth defect.

Heather and Patrick Walkerfrom Memphis, Tennessee,were delighted to learn theywere having a baby, theirthird child.

Then they got the sad news,their unborn baby boy, just 16weeks old, had anencephaly –part of his brain and skullwere missing and he woulddie very shortly after he wasborn.

The doctors “kindly” offeredto abort the baby. They werewilling to execute him with aninjection of poison, as hap-pens in some US states withmass murderers.

In this way the mother espe-cially would be spared the dis-tress of carrying her seriouslysick baby for the remainingmonths of pregnancy.

Turned to GodBut the parents knew that

evil is never compassion andrejected such a ‘final solution’to their problem. Instead theyturned to God for strength.

“My husband and I, westarted praying and we knewthat God knew since thebeginning of time that he hadus for this,” said Heather.

The family expected theywould have to say goodbyeto their baby very shortlyafter his birth and had a pro-fessional photographer onhand to capture on film hisshort life.

But when he arrived on 15February last, baby GraysonJames survived for almosteight hours, loved by his par-ents and his big brother andsister. Then he died with truedignity.

In an interview with FoxNews, Heather explained thatshe uploaded the photos ofher son on to her Facebookpage to share them with fam-ily and friends. In most of the

The ‘cohabitation effect’has struck once again,this time in the life of

UK singer, model and popcelebrity Myleene Klass.

On her 34th birthday, justsix months after she hadmarried, Myleene was toldby her Irish husband,Graham Quinn, that he wasleaving her.

The couple had beencohabiting for eight years orso before marriage, andhave two young daughters,Ava aged 4 and Hero agedjust over one year.

“I’ve never been so hurt,”Myleene is reported to havesaid. “I can’t bear to tell mykids that Daddy is nevercoming home.”

She added: “I neverthought this day wouldcome. I married for life, butnow it’s over.” So sad.

But what is the ‘cohabita-tion effect’? This is thename that psychologists andresearchers now give to thedownside of “living in sin”.

More and more, theresearch from differentparts of the world showsthat couples who live togeth-er before marriage are a lotmore likely than other cou-ples to break up after mar-riage.

And often the break-upcomes quite soon after theymarry, as in Myleene’s case.

‘A must’Professor Meg Jay says:

“far from safeguardingagainst divorce and unhappi-ness, moving in with some-one can increase yourchances of making a mis-take—or of spending toomuch time on a mistake.”

But that’s not a messagethat many young peoplewant to hear. Today’s fash-ion tells them that livingtogether is “a must” andthat they’ll be different. It’snonsense of course.

But the result is, they bringmuch suffering on them-selves and on their children.And the harm they do under-mines marriage and canleave their children insecurefor the rest of their lives.

That, however, did not stop

fashion designer MaiaNorman from walking out onleading UK artist DamienHirst, the father of her threechildren.

Until their split a fewweeks ago, Norman andHirst were “partners” for 19years, and their children areaged 16, 12 and seven.

However, California-bornNorman decided to walkwhen she found a new love,leaving Hirst with hisimmense wealth but “devas-tated”.

But that surely was part ofthe deal – the couple decid-ed never to marry becausethey didn’t believe in mar-riage. In other words, eitherone of them was free to takeoff if he or she decided to doso.

Having children, of course,would greatly increase thepain and suffering, but itwouldn’t change the originaldeal – cohabitation isdesigned to keep theescape hatch open.

Norman once explained:“We both come fromdivorced families, whichdoesn’t exactly boost yourfaith in the institution.” Inother words, boths she andHirst, now in their late for-ties, are still damaged by thedivorce of their own parents.

Children see their parentssplit up, so they are afraid tomarry. Instead, they cohabit,always ready to quit, andbringing up children who areeven more insecure thanthemselves. It’s a crazy situ-ation.

So, maybe the CatholicChurch knew what she wastalking about when all alongshe said “no sex before mar-riage and when you marryyou don’t let selfishnesswreck it.”

Comparison is the toolof the devil.” So weare told by St Paul in

his letters, and how I wish Icould stick to his advice.

As parents we can put our-selves under unnecessaryand often disturbing pres-sure by thinking that we orour children are inadequatebecause we don’t measureup to others.

I remember as a first-timemother reading every book Isaw regarding the differentstages in a child’s develop-ment, and the ‘normal’time at which it occurs.

Many an anxious timepassed while I watched withan eagle eye one or otheroffspring to see if they weresmiling, sitting, crawling,walking, using the potty,reading, etc. at the ‘right’time.

Thoughts and feelingssuch as these had beeninevitably set in motionbecause a friend’s baby(the same age or evenyounger than mine) wasdoing the required task andmine was not!

What was wrong?What was wrong with my

child? All her cousins or theneighbours’ children werepotty trained and she wasstill in nappies. And theworry, will I ever be able tosend her to school?

Or, why does my child notknow his letters, colours,shapes? The kid next doorhas been reading formonths or, his sister wasreading at his age. Maybehe has a learning difficulty?

I would usually thendecide that action neededto be taken, and I wouldproceed to drive myself, mychild, and the entire house-hold to frustration.

I was constantly pullingout letter or colour charts,and insisting on the child

repeating it after me, orrunning after my toddlerwith a potty in my hand allday every day.

If you can relate to any ofthis, let me give you a fewwords of advice: Stop it!

Looking back at it, I amconvinced that my fearswere more to do with mypride than anything else.

For the most part I justwanted my child to be the1st and the smartest andthe best. I was all caught upin performance = achieve-ment. In other words yourwork is your worth.

Also I now have the expe-rience of life and a numberof children. I now under-stand that all things comein time, and that childrenare not robots.

Some children are verykeen to be independent.Others are laid back andtake their time.

In all my years I havenever met a six-year-oldwho was not potty trained,didn’t know his letters orcolours. They all even out inthe end.

Just enjoy your pre-school-ers and leave the ‘home-work’ for later.

So what, if your childcan’t tell his colours?

pictures, but not all, babyGrayson is wearing a hat.

“Not long after, Facebookdeleted them because of thecontent,” said Heather.

She added: “They allow peo-ple to post almost-nude pic-tures of themselves, profanity,and so many other things butI’m not allowed to share a pic-ture of God’s beautiful cre-ation.”

Eventually the dispute withthe social media network wasresolved and the family’sphotos can now be viewed onFacebook.

Heather and Patrick haveshown the world that even alittle, very sick baby is infi-nitely precious and mustalways be welcomed withlove.

But their children, in partic-ular, have learnt two veryimportant lessons, lessonsthat they will understandmore and more as they growolder.

They know now that even ifthey are not perfect, that evenif they do not live up to expec-tations, their parents will stilltreasure them.

And they know that whenyou have Jesus in your life,when you have a real friend-ship with him, then you seeand do things a lot differentlyto those who do not knowGod.

And if enough people haveJesus in their lives, then theycan change the whole world.

Kids learn 2Big lessons

You’ve gotkids!

Heather and Patrick Walkerwith their baby Grayson James

Myleene Klass

Myleene hit by the‘cohabitation effect’

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Beautiful videoIf you think they don’t make youngsaints like they used to, you shouldcheck out Lacey Buchanan on Youtube.

Lacey was 21 when she married andnow has a little baby boy, Christian.Christian needs a lot more care thanmost babies, and that’s all I’m tellingyou. But the 7-minute video is reallybeautiful. Google ‘lacey buchanan’ onYoutube.

7Alive! July/August 2012

Editor’sJottingsEditor’sJottingsA closer look atstories in theround...

Church has the only sane view of sexTHE drive to legalise “samesex marriage” is rightly seenas a major threat to the verynature of marriage.

But, although this campaignreceives much attention atpresent, it is only a small partof a far bigger movementdevaluing natural marriage.

In the bigger picture, forni-cation and cohabitation areimmensely more important.Yet they receive virtually noattention, even from theChurch.

Perhaps, indeed, we shouldreturn to the description ofcohabitation as “living in astate of sin” or, more briefly,

“living in sin”.This would remind us that

cohabitation is not simply alifestyle choice, but is flatcontrary to God’s plan forsex, that it is a serious sin,and alienates the couple fromGod.

Put simply, sex is not madefor love, it was made for mar-riage. In other words, sexualintimacy is created for onepurpose only, to express anddeepen the love between ahusband and wife in anunbreakable union that isopen to new life.

This is the vision that theCatholic Church proclaims. It

is based on the nature of loveand of human sexuality.These create the fundamentalsociety, the family, which isthe foundation for the widersociety.

God-givenThis teaching on marriage,

sexuality and family is notsomething the Church drewup, and could alter if shechose. Rather, it is God-given,something she recognisesand must respect.

When the Church rejectscontraception, IVF, cohabita-tion, homosexual behaviourand adultery it is because

they deny the true nature ofmarriage.

The disintegration of sexu-ality in today’s world meansthat the Church must speakout against these practices.The danger is that her teach-ing on sex will be seen asmerely “negative”.

It is essential, then, that thepositive vision of marriage,love and sex is confidentlyput forward, and explained,at every opportunity.

It is precisely because theChurch thinks so highly ofsex that she opposes everyattempt to degrade it.

LAST month we saw here howMatt Williams of the Irish Timeswrote about his recently deceaseduncle, a priest who had dedicatedhis life to serving the poor.

For Williams, his uncle was oneof “life’s real heroes”, but it wasonly after the priest’s death thatthe rugby commentator hadbegun to reflect on the immensityof his commitment.

The extraordinary thing, how-ever, was that Williams thoughthe could ignore the driving forcein his uncle’s life and still under-stand his heroic generosity.

“He was a Catholic priest, but Iam not writing about religion,”he wrote.

It was like someone trying toexplain the workings of a Ferrariwhile ignoring what was underthe bonnet.

Crazy decisionHow could an intelligent man

have made such a crazy decision?Or perhaps the decision didn’tseem so crazy in today’s secularistculture.

Great efforts are being madetoday to exclude any recognitionof the role that Christianity hasplayed in Western civilisation.

In Ireland this takes the form oftrying to deny the great benefitsthe Catholic Church has broughtto Irish society down through the

centuries.Not the least of these benefits

were the joy of salvation and thehope of eternal life. And theimmense power of love releasedby this joy and hope.

To ignore or deny all this, as MattWilliams did, is absurd, and leadsto an irrational view of human life.

It is also highly destructive. Asthe modern world detaches itselfmore and more from its Christianroots, as it becomes more secular-ist, it becomes ever more irrationaland even barbaric.

We see this, for example, in thedefective understanding of thehuman person that now deformsmuch education and counselling;in the assaults of science, medicineand the law on human dignity.

Can anything save us from secu-larist barbarism? We need nothingless than a religious renewal, aconfident commitment to Christ,his Church and her message, inour own lives, our families, ourinstitutions and our society.

IRISH Times editor Kevin O’Sullivan is a pastpupil of Glenstal Abbey, one of Ireland’smost prestigious schools, with fees to match.

Under O’Sullivan the Times is a little vol-cano spewing out despair, vigorously pro-moting a ‘culture of death’.

Which raises a much bigger issue: should aCatholic school, or any other type of school,be held to account for its formative impacton its pupils?

Of course many factors help to form a per-son, particularly family life, friends, profes-sional education and so on.

Still, a school must have some impact,given the amount of time a child spendsthere. We can at least ask what it is offeringor seeking to achieve.

One Catholic school says it promotes anenvironment “which emphasises valuessuch as integrity, kindness and respect and itseeks to maintain an inclusive climate oflearning where each child can fulfill his ownunique potential.”

Three pointsThe same kind of stuff can be found in the

mission statements of other Catholicschools. Three points about this:

1. It owes more to secularist pop psycholo-gy than to faith. The concern for “full poten-tial” is a now outdated ideology, encourag-ing self-absorption.

Besides, every person has a quasi-infinite“potential” that can never be fully realisedor “fulfilled”.

2. There is no mention of giving the studenta sound grasp of Catholic faith, of fosteringlove for Christ, Christian joy, the hope ofheaven, and so on. The core of Catholic edu-cation is missing.

3. Instead of a full Catholic understandingof human dignity the students are to begiven a watery moralism.

In other words, it would seem from its mis-sion statement that this school has been sec-ularised, but its officials still don’t graspthat.

Finally, many students will go on to uni-versity or college to be exposed to so muchjunk that passes for education.

A Catholic education should aim to helpthem detect and see through such intellectu-ally and morally crippling rubbish.

But all this will happen only if our so-called Catholic schools really commit tobeing Catholic.

Church alone standsby women

Catholic schools inself-destruct mode

Young people, faith and the ChurchFR Peter McVerry recently stat-ed on TV that “the vast majori-ty of young people in Irelandtoday have walked away fromthe Church.”

This, however, is debatable.Many of the young people havenever really been “in” theChurch, so how could theyhave walked away from it?

They were brought up in non-practising homes, were not

properly catechised and haverarely if ever attended SundayMass.

They have never been intro-duced to the joy of a personalrelationship with Jesus, norexperienced true hope andmeaning for their lives.

Fr McVerry thought that they“no longer find God in theChurch and that’s a terribleindictment of the institutional

Church.”But if they do not take part in

the life of the Church how willthey find God there?

The “institutional Church”(presumably Fr McVerry meansbishops and priests like him-self) may be partly to blame.

But parents are also part ofthe Church. Have they noresponsibility for their chil-dren’s tragic lack of faith and

hope?Today’s culture makes it very

difficult even for Catholic par-ents who do try, to hand on thefaith to their children. But it isan evident fact that many par-ents do not try.

This is an immensely complexissue. But a wrong diagnosis ofthe problem only leads to“remedies” that are false andextremely harmful.

SACHA Baron Cohen (right)has ruffled a few feathers withhis new movie, The Dictator.But one scene in it hits the nailon the head.

The dictator, played byCohen, is informed by his wifethat she is pregnant. To whichhe casually replies: “Are youhaving a boy or an abortion?”

The question may soundshocking, but it is now beingasked by millions of men in agreat many countries aroundthe world.

We are in the midst of whatNicholas Eberstadt, in The NewAtlantis, has called a “globalwar against baby girls.”

Eberstadt, professor of politi-cal economy at the AmericanEnterprise Institute, wrote:

“Over the past three decadesthe world has come to witnessan ominous and entirely newform of gender discrimination:sex-selective foeticide.”

He added: “All around theworld, the victims of this newpractice are almost universallyfemale.”

The problem is so severe thatalready it is altering “the over-all sex ratio at birth of theentire planet, resulting in mil-lions upon millions of new‘missing baby girls’ each year.”

In just 30 years some parts ofChina have already reachedthe point where only 2 girls areborn for every three boys. Andthe problem is growing.

Barak Obama recently reject-

Ignoring ourChristian roots

ed a move to ban the horren-dous practice in the US.

AlarmedBut among those alarmed

by the targetting of prebornfemales are many “right tochoose” feminists. Forthem, abortion was sup-posed to benefit women.

They never expected wewould return to ancientRoman ways, in a waragainst baby girls.

But the feminists, includ-ing many journalists, malepoliticians and judges, lackthe moral resources, theethical principles, to evencondemn the massive evil.

Being “pro-choice”, theythink they must “respect”the choice of women whochoose to destroy theirunborn female babies.

So, once again, theCatholic Church standsalone against the world inher radical defence ofwomen’s God-given equal-ity and dignity.

8 Alive! July/August 2012

■ RTE did a superb job incovering both the openingand the closing ceremoniesof the Eucharistic Congress.

It’s easy to think that thiswas simply a matter ofpointing a camera at theevent and letting the rest justhappen.

In fact an immense amountof professional dedication,planning and preparationby many people must havegone on for months in thebackground.

The effort to capture andtransmit the joyful atmos-phere and yet do justice toall interests allowed viewersto be part of the wonderfuloccasion.

On the evening of the clos-ing, RTE TV had an hour-long Would You Believe?, dis-cussing the impact of theCongress and where theCatholic Church goes fromhere.

A number of brief film clipscaptured once again some ofthe atmosphere of the weekand Mick Peelo did a goodjob leading a studio discus-sion on the issues.

The invited audience wereinformed, respectful of eachother and represented awide variety of views. AndPeelo gave each person a fairchance, within the time lim-

its, to have his or her say.Next day the whole

Nationwide programme was

devoted to the Congress. Itdidn’t avoid the difficultissues, yet it gave a senseonce again of a great interna-tional festival of faith.

Those who saw presentersMary Kennedy and AnneCassin at the RDS got aglimpse of their dedicationand hard work on a verylong day.

Such coverage of theCongress was entertaining,informative and inspiring,all in one. And it surely gen-erated great public goodwilltowards RTE.

The news department’sslanted reporting, however,was a different matter (seebelow).

It must have been frustrat-ing for all the others to seethe goodwill they had creat-ed being undermined by it.

FILMReview

People grieve in many different ways, depending on thecircumstances of their loss. But coming to terms wthdeath is one of life’s fundamental complexities.

Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), aged 11, is imaginative andintelligent but has an almost obsessive personality. Thebiggest influence in his life is his father, Thomas (TomHanks).

The devoted father is the boy's inspiration and hasencouraged every aspect of his son’s imagination.

However Thomas becomes a victim of the 9/11 attacksand his death has a profound impact on Oskar. That day’sevents have also left the boy with many insecurities.

Oskar is struggling to come to terms with why his fatheris gone. His relationship with his mother is not the same,and his over-active mind has no-one to turn to.

Amongst Thomas’s belongings he comes across a key inan envelope marked ‘Black’. Oskar convinces himself thathis father has left him a message and that the key is theclue to it.

He decides to track down every person in New York withthe surname Black to see if the key fits into a door, a boxor anything belonging to them.

For the many strangers he visits, it is a hopeless taskthat will take years to complete.

MuteGrieving, confused and alone, Oskar befriends an elderly

man (Max Von Sydow) renting a room at his grandmother’sapartment. The man’s life experiences led to him choosingto be a mute.

Can a boy who won’t stop talking and a man who won’ttalk at all solve a puzzle that may not even exist?

This is a film about a child trying to make sense out ofwar and the sudden death of loved ones.

The protagonist is an unconventional one and at timesyou may find him as irritating as other characters in themovie do.

But you also gain an insight into how children cope, ordon’t cope with a world that is so much bigger and moreconfusing than they can comprehend.

— Justin & Margaret Greene

Warner Bros. - Directed by Stephen Daldry

MediaWatch

Extremely Loud andIncredibly Close

Coping with loss

RTE coverage captured spirit of Congress

Why is public ‘switching off’ RTE news?■ Maynooth College recent-ly held a 4-day theologysymposium in connectionwith the EucharisticCongress. Attending thepress conference was anRTE team led by Joe Little

The principal speaker atthe media event wasCardinal Oscar Maradiagawho heads CaritasInternationalis.

Caritas is a global Catholicrelief and developmentagency with branches inmore countries than the UNhas.

The Honduran cardinal isone of the best informedpeople in the world when itcomes to issues like globalpoverty, hunger and injus-tice.

He was the Vatican’s linkwith the IMF and the WorldBank on the issue of ThirdWorld debt.

A man of vast experience,he is passionately con-cerned about the billionpeople in the world whosuffer each day fromhunger at a time when thereis far more than enough

food to feed the planet.The press conference was

a great opportunity for RTEto quiz him about hunger inEast Africa, or the rebuild-ing of Haiti, or any one offifty major global issues.

Instead, Joe Little wantedto know what he thoughtabout the “silencing” of ahandful of Irish priests.

On a brief visit to Ireland,the cardinal hadn’t a cluewhat Little was talkingabout. Then Joe wanted theSpanish-speaker to com-ment on the new Englishtranslation of the Missal.

EmbarrassingListening to the questions,

it was embarrassing tothink that this was the bestthat the news department ofour national broadcastercould do.

It certainly looked like alazy, incompetent effort,with no proper research orthought going into thequestions.

Rather, Mr Little turnedyet again to the RTE newsdepartment’s sad, tired,

predictable line on Churchaffairs. As a result, hemissed what could havebeen a really interestingstory.

Again, the 4-hour openingceremony of the EucharisticCongress was a colourfulevent, with many movingand joyful moments, withsong and drama and lots ofinteresting stories to betold!

Much the same was true

of the closing ceremony. Yet,on both days, the mainfocus of the RTE newsreports was the abuse scan-dal in the Church.

Such espisodes reveal justhow tiny-minded and insu-lar the RTE news depart-ment is when it comes todealing with the CatholicChurch.

Such agenda-drivenreporting may help toexplain why a bored publicis switching off RTE newsand current affairs, asreported by Philip Ryan inthe Sunday Independent(10/6/12).

According to Ryan, thenumbers watching the NineO’Clock News fell by 121,000in the past year alone, asviewers “switch off in theirdroves.”

In the same period RTE’sPrime Time lost 100,000 view-ers, or nearly a quarter of itsaudience.

The journalist linked thecollapse in numbers herewith a loss of trust in the sta-tion following the PrimeTime Investigates programmewhich defamed Fr KevinReynolds.

“The drop in viewers is apattern repeated acrossRTE’s news division, as trustin the broadcaster hits an all-time low,” wrote Ryan.

The huge fall in viewingnumbers is also affectingthe sale of advertising slotsin and between currentaffairs shows.

Having to drop the priceof adverts, RTE has toincrease the amount ofadvertising to make up itsshortfall in income. Or itdevotes more time to adver-tising its own programmesto fill in the empty space.

• RTE’s Joe Little (left)and Patsy McGarry of theIrish Times exchange viewsat the closing ceremoniesof the Eucharistic Congress.

• Joe and Emily Packardfrom Canada, with theirbaby, took part in theEucharistic Congress.

Bad with figures■ Organisers of the Eucharistic Congress say that some 65,000people took part in the closing Mass in Croke Park.

They arrived at this figure by scanning the tickets of thoseentering the stadium.

Patsy McGarry, writing in the Irish Times, put the figure muchlower, at “about 50,000, according to gardai,”.

The Garda Press Office, however, said that McGarry’s figuredid not come from them.

So the journalist may have got it from a couple of gardai giv-ing an opinion off the top of their heads.

But quoting “gardai” rather than “fruit sellers” or “taxi dri-vers” made it sound more authoritative.

It’s a small matter, but it illustrates the need to take what themedia, especially the Irish Times, say, with a pinch of salt.

Anti-Catholic agenda in Irish Times?■ The Irish Times has been accused of pub-lishing a news report which misrepresent-ed the facts and was “nothing less than apretext to make a not-so-veiled attack onthe Catholic Church and its teaching.”

Journalist Michael Kirk stated that “apaper which could bring itself to standover such a gratuitous and tendentiousnews report is no longer a reliable sourceof news.”

Kirk, in his blog, Garvan Hill, sharplycriticised the Irish Times following a frontpage story by Carl O’Brien on the past useof the medical procedure, symphysiotomy.

The report, he wrote, “shattered all myconfidence and trust in your paper’s sin-

cerity and commitment to even-handed-ness.”

It seemed to him that “the entire thrust ofthe story” came from “something inher-ently dishonest.”

For Kirk, the story “simply adds to mygrowing suspicion” – which he tried toresist out of respect for his profession andcolleagues – “that the Irish Times reallydoes have an anti-Catholic agenda.”

Indeed, since Kevin O’Sullivan tookover as editor at the paper there appears tobe a more intense aggressiveness againstthe Church.

If this is so, has it been instigated by theIrish Times Trust?

9Alive! July/August 2012

CCOOMMMMEENNTTSt. Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24.

Tel: 01-4048187 Fax: 01-4596784 E-mail: alivepaper@gmail.com

Clash loomingThe Catholic Church in Ireland has taken a radicalstand against the view that she must “move withthe times”, that she must adapt to the modernworld. She has decided, rather, that she will be trueto her own identity.

By following the path of “communion with Christand with one another”, as the Eucharistic Congressput it, the Church has firmly set herself againsttoday’s liberalism.

She has rejected the individualism and the distort-ed notion of freedom that are tearing today’s soci-ety apart. This is nothing less than revolutionary, and will

inevitably lead to deep clashes between theChurch and the powers that be.

For the modern world, the individual is primary.Individuals may come together to advance theirown interests, but they carry an underlying resent-ment against society and its limits on their“freedom” and their “rights”.

FamilyFor the Catholic Church, on the other hand, soci-

ety comes first. We are born into a society, the fami-ly, and we first come to know ourselves as membersof the family, and then of the wider community.

From these two views come radically differentnotions of love, justice, happiness, freedom, inde-pendence.

They lead, in turn, to radically different viewsabout human dignity, education, law, politics, eco-nomics, the role of the media, and so on.We are seriously mistaken, for example, if we

think that the major issues in Irish education areabout control of schools. Something far deeper isat stake.

Having reaffirmed her identity as ‘communion inthe body of Christ’, the Church must now vigor-ously and confidently proclaim her own vision oneach issue, to her own members first, and then tothe wider society. Alive!

PRAY TO STOP ABORTION THREATFive first Saturdays –

Reparation to Our LadyApparition Chapel, Knock

7 July: 11.45am: Mass with Fr Rory Brady

4 August: 11:45am: Mass1 Sept: 11:45am: Mass6 October: Mass at 3pm Basilica, HLI annual pilgrimagein honour of Our LadyEach day Includes rosary, 15 mins meditation and con-fessionJoin us to avail of Our Lady’s promise of salvation to allwho observe the first Saturday devotion.

Human Life International (Ireland), Guadalupe Centre,Main St, Knock. Co. Mayo. Tel: 094-93 75993

Couple helps families to takeCatholic identity seriously

“EVANGELISING Catholicfamilies is critical in ourculture today,” saysJennifer Willits, fromAtlanta, USA, co-authorwith her husband, Greg, ofa new book on the theme.

The Catholics Next Door:Adventures in Imper fectLiving is for parents andgrandparents, and for anyonetrying to live the Catholicfaith, and struggling throughthe pitfalls of human weak-ness.

“Greg and I know full wellthat we are no better thanany other couple; we justunderstand the journey andthe pitfalls very well,” saidJennifer.

The aim was to tackle themajor issues in Catholic fam-ily living – providing “arefresher on the sacraments,reviewing the idea of voca-tions and wrestling with thebigger teachings like thetruth of the Eucharist and theteaching on contraception.”

Radio showThe parents of five young

children, the couple aredeeply involved in the newevangelisation, focusingespecially on renewing thefamily, and they host a 3-hournational radio show five daysa week.

Shortly before the recentWorld Meeting of Families,held in Milan, they spoke toZenit newsagency about theirwork.

“One of the ways we can doour part in successfully evan-

gelising is to first look hard atwhat we say we believe andcompare it against how welive,” said Jennifer.

And she stressed the needfor Catholics to know thestory of salvation.

“Once you know it and canappreciate the magnitude ofits saving truth, sharing itwith others naturallybecomes easier.”

For her, evangelisationneeds to happen from vari-ous angles: “from the homi-lies at Mass to the way werespond to our own trials –and to the way that we loveand minister to our family inthe Body of Christ.”

Holiness, she believes,must be a big issue forCatholic families, somethingshe has learnt from “stum-bling around in our faith withour kids in tow.”

But it is not achieved in aday. “Rather, it is a daily pur-suit worth striving for. It’sshowing our children that theprimary relationship to pur-sue is the one between us

and Jesus Christ.“It means not giving up on

making morally correct andvirtuous choices to the bestof our ability for ourselvesand for our families on a dailybasis. It’s embracing sacrifi-cial love and modelling thatfor our kids’ sake.

“And it’s trying to be con-sistent in the way we live outthe teachings of our Catholicidentity by fighting offdemons like moral relativismand sexual immorality.”

RosaryThe couple first began their

apostolate by founding TheRosary Army to promotedevotion to the great Marianprayer, and have given awaymillions of free rosaries.

Among their other activitiesis their website, newevange-lizers.com which providesfree tools and resources toassist people in the the New

Evangelisation.“Our goal is to help all peo-

ple to know their faith morecompletely, live their faithmore fully and share theirfaith more effectively,” saidGreg.

“We hope to help peoplefoster personal relationshipswith Christ and, by extension,to foster greater relation-ships with families.”

The couple admit that mak-ing Sunday the kind of dayGod intends it to be is oftena difficult area for their fami-ly.

“We have to be very carefulnot to let Sundays becomelast minute grocery-shoppingdays, frantic moments oflast-minute homework andmowing lawns,” said Greg.

But “focusing the dayaround Mass is absolutelycritical. In the Eucharist, wehave an opportunity to abidein Jesus as he abides in us.”

They find it a big help toreview the Mass readingswith their children inadvance. Then, having “a dayof mini-celebrations withoccasional stops by thedoughnut shop” helps toemphasise the importance ofthe day.

“I don’t think we’re the onlyones who need to be remind-ed of the need to truly slowdown,” said Greg. “Our worldin general has a difficult timewith the idea of rest.”

Are you searching for meaning in your life?Are you between the age of 16 and 35?

Do you want to discover what your faith is allabout?

If so, why not come to the Youth 2000 Summer Festival

at Clonmacnois, Co. Offaly from 9th to 12th August 2012. Join 1000 other young people for a vibrant festival

of faith!All you need to bring is a sleeping bag!

For further details and to book online visitwww.youth2000.ie or call (01) 6753690

To support this event please send donations to Youth 2000, Áras Treasa, Clarendon St, Dublin 2

with this completed form

NAME............................................................................................ADDRESS........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Youth 2000 Registered Charity No CHY 14874

ABOVE: Greg and Jennifer Willits.RIGHT: Their book ‘The CatholicsNext Door: Adventures inImperfect Living.

MPs reject religious liberty■ In a major assault on religious freedom a large majority ofMPs in Denmark have voted to compel all religious groupsin the state to offer one-sex “weddings”. MPs in the extreme-ly secularist country voted 85-26 for the move.

An individual clergyman may refuse to take part in suchan absurd ceremony, but then the local bishop must providea replacement.

Opponents argued that “marriage is as old as humanityitself, and something so fundamental cannot be changed.”

10 Alive! July/August 2012

We continue to exam-ine here the Statetakeover of chil-

dren through the UNConvention on the Rights of theChild and by the proposed“children’s rights” referen-dum.

1. Handing on faithI consider that the most

important thing I have toshare with my children is myCatholic faith.

Yet the UN conventiontakes from parents this nat-ural right to pass on theirbeliefs, and subjects it toState authority.

The convention guaranteesto the child “freedom ofthought, conscience and reli-gion” (art. 14).

It has a nod to the “therights and duties of the par-ents … to provide directionto the child.”

But it specifies that this

right be exercised “in a man-ner consistent with theevolving capacities of thechild.” Which of course isdetermined by the State.

Now, recall that EducationMinister Ruairi Quinn isalready questioning thevalue of Catholic formationof children in education!

2. ChildcareThe Barcelona Agreement

commits EU States to ensur-ing that 30% of childrenunder three and 90% of 3-year-olds are in some form ofchildcare.

In a European Parliament

debate on the Agreement theSocialists backed this policy.

The argued that it freed upmore woman for employ-ment, and that childcare wasa better way to raise childrento be good European citi-zens.

3. Man & Dad are bestAt this point we need to

recall why Mam and Dad,not the State, are bestequipped to protect childrenand make the decisions forthem that they are not readyto make for themselves.

A powerful relationship or“bond” first developsbetween mother and childand expands to include thefather.

It ensures that childrenhave protectors sensitive andresponsive to their needsand committed to their wel-fare, even over and abovetheir own.

A complex biological, emo-tional, spiritual process goesinto developing such a bond.

For example, from thebeginning of her first preg-nancy a woman’s braindevelops areas that areimportant to mothering.

This neurological develop-ment continues for decadesafter the birth, equipping herto meet the changing needsof her child.

Research suggests there

may also be neurologicalchanges in fathers who areactively involved with thecare of mother and baby.

A solid attachment first toMam then to Dad and otherfamily members creates theessential base from which achild has the security togrow emotionally and social-ly.

The State, with the best willin the world, is not equippedto bond with the child and istherefore not able to decide“the best interest of thechild”.

4. Parents’ rightsIf child protection and wel-

fare is really the State’s aim,and I hope it is, then the beststrategy for the State is torespect parents’ rights.

Instead of interfering, theState should encourage andsupport parents in their childrearing, and work to clear

away obstacles to healthy,happy parenting.

Tragically, some parents dofail their children. In thiscase the Irish Constitutionrightly says that the Statemust step in to ensure thatthese children get the helpand protection they need(Article 42.5).

Building on the foundationof the parent-child bond, weshare our story, faith, history,traditions, with our children.From this a child comes tounderstand who he or she is.

Which takes us to GeorgeOrwell who wrote: “The pastis forbidden because whenwe can cut man from hisown past then we can cuthim from his family, his chil-dren from other men.

“(Then) there is no loyaltyexcept loyalty to the Party,no love except love of BigBrother” (Nineteen EightyFour).

By Kathy Sinnott

State agenda forfamily exposed

Big Brother wants control of your kids

Handing On The FaithJaclyn Ascough The latest book by a

young American jour-nalist, Ross Douthat, is

causing people to sit up andtake notice.

Bad Religion: How WeBecame a Nation of Hereticslooks at the decline of ortho-dox Christianity in the USand examines why it hap-pened.

Douthat’s central thesissays: “America’s problemisn’t too much religion ortoo little. It’s bad religion:the slow-motion collapse oftraditional Christianity andthe rise of a variety ofdestructive pseudo-Christianities in its place.”

He cites the OprahWinfrey ‘God/goddesswithin’ approach thatwould have us all seek outour own inner divinity andbow down before our ego innarcissistic self-worship.

Preoccupation with theself is central to another per-vasive variety of pseudo-

Christianity: accomodation-ism.

As the name suggests, thisis the tendency to accommo-date orthodox Christianteaching to the standards ofthe world. It means in prac-tice the watering down ofthe faith so as not to offendmodern sensibilities.

The end result is a tooth-less, insipid pseudo-Christianity, a religion ofease which seeks to preservethe self (one’s image, repu-tation and comfort) at theexpense of the truth.Basically, it’s Christianitywithout the cross.

CompellingDouthat is thought-pro-

voking and makes a com-pelling case. But does histhesis apply to the IrishCatholic Church?

When we look at thedecline here in people’sadherence to Church teach-ing on faith and morals, is‘bad religion’ to blame?

Does the Irish Churchneed deep renewal becauseorthodox Christianity hasbeen undermined andreplaced by destructivepseudo-Christianitiy?

The dominant explanationas to why the faith hasdeclined in Ireland links itto (a) rapid secularisationand liberalisation of Irishsociety since the 1960s and(b) the abuse scandals.

Undoubtedly these factorshad a major role in under-mining faith and practiceamong baptised Catholics.

However, it is stretching itto simply pin our analysison these factors alone.

Has ‘bad religion’ not alsoplayed a part in the declineof faith here? Catholics of anolder generation willremember from their youthone sign of ‘bad religion’: asin-centred, religion of fear.

Younger Catholics willthink of another: the wide-spread absence of solidteaching on faith and moralsfrom the pulpit and in theirschools.

The former put many ofthe baptised “off” God andthe Church. The latter failedto turn many of the baptised“on” to God and the

Church. If renewal is to come to the

Irish Church we need tobecome a teaching Churchonce again. Clear, coura-geous preaching and teach-ing, wedded to Christiancompassion, is the well-spring of all renewal.

Faith comes from what isheard and the baptiseddeserve nothing less than tohear the fullness of faithproclaimed and taught.

But when teachers avoidteaching the faith, andpreachers avoid preachingit, and liturgists repudiate itand the baptised cease tolive it, then inevitably badreligion becomes the normand the heresies of the dayare embraced as the accept-able face of religion.

The Irish Church has notbeen immune to this. Nowthe way forward is nothingshort of a return to ortho-doxy.

Recently I saw a bit of anafternoon chat show. Itwas about women who

“lost” themselves in mar-riage and motherhood. I didn’t particularly like thetone of the show. it had themakings of a huge pity party:“Woe is me. I no longer getto run barefoot through thedaisies. My life is over.”The presenter stressed thatwhen women marry andbecome mothers, they tendto lose their former self. Oneguest was engaged but wasgetting cold feet about herupcoming marriage. In myview, her feet were so coldshe had ice cube toes. She complained that shewas losing herself in therelationship, and they hadn’teven walked down the aisleyet.

Nights outShe no longer got to do all

of the things she did beforeshe met Mr. Right: girls’nights out had become rare;favourite hobbies were beingsqueezed out.

When we marry we do notmorph from two differentpeople into one person, withour former self completelydisappearing.

However, anyone in a suc-cessful marriage knowsthere is some dying to your-self. There are sacrifices tobe made. While this can bedifficult, it’s part of what

makes marriage work. Also, there is the challenge

of finding the balance ofmerging two single lives intoone married one. Difficult?Yes. Impossible? No. Whatdoes not kill us, makes usstronger!

The Catechism says: “Thelove of husband and wife foreach other requires, of itsnature, the unity and indis-solubility of their communityof persons,which embracestheir entire life.”

And it adds: “They arecalled to grow continually intheir communion throughday-to-day fidelity to theirmarriage promise of totalmutual self-giving{ (No.1644).

Just when we’re getting thehang of marriage, alongcome children, and we’reback to square one. But isn’tthat what life is about? It’salways changing, and wehave to adapt and changewith it.

Parenthood is a blessing.“Sacred Scripture and theChurch’s traditional practicesee in large families a signof God’s blessing and theparents’ generosity” saysthe Catechism (no. 2373) .

Being a mother or father isa huge blessing, but itrequires much sacrifice. Wecan struggle against the sac-rifice or we can surrender toit in loving service.

Harm caused by ‘bad religion’Fr OwenGormanWrites ...

No love without self-sacrifice

Teenagers know there’s somethingto take seriouslyTHE head of the Anglican communion in the UK has warnedagainst ‘downgrading’ religious education in secondaryschools, saying that this is “about the worst possiblemoment” to take such a step.

“There is plenty to suggest that younger people, while stillstatistically deeply unlikely to be churchgoers, don’t havethe hostility to faith that one might expect,” said Dr RowanWilliams.

Rather, they “at least share some sense that there issomething here to take seriously, when they have a chanceto learn about it,” he said.

He added: “Even if people are not religious themselves, itis very important to get a good grounding in religious edu-cation because so much of our culture and society is basedon religion.”

11Alive! July/August 2012

● As simple as thatWhen we were in school the first

question in the catechism was,“Who made the world?”, and theanswer was, “God made theworld.”

And it seems to me it’s as simpleas that really, because if that’s true,it changes everything.

And if it’s true we have to reallyrethink the way we organise ouraffairs, and the way we thinkabout our world, and the way wethink about everything.

— John Waters, writer, at theEucharistic Congress

● Undercover CatholicIn my short span of a mere 50

years, the world as I knew it haslargely been swept away, especial-ly in terms of family life. And nowit is up to me to try and make a dif-ference.

How about you? It will takecourage, and an increasing convic-tion to live the Catholic faith,openly. No more of this undercov-er Catholic stuff, no more of thedesire to fit in and be liked.

It is long past midnight for ourculture, for our families, for ourchildren.

— Msgr. Charles Pope, on his blog

● Moore’s attackAs the writer of one of Christy

Moore’s most popular songs, TheVoyage, I’m surprised and disap-pointed by the venom of his attackon the Eucharistic Congress.

The word ‘hate’ always sends ashiver down my spine, no matterwhat context it is used in…

The majority of the Irish popula-tion still profess to be Catholic and,as Catholics, we have as much rightto celebrate the faith we believe in,as pop, rock and folk crowds have aright to congregate to celebratemusic and popular culture.

If love is a boat, Christy, hate is aball and chain.

— Johnny Duhan, songwriter.

● EU up the creekIt is difficult for us all to get our

minds around the notion that hell isa’popping; that Europe is in theearly stages of what will probablyprove its gravest and most frighten-ing tumult of our lifetimes.

Our political leaders have notmentioned this, not told us Europeis up the creek without a paddle,because half of them are in denialabout what is going on, and not onehas a sensible idea what to do aboutit.

— Max Hastings, Daily Mail

● Authentic freedomIn Ireland today people are talking

about this epidemic of depression. What I experienced in the Youth

Space at the Congress was a groupof young people coming to theChurch where they’re at in theirlives. Whatever suffering they’vehad, they brought it there.

And they saw, “here’s a positiveoption for my life, here’s a differentpath. That might be to be countercultural, but actually that’s a posi-tive thing.”

On the outside, before peopleengage with the Church they mightthink, “Yes, it is a set of rules”.

But once they got into the Spacethey said, “actually, my life outsidethe Church is a set of rules, it’s whatI have to wear, how I work, howmuch money I have, what car I haveto drive.”

The Church is where they foundreal, authentic freedom, and thatgave me great hope.

— Wendy Grace (pictured), CatholicComment, on Would You Believe?

● Where’s the outrage?Between 2000 and 2010, 196 chil-

dren died who were known to statecare services…

To put it as baldly as possible,there are probably dozens of chil-dren who would be alive today ifthe State had properly protectedthem.

There has been a notable lack ofoutrage about this. RTE headlinedthe report on the day of its releasebut it quickly dropped out of thenews schedule.

Contrast this with its coverage ofthe Cloyne Report, which was wall-to-wall.

Will our politicians try to outdoone another in their expressions ofoutrage? Will our Taoiseach delivera speech condemning the ‘dysfunc-tion’ of the HSE?

There has also been very littledetectable public outrage…

There is little desire on the part ofthe media to see anyone in the HSEheld accountable for these cata-strophic failures.

— David Quinn, Irish Independent

● Children in careI have two great fears. Firstly, that

the children’s rights referendumwill be framed in a way that willweaken the rights of the majority ofcaring parents, without doing any-thing much about the minority ofparents who fail miserably.

Secondly, that the referendum willbe treated like some kind ofpanacea, without real commitmentto the kind of resources and sup-ports needed in families, communi-ties, education, social care and thejustice system.

— Breda O’Brien, Irish Times

● Possibly fatalIf the upcoming Children's

Referendum is passed, even morechildren will be taken into the careof the State.

On the basis of what we knowabout our highly dysfunctionalchildcare system, these childrenwould be moving from situationswhich are highly traumatic to thosethat are possibly fatal.

— Alison O’Connor, IrishIndependent

THE THINGS THEY SAY...

12 Alive! July/August 2012

Monthly MeditationPurification

he natural temptation for the Church, as for our-selves, is to adapt our way of being and workingto what seems reasonable and necessary in our

own time. Everyone, whether they like it or not, is being formed by

the values and voices of the cultures within which theylive and that come to live within them.

A question for any new evangelisation is whether it toomight be ‘postmodern’ in its style:

fast and superficial, content with the kind of visibilitythat makes for striking images and clever slogans, a kindof ‘theme park’ Catholicism of tee-shirts and mugs.

This certainly ensures a certain kind of visibility and wit-ness, one that seeks to be counter-cultural and undeniable.

But what about the deeper things, that take time tomature, in silence and through experience? What aboutthe less glamorous aspects of life, things that are less pho-togenic, the routine of prayer, study, and pastoral care?

One task for would-be evangelisers is the purification ofmotive: why do I want to share the gift I value with thisperson? Is it really for the sake of the other that I am act-ing or is it to re-assure myself?

It brings us back to the question of whether the gift I offeris really a gift or has also other meanings.

The new evangelisation calls us back to Christ, invites usto taste again the joy that comes from faith in him, to havethe confidence to offer others this possibility because wehave come to know that he is the way, the truth and the lifefor all human beings.

T

KNOW YOUR

FAITHOne of the most strikingchanges in the newtranslation of the Mass

is the beginning of the pref-ace.

In the past we had: “Let usgive thanks to the Lord ourGod” with the reply, “It is rightto give him thanks andpraise.” Today the reply is: “Itis right and just”.

In the past the priest thencontinued: “Father all-power-ful and ever-living God, we dowell always and everywhereto give you thanks…”

Now the priest says: “It istruly right and just, our dutyand our salvation, always andeverywhere to give youthanks, Lord, holy Father,almighty and eternal God…”

Some of the changes hereare very significant andshould, in time, help us todeepen our relationship withGod and our understanding ofthe faith.

First, we notice how the newtranslation brings back thenotion of justice, and stress-es it: “it is right and just”. Atissue here is giving God whatis his due.

In recent years we have putso much emphasis on love ofGod that we have forgottenthe importance of justice, ofgiving God what is due to himin justice.

But being just to God, recog-nising him as God, is thefoundation of all human jus-tice. If we get this wrong, thenwe simply cannot have true

justice in our society.None of this came across in

the old translation. “We dowell” is just too weak to com-municate all that is at stakein giving God thanks.

We do well, for example, towash our teeth each night orto eat plenty of fruit. But giv-ing thanks to God is far morecrucial than that.

MassIndeed, as the new transla-

tion makes clear, a lot moreis involved. Giving God thanksis “our duty and our salva-tion”. At stake is our eternalsalvation.

Each Mass now reminds usthat nothing in the wholeworld is as important as oursalvation.

This is also likely to changeour response to the com-plaint: “I get nothing out ofMass”.

The frequent reply, “you willonly get out of it what you putinto it” may be true enoughbut it is still at the level of mysatisfaction.

Rather, we go to Mass, oursupreme form of givingthanks, because it is “trulyright and just, our duty andour salvation.”

If we can get that clear, thenMass will certainly be thecentre of our lives.

Our duty andour salvation

In the account of the“Wedding at Cana” thebride and bridegroom are

not even named. It’s a cluethat the focus is not onthem, but on Jesus andMary.

Christ is presented as thedivine Bridegroom. OurLady is the perfect imageof God’s Bride, the Church.

At Cana, Jesus and Maryare more than Son andMother. Jesus is the realBridegroom – God seekingout his people in love.

Mary, fulfilling Israel’shopes, is God’s Bride, the

per fect image of theChurch. Mother of all disci-ples, she is the companionof the Redeemer, the NewEve.

In the community of theChurch Jesus “transformsthe water of human natureinto the wine of divinegrace” (Hugo Rahner).

Weddings in the HolyLand were celebrated for awhole week. The entiretown took part. Much winewas consumed.

At a Jewish wedding, wineserved not only to enter-tain the guests, but wasalso necessary for the ritu-al itself.

When they run out ofwine, Mary tells Jesus,who performs a miracleand gives a sign.

St John Chrysostomsays: “the waters blushed

to see their Lord!” Thewater of the Old Testamentwas changed into the wineof the New.

Abundance of wine (inthis case 480-720 litres or800 bottles) indicated thefulfilment of God’s savingwork (Is 25:6). It was oneof the signs accompanyingthe coming of the Messiah(Amos 9:13-14).

Six stone jarsWe note the six large

stone jars for the ablutionsof the Jews. Seven was theperfect number.

The six water jars repre-sent the incompletion ofthe Old Testament religion,awaiting fulfilment and per-fection in Christ. The waterof the Old Law is trans-formed into the new wineof the Gospel.

Cana also points forwardto the Last Supper, theHoly Eucharist and theheavenly banquet of theLamb (see also Lk 22:18).

The Eucharist is the

Sacrament of the Bride-groom and the Bride. In itChrist gives himself totallyto and for his bride,enabling Christians to livefor God and to worship himwith the “gift of self.”

The hour of Christ (Jn2:4), the time of theMessiah, is ushered in atCana with the image of theLord’s marriage to his peo-ple. It is the marriage ofthe Lamb.

Our Lady plays a vital rolein this. At her requestJesus hastens the signsthat proclaim his kingdom,his “hour” and his identity.

She is the Woman whobrings forth the full Body ofChrist – i.e. Christ and“those who keep the com-mandments of God andbear testimony to Jesus”(Apoc 12:17).

At her request Jesusgives the first of his signsand reveals his glory. Helets his disciples into thesecret of God.

Fr JosephBriody

WWhhaatt rreeaallllyy hhaappppeenneedd aatt CCaannaa??

Two fields, 20 marquees,100 volunteers and1,000 young people.

It’s the Youth 2000 SummerFestival.

Over four days, 9-12August, the Faith Festivalwill take place inClonmacnois, the ancientcentre of prayer and learn-ing. It’s a unique experience.

Young people attending forthe first time are struck bythe smiles, by the friendli-ness of the volunteers, thejoy of the priests, the enthu-siasm of the band and thewelcome from the organis-ers.

They get a sense of belong-ing to something greater.Jesus truly present, body,blood, soul and divinity, is

central to everything.As Pope Benedict XVI loves

to tell young people: “Thehappiness you are seeking,the happiness you have aright to enjoy has a nameand a face: it is Jesus ofNazareth, hidden in theEucharist.”

And again, Benedict says:“Be content with nothingless than Christ.

Why do so many turn upeach year for the festival?Because there they personal-ly encounter this same Jesus

of Nazareth, hidden in theEucharist. And meeting himchanges lives.

EventsEvents include: inspiring

talks, prayer, Mass, healingservice, a Christian rock con-cert, dynamic workshops,games, quiet time for prayer,time for chillaxing and mak-ing friends.

Why does the Lord not getthe opportunity he seeks toreach out to young peoplewith his love?

Perhaps it’s because somepeople believe they have toact as a buffer between mod-ern youth and Christ, thatthey must make the message“more digestible”.

But young people are themost idealistic group in soci-ety, and can judge what is

authentic and true and whatisn’t.

They are satisfied withnothing less than Christ.Made in the divine imageand likeness, they are wiredfor God!

At our festival, they discov-er Christ’s steadfast love forthem, and their lives are nat-urally changed forever. Theycome to know a life full ofpossibilities.

“I have come so that theymay have life and have it tothe full,” says the Lord.

Once they come to knowthat they are loved by Godand that he has a special,unique plan for their lives,they start truly living, livingto the full.

So, check out the weekendonline at youth2000.ie andregister to attend. You’llneed to bring a sleeping bag,warm clothes, wellies!

A network of free busesfrom around the country willhelp with transport, and theweekend is donation only, soif you’re broke it’s ideal foryou too!

Invite everyone you knowaged 16-35 to this greatevent; keep our work in yourprayers and maybe supportus financially (Youth 2000,Aras Treasa, Clarendon St,Dublin 2).

If you're on for Clon, welook forward to seeing youthere!

— James Mahon is NationalLeader of Youth 2000

Speaker’s CornerBy James Mahon

— Fr Vivian Boland O.P.

R u on for Clon dis sumer?

Call for World Day to counteranti-Christian persecutionA VATICAN official has called for an International World Dayto highlight violence and persecution against Christians inmany countries.

“Religious freedom, is repeatedly proclaimed by the inter-national community, and in the constitutions of most states,yet it continues to be widely violated today,” he said.

Archbishop Dominic Mamberti was addressing a meetingof the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe(OSCE).

“Perhaps more than 200 million Christians are in difficultybecause of legal and cultural structures that lead to theirdiscrimination,” he said.

An International Day against anti-Christian persecution anddiscrimination would be “an important sign that govern-ments are willing to deal with this serious issue,” he argued.

Pope Benedict, in his World Day of Peace message lastyear, said that “Christians are the religious group which suf-fer most from persecution on account of their faith.”

13Alive! July/August 2012

GODMEANS TO

ME!

WHAT sure enough the next morning they did. Onthis retreat in Clonfert once more I made agood confession.

Again a terrifying experience but the peacethat came with those words “I absolve youfrom your sins” was worth anything!

We then had the opportunity to be prayedover and the moment this man’s hands werelaid on my head I was set on fire with peaceand joy.

I was left absolutely blown away by howreal and wonderful God is. All doubts werewiped away by the hand of God.

You might expect me to say that Jesus and Ilived happily ever after but that’s not howthings worked out. I was 15 and I had a greatdesire to follow Jesus but it wasn’t so easy.

I was petrified of what my friends andthose around me would think, and I waslonely. I didn’t feel as though I had anyone totalk with about my faith.

So after these amazing experiences I wasthrown back into reality and had a great bat-tle on my hands.

I had many fears to overcome, the fear ofbeing mocked and laughed at, of not beingunderstood, of losing my friends, of losingmy dream of getting married and becoming aprofessional footballer.

Thanks be to God, slowly and oftentimespainfully, I did manage to overcome thesefears.

Not by my own efforts as such becauseevery ounce of strength within me wasn’tenough to overcome my fear and my sins. Ineeded help so I began to talk and to seekguidance.

I made frequent confessions and went toMass as often as I could. Most importantly, Ibegan to spend quality time with God.

I began carving out time in my day to get toknow Jesus by reading the gospels and bytalking to him about everything. The moretime I spent with God the easier thingsbecame.

I became more courageous in sharing myfaith with others and I got the grace fromGod to beat sin. Today God is everything tome.

I took a risk in following Jesus. I risked los-ing everything I ever thought was worth liv-ing for but I’ve learnt that if I have God I

have everything - allthe money, pleasureand success the worldoffers is nothing com-pared to God.

Sure didn’t God cre-ate the world? If I haveGod I have everything.

I’m second youngest in a family of twoboys and two girls. I grew up in Galwaybut I now live in Dundalk where I play

soccer professionally with Dundalk FC. I grew up like most Irish kids, making my

first Holy Communion, Confession andConfirmation. I didn’t question the teachingsof the Church until I got to maybe 6th Class.

Then I began to doubt whether God wasreal or not and by the time I entered sec-ondary school I had little to no faith. If Godwas real he was up the sky somewhere withnothing to do with my life.

That all changed however when I wasbrought to Knock by our Religion teacher ona one day retreat. In Knock two youngwomen shared their stories of how Godcame into their lives.

I listened and I was moved by their experi-ence. After lunch we had the opportunity togo to confession. I ticked every box on theexamination of conscience!

But it was wonderful to make a good hon-est confession. Terrifying beforehand but Iwas so free afterwards.

After confession we all knelt in a semi-cir-cle and the priest brought the Eucharistaround to each of us for a special blessing.

I didn’t really know what was going on butwhen he came to me I experienced this awe-some presence in front of me.

I can’t describe it, but I knew that JesusChrist was right there in the Holy Eucharist.I could feel his presence. It was amazing.

Greatly moved by this experience, I wantedto change my ways. I was getting into badhabits and I knew now these were wrong.

Over the next year I didn’t succeed inbecoming very saintly! I was supposed to besuspended from school when we were to goon another retreat.

I desperately wanted to go because I had agreat desire to meet God again. I wantedGod in my life and if he was on the lastretreat surely he’d be on this one too!

I prayed that night they’d let me go andGerard Hanley, 21, is aprofessional footballer.

The modern world likesto present itself as an“Age of Reason”

which emerged from andsucceeded in overthrowingan “Age of Faith”.

It calls itself “enlight-ened”, meaning that whatwent before was darkness,“the dark ages” of reli-gious faith.

According to this storyWestern humanity was, formany centuries, keptunder the dominion ofChristianity, and particular-ly under the control of theCatholic Church.

During this time culturewas stagnant, science wasprimitive and had no greatachievements to show foritself, and uncouth reli-gious zealots showed nointerest in learning orenquiry.

Witches were hunteddown and condemned tothe fires by tyrannicalinquisitors, original think-ing was stymied by dogmaand superstition, andChurch and State workedtogether to subjugate themasses.

In this telling, the lastremains of classical learn-ing had been wiped out byChristian fanatics, thegreat pagan literary workshad been burnt, and theachievements of “Greekscience” were forgotten.

All was darkness untilIslamic scholars restoredancient learning to theWest, to be rediscoveredwhen the shackles of faithwere broken.

Meantime, the “wars ofreligion” would first takeplace, reddening Europewith rivers of blood andtearing Christendom apart.

Then came renaissance,liberating scholars fromthis darkness, opening the

way to the full flowering ofthe Enlightenment and pro-ducing the reign of reasonand progress.

The results were aremarkable developmentof the sciences, politicalliberty and a revolutionarynew sense of human digni-ty, centred on freedom.

With the rise of the secu-lar state religion wasreduced it its proper place,merely as a department ofthe state or, in time, com-pletely cut off from thestate and confined to thesacristy or the home.

New maturityThis opened the way to a

new maturity in society,and to an era of universaltolerance and to compas-sion for minorities.

In this story Galileo holdsa place of honour, a martyrfor science in the greatstruggle of reason toescape from the clutchesof gullible faith and oppres-sive religion.

The story has been so

well told, and so frequentlyrepeated, and so littlechallenged, that it is nowthe accepted account ofWestern history, and evenChristians generally acceptit as an accurate report.

As the American author,David Bentley Hart, writes,it is “a simple andenchanting tale, easily fol-lowed and utterly captivat-ing in its explanatory tidi-ness.”

However, says Hart, “itssole defect is that it hap-pens to be false in everyidentifiable detail” (AtheistDelusions, 2009, page34).

Hart goes through eachof these claims, one byone, and shows how theevidence for it has beenmisrepresented, distortedor simply manufactured.

He makes the point thatin recent decades profes-sional historians haveexposed the distortions inone area after another, butthat the history popularis-ers still have to catch upwith them.

The attempt to writeChristianity out of history,or to present it as a harm-ful presence, goes back along way.

During the reign ofElizabeth I in England, forexample, official propagan-dists began the retelling ofEnglish history to presentthe country as havingalways been Protestant.

Before that Henry VIIIdestroyed the famousshrine of St Thomas aBeckett in Canterbury, towipe out the memory of anarchbishop who stood upto a ruthless king.

But history cannot be leftto those who would distortthe story just to suit theirown aims.

A Windowon History

Elizabeth I

They distorted history

When the sun is beamingdown on the earth, a streetlight adds nothing to the

brightness. But if a room is in com-plete darkness, even the light from acandle can make a huge difference.

“No big deal there,” I can hear youthinking, but it is very relevant forour work. Remember, ‘Prince ofDarkness’ is one title for our boss.

Do you remember ever hearingthis: “You are the light of the world.A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.Neither do men light a lamp, andput it under a tub, but on a lampstand; and it gives light to all in thehouse.”

Or this: “Let your light so shine

before all, that they may see yourgood works, and glorify your Fatherwho is in heaven.”

As usual, of course, you paid littleattention to it. But make no mistake,these remarks were a declaration ofwar on us and our kingdom of dark-ness.

Christ, as it were, was summoninghis army, leading them into battle.And to this day the battle continuesto rage. But in recent times it hasentered a new phase.

Let me explain. For many cen-turies Europe and, later, America,were at least vaguely Christian. Andmany areas were stronglyChristian.

The followers of Christ were atleast trying to know and understand

his teaching, and put it into effect intheir lives. And when they failed,they asked for forgiveness and triedagain.

As a result, the whole societybegan to change. There was a newsense of human dignity, and a rich-er understanding of the dignity ofwomen in particular. Respect forhuman life and for marriage

increased.Care for the sick and the poor

began to flourish. A new respect foreducation led to an explosion ofschools and universities. Science,law, medicine, politics were trans-formed. Massive changes in atti-tudes and in society were under way.

The light of Christ was transform-ing his followers, despite the deter-mined resistance by many of them,and they in turn were lighting upthe world.

But in recent centuries theKingdom of Darkness has beenfighting back with new vigour. Itwas a smart move, as we turnedlight into darkness, to call it enlight-enment.

And it was a smarter move to

attack the very source of light itself,faith in Him above. Who would everhave believed we could dupe somany into calling themselves athe-ists and agnostics?

But to get back to where I started,in this new Darkness, even a littleflame, even a candle can throw a lotof light. So the message, “You arethe light of the world” carries a newchallenge for each Christian.

If, but only if, they are utterly andcourageously faithful to Christ andhis Church can they begin to radiatea new light, a new hope and joy, onceagain into the world.

Our job is to intimidate and com-promise them, until we extinguishthat light.

Yours darkly, Dumbag

Dumbagwrites..!

Letters from a Masterto a Trainee Tempter

Dear Nettles,They radiate new joy into the world

14 Alive! July/August 2012

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Solution to Alive!, St Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24.

Prize Crossword...No.161

ACROSS1. Confine the fowl in one chop! (7)5. English racecourse (5)8. Ada with his lute can flatter (7)9. Motionless (5)10. Chubby (3)11. Sip seed mixed up for contempt (7)13. Is there something wrongwith a woman? (5)14. Abandon this unfertile region (6)17. Sea mammals (6)20. Or in this climber there is ahard white substance (5)21. An expression of regret (7)25. She is found in a convent (3)26. Greek letter found at themouth of a river (5)27. You could describe thisfamous ship as an epic (7)28. Terminated (5)29. Train me in this Easternbuilding (7)

DOWN1. Accumulate and hide away (5)2. These are indicative of per-sons, places and things (5)3. African animal like a shortnecked giraffe (5)4. You like this better (6)5. Memorial inscription on tombfrom the pie in the path! (7)6. Slip ace to be unusual (7)7. Is, is Tom in the process ofcell division? (7)12. Bun or cake (3)14. Diminish (7)15. Marred (7)16. Red yarn for the fox (7)18. A boring tool for everyone,we hear (3)19. Dwarf variety of domesticfowl (6)22. Frequently (5)23. Proprietor (5)24. Cathy makes a boat (5)

✄

Hiya, Kids,This month we have the feast ofthe wonderful St Maria Goretti (6th

July) who was just 11 when she died.Maria’s mammy never went to school

and couldn’t read or write. But she wasable to give her four children a deep lovefor Jesus and Our Lady.

Maria loved playing, and was so happy,and she loved helping her parents. But anolder boy who lived near them began tolike her too much.

He wanted her to do bold things, but sherefused again and again, because sheloved Jesus so much. So, one day the boypicked up a knife and gave Maria fourteendeep cuts.

She was rushed to hospital where shedied shortly afterwards. A few weeksbefore this she had made her First HolyCommunion, and she was buried in herwhite dress.

Maria shows us that even young kids canbe saints. Hope you enjoy the holidays.

Slán go fóill.

COLOURING PICTURE - WIN €10116

Last Month’s Colouring Picture Winner was:

Simplex Clues: €25 for the first correctentry out of the bag. Entries before 31stJuly. One entry per family. Winner andanswers next month.

15Alive! July/August 2012

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Lives of the Saints

St. Benedict

€25

Answers:

Mayo; Roscommon; Sligo; Tyrone; Dublin; Armagh;Wexford; Antrim.Soft, Sort, Sore, Bore, BareHeel, Heal, Heat, Beat, Boat

Christina Thomas, Ashington Grove,Navan Rd, Dublin 7. Age 9.

The world and the life he wasabandoning in the busy anddistracting city of Rome had

lost all attraction for the youngBenedict of Nursia.

Leaving home, he sought a placewhere he might find a peace whichwould enable him to discover whatpurpose God had for him in thisworld.

He settled in a small village neara church in the Simbrucini moun-tains.

Living about forty miles fromRome he was close to the town ofSubiaco which would forever afterbe associated with his name.

After a short period there amongthe townspeople, tradition tells usthat he worked a miracle andimmediately became the focus ofattention – the very thing he hadfled from in Rome.

One night he left the town in

secret and moved further into themountains, taking up his abode ina cave.

On his journey he met Romanus,a monk who lived in a monasteryfurther up the slopes of the moun-tain.

When Benedict told Romanus hisstory and why he had left Rome themonk advised him to become ahermit.

This he did and lived peacefullyfor three years in his cave, receiv-ing spiritual guidance and foodfrom Romanus. He had little con-tact with the world around him.

But if his contact with people inthe locality was limited, he was notpassing unnoticed.

His reputation as a man of Godgrew and when the abbot of a near-by monastery died the monkscame to Benedict to ask him totake his place.

He had grave misgivings, knowingthe dubious reputation of the saidmonks, but they were so insistentthat he eventually agreed.

It was a disaster. When Benedicttried to introduce order into theirlives they rebelled against him andeven tried to poison him.

He abandoned the experimentand happily returned to his cave.

MiraclesBy now, however, miracles began

to be associated with him and peo-ple came from all over the region toreceive guidance and advice.

Some wanted to dedicate theirlives to God as he had done andfor these he established whateventually came to be called theBenedictine Rule.

Initially this Rule was somethinghe envisioned as being lived by anyordinary person who wished to loveand serve God in the world.

Later, however, it came to bemore associated with those whochose to live together in a monas-tic setting.

For these he set up in the valleysaround Subiaco a series of twelvecommunities of men, each with asuperior to whom they pledgedtheir obedience.

They followed the guidelines fortheir interior life and the way ofwork which Benedict had drawn upfor them. These were the firstBenedictine monasteries.

Eventually Benedict established athir teenth monastery, takingcharge of this himself while stillguiding all the others as theirfather or abbot.

However, saintly people canattract not only the good but alsothe jealousy and envy of others.Benedict and his followers were noexception.● Part 2: First monasteries

June X-word Winner:Robert O’Leary, Parklands Drive,

Commons Road, Cork.

P U D D I N G S G R U BL O N E A E RU R G E S M A D E I R AG S P I A N I

E T U I N E M E S I SS A R I IT U R K E Y S A M S O NO A D P GC R A C K E R D R U MK S I R E T SI N C E N S E N O N E TN O D S D I UG A T E A T T A C K E D

● Can you unscramble these counties?

1. YOMA _____________2. OSCMRMNOO _____________3. GIOSL _____________4. YNEORT _____________5. BILUDN _____________6. RMAHGA _____________7. XODREWF _____________8. TAIRMN _____________● Can you get from the top to bottom,changing one letter at a time?

SOFT

BARE

HEEL

BOAT

16 Alive! July/August 2012

Published by Alive Group, St. Mary’s Priory, Tallaght, Dublin 24. Tel: 01-4048187 Fax: 01-4596784 E-mail: alivepaper@gmail.com • Editor: Fr Brian McKevitt OP • Design/Sub-editing: Tom English • Printed by Datascope, Enniscorthy

FOLLOWING on from last year’s sell-out semi-nars in Knock, Johnnette Benkovic of EWTN’sWomen of Grace will lead, with Fr Philip ScottFJH, an exciting range of seminars inCatholicism, leadership, authentic femininity,healing the ‘Father’ wound and unmasking theNew Age deception for men, women and clergyin Ireland, July 24th to Aug. 8th, as outlined in adbelow.● Two-day Catholic Leadership Institute 31stJuly – 1st Aug: ‘Confronting the Culture’s attackon the Church’. Inspired by Pope John Paul II’swords : “We are now facing the final confronta-tion between the Church and the anti-Church, ofthe Gospel and the anti-gospel…it is a trialwhich the whole Church…must take up.” Aunique event for anyone in Catholic leadershipor who wants to make a difference. Exploring theclash of world views, spiritual warfare and illu-minating the beauty of the Catholic faith and,this two day event is very relevant after the inspi-ration of the 50th Eucharistic Congress.

● Struggling in your relationship with God,with family relationships, discord with yourfather, mother or children? Even with the verybest of parents, every one of us carries somedegree of ‘Father Wound’ from childhood. Thishugely needed ministry is being addressed by FrPhilip Scott and Johnnette on weekend of 4-5thAug. 2012 and leads participants to a moremeaningful encounter with God the Father andhealing of personal relationships.

For the first time printed in Ireland, bookletsunmasking Reiki, Yoga, Enneagram, occult andother New Age practices available at our

straight-talking one day seminar on the New AgeDeception Fri. 3rd August.

● The weekend retreat for women: Healing theFeminine “For a time such as this” (Esther4:14) 27-29th July. A rich in-depth retreat devel-oping last year’s theme “Mending the wounds ofthe heart”. Learn about the sacred symbolism ofwoman, the war against woman, restoration,healing and growing towards the ideal. Sure tobe a powerful and blessed experience.

● Men and priests each have a day with FrPhilip Scott to be renewed in their identity andmanhood living in the glorious freedom as sonsof God in Christ on 7th and 8th August.

Why not register for more than one event?Bring a friend! Register online at www.human-life.ie or call conference hotline number 0871554947. All Knock events are in BarnacarrollCommunity and Sports centre, 3 miles fromKnock. Every day includes Mass.

A 10% reduction off registration on bookingsbefore newly extended deadline of 10th July2012.

Exciting Seminars by JohnnetteBenkovic this Summer!

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

In the clip a woman described how she hadbeen on daily medication for depression fornearly ten years, but came off it “overnight”after turning to God.

“God was true, Jesus was true to his word,”she said. “I was completely healed fromdepression.”

But RTE removed her contribution after DrHarry Barry, considered a leading “expert” ondepression, complained it wrongly grave theimpression that there was a ‘quick fix’ for thecondition.

Barry complained that “the problem withthese kind of stories [is] that you don’t knowall the facts.”

Waters, however, commented that thewoman was “as entitled to convey her experi-ence to her fellow citizens as is any member ofthe psychiatric profession.”

But, it seems, “human beings are now for-bidden from intervening in their own liveswithout the attendance of an approved ‘spe-cialist’.”

The journalist continued: “It seems thatnone of us is entitled to reflect on our owncondition, our own sadness, our own being,without paying large sums of money to somemembers of Dr Barry’s profession.”

People may not raise questions about theirown origin, destiny and the meaning of theirlives but, like washing machines, must sub-mit for service to an approved agent.

LinkWaters then turned to the possible link

between anti-depressants and suicide, high-lighted by a former assistant State pathologist.

“Dr Declan Gilsenan said that in his 30-yearexperience carrying out post mortems, he hadseen too many suicides after people had start-ed taking these drugs,” he wrote.

As a result of his experience, Gilsenan calledon doctors to be more careful when prescrib-ing anti-depressants, and insisted that “peo-ple need to be monitored more carefully.”

Writing in a Catholic newspaper, Watersalso pointed out that research has “consistent-ly shown that people with religious beliefs aresignificantly happier and healthier than non-believers.”

He asked: “Would RTE censor a psychiatristeven for making objectively questionablestatements?”

He thought it unlikely, and that the broad-caster would regard such a contribution,however disputed, as a legitimate viewpoint.

“Why then,” he asked, “ does it censor awoman who seeks to tell what she hasobserved in her own life?”

Waters questions RTE ‘censorship’of woman’s storyJOURNALIST John Waters has questioned

what he called “the latest reported act ofcensorship by RTE” which removed a one-minute religious broadcast from its websitein response to criticism by an “expert”.