Poster contest

Following a tip-off from Fr. Tim, I decided to enter The Lapped Catholic's motivational poster competition.

Here is my entry, in the "Humorous" category.

Blessed Columba Marmion, pray for us

Since we in Ireland have relatively few "properly" canonised and beatified people, it is good now and then to blow the trumpet for a saintly Dubliner.



Today, 3rd October, is the feast of Blessed Columba Marmion.

What's In A Name?

Story in today's Irish Examiner:

A FATHER was yesterday granted a High Court injunction restraining his former partner from naming their baby because he was not properly consulted.

Mr Justice Frank Clarke heard the father of the month-old baby girl had proposed dozens of names but the mother didn’t consider any of them.

The couple concerned, who have split up, cannot be named for legal reasons and an injunction was granted to that effect yesterday in the High Court.

In an affidavit opened to the High Court, the father said he was extremely concerned that the mother would proceed with registration and his child’s names will be chosen without any meaningful engagement with him.

Link to story here.

Update: the latest news is that he has withdrawn his legal action.

Final profession for an Ursuline sister

Here is the article from catholicireland.net about another woman following the call from the Lord.

And here is the Ursulines' own website.

Two new vocations for Sisters of Mercy

Despite what the pessimists think, the call to religious life is still being heard by some.

Here is the news page from the Sisters of Mercy website, including a photo of the pair; I am assuming this photo was taken on the day of the big event, though I'm not 100% sure of that.

Speaking of that Order, I blogged in June about an event in Rosscarbery, Co Cork; here is something else on the matter, including a photo, again from the official Sisters of Mercy website. The photo clearly looks as if it was simply scanned from the newspaper in which the story originally appeared.

A day's work!

If you are fortunate enough to be gainfully employed in a job you enjoy, and lucky enough to work with nice people, with generally good working conditions, then spare a thought for those who are not as fortunate as you.

Such as the people whom Rev. Stephen Miller deals with in his work with the Anglican Mission to Seafarers.

Read this: it's from the magazine of the International Transport Workers Federation.

And yes, there is a Catholic equivalent, the Apostleship of the Sea.

If this blog isn't enough for you. . .

. . .you will soon have more opportunities to read my musings on the Catholic England and Wales blog. I have been invited to join this blog, and I am very happy to accept.

Absolutely hilarious!

This post by Paulinus really made me laugh.

And then, after I'd finished, I was thinking to myself: "I hope it's not based on fact!"

Wedding day story and pics

No not me, but blogger Antonia of Antonia's World got hitched a couple of weeks ago.

Story of the big day here.

Best wishes to the happy couple.

I am guessing that this priest was Irish!

Today's Racing Post features an interview with trainer Criquette Head-Maarek, probably the leading female racehorse trainer in the world. I had the pleasure of briefly visiting her yard at Chantilly in October 1994, when I went to the Arc de Triomphe weekend as part of a tour group; a Saturday morning trip to Chantilly was included. Chantilly is about thirty/forty miles north of Paris, and is the main training centre of racehorses in France, the French equivalent of the Curragh or Newmarket.

The interview was by veteran France-based reporter, Desmond Stoneham.

Apparently Criquette had cancer last year, but thankfully she seems to have made a good recovery. For many years, she has been able to speak English fluently; I had heard her quoted as saying that she learnt English by reading The Sporting Life.

But I hadn't known that she went to school in England, and the most interesting part of the piece is as follows:

"As a teenager, I spent three years at school in Guildford and Eastbourne", she says. "I spent many days going racing with the local priest and never missed a meeting at Epsom. I was always reading The Sporting Life.

I don't know what age she is - I would estimate she's about sixty. So she would have been at school in the early sixties or thereabouts.

If you've never been to Switzerland, then you don't know what you're missing!

It's not cheap, but it's a fabulous place to visit.

So for the moment, I have put up, in the sidebar, a link to the Swiss Federal Railways journey planner. At the second attempt, I have done it properly.

Just choose two towns/cities in Switzerland, type them into the boxes provided, and click Search Connection, and away you go!!

Enjoy yourselves and start planning your trip!

Belated birthday greetings!

Someone once said that the best thing ever to come out of Scotland was the road to England!

This, of course, is absolutely false!!

The best thing to come out of Scotland is, of course, the ferry to Ireland!!!

But I digress! Because among the best other things to come out of Scotland is The Moral Highground.

Master of TMH, Jamie McMorrin, had a birthday during the week gone past. I won't say how old (or how young!) he is; go and see for yourself and wish him Ad Multos Annos!

Bad news for Dublin's morally degenerates!!

Members of the Legion of Mary who joined the protests of local residents outside a Stringfellow lap dancing club in central Dublin, have expressed their delight at the recent closure of the club.

Read the full story here from catholicireland.net.

The best bit is the quote from the operating company:

"In addition to this, the ongoing protests outside the club, which have continued to date, resulted in a reluctance of the vital corporate sector to embrace the club," the company said.

By coincidence (or Divine Providence!?) this place was located not very far from the old red-light district of Dublin, which, in the early twenties, was shut down by the then-fledgling Legion of Mary. Frank Duff wrote about it in a book called "Miracles On Tap", which, I learned later, altered many of the street names in order to protect the innocent.

One of Dublin's daily tabloid papers last week put this story on the front page with the headline: "NO NUDES IS GOOD NUDES".

Article definitely worth reading . . .

. . .from The Word, which is published by the Divine Word Missionaries.

It's by Fr. Vincent Twomey, one of Ireland's leading theologians. He especially became more famous (and in more demand from the general media!) after the election of Cardinal Ratzinger, because he's a past pupil!

Here is the article, on the touchy subject of In Vitro Fertilisation.

Springfield, Illinois

One place I visited on my recent American trip was Springfield, the capital of Illinois.

Sadly, in Ireland, the city is best known as the home of Homer Simpson and family.

I got the first train that Thursday morning from Chicago to Springfield; there were no left luggage lockers at the Amtrak station, but Amtrak staff very kindly allowed me to leave my bags there - otherwise I would have been up the creek.

What I could not believe about Springfield was the traffic congestion; there is none! The streets seemed unbelieveably quiet. This was a Thursday in mid-May.



Frankly, the only reason why I paid a visit to Springfield is that it was the home of Abraham Lincoln, and being a history enthusiast, this is a place I had wanted to visit for years.

My first stop was the brand new Abraham Lincoln Museum, which I thoroughly recommend. It uses audio-visual displays very effectively; the exhibition feature which I found most interesting was the display of cuttings and cartoons from contemporary newspapers; suffice to say that those who, in the darkest days of the Civil War, wrote rather "unflattering" words about Lincoln (and that's putting it mildly!), would be very surprised to come back to Earth in 2006 and discover that America has virtually "canonised" the man. It made me wonder: what will the American people think of George W. Bush in 140 years time?

Next stop was the restored Lincoln Home; I was particularly impressed by the fact that the National Park Service has not only restored the house, but the whole block, and the object is to have the whole block in the style of the 1850s and 60s.



As well as showing us the house, our National Parks Service guide posed a question: who was the first American President to be born in a hospital? The answer is Jimmy Carter.

Afterwards I walked around a bit, really looking for a bus or taxi to the presidential grave; on the way, I accidentally came across a good Catholic bookstore; sorry I can't remember the address.

I was now under a bit of pressure for time; I wanted to get to the Lincoln Tomb on the northside of the city before closing time, pay my respects, and then get back to the Cathedral in town for evening Mass, which was either 5 or 5.30 (can't remember now), but Springfield seemed to have no taxi-cabs whatsoever.

After over half an hour, I got one beside the Museum, and got out to the Tomb.





There was a mob of schoolkids inside ahead of me already. But I waited for them to move a bit before I went in myself.



Actually, he is not buried in the inscribed sarcophagus; he is about ten feet under this, under concrete, because years ago someone tried to break in and steal his remains. Behind my back when I took the photo is a wall, and behind this wall are the last resting places of his widow, Mary Todd Lincoln, and three of their sons. Their eldest son, Robert, the only one of the four to live to adulthood, chose to be buried at Arlington, Virginia.

After that I walked through the cemetery, knowing I wouldn't get to the Cathedral in time for Mass, but decided to pay a visit there anyway. I got a bus from the cemetery to close to the Cathedral; there are some nice stained glass windows, including one of St. Brendan!

And there is a stained glass window depicting Lincoln (needless to say!) and one depicting that fine Freemason, George Washington!!

One of the most memorable episodes of Bishop Fulton Sheen's series Life Is Worth Living is the one about Abraham Lincoln. He finishes: "George Washington will always be the father of our country; but Abraham Lincoln will always be its saviour."

Fr. Liam Lawton

Here is some information about one of Ireland's best-known priests, Fr. Liam Lawton. Rightly or wrongly, he is better known in Ireland as a musician than a priest. I have a theory that some person or persons in the music "industry" have told him to "tone down" the religious bit.

The above link is to a page from the official site of his diocese, the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. The cathedral town of this diocese is Carlow, about sixty miles south-west of Dublin. Curiously, most of County Kildare is actually in the Archdiocese of Dublin!!

Well, not all Sisters of Mercy are dancing in a circle today. . .

Today is June 30th, and despite what you might have been thinking, I am NOT in Co Cork at a solstice circle dance!

But this weekend's The Irish Catholic print this Letter to the Editor, from Sr. Aloysius McVeigh, of the Sisters of Mercy, Derry:

My shared reaction to the article in The Irish Catholic about Catholic nuns celebrating a pagan ritual on June 30 in West Cork, is one of puzzled concern.
Sr. Twomey's statement that paganism itself is a religion is at odds with my dictionary's explanation that a pagan is one whose outlook is irreligious, and it is definitely at variance with the Christian teaching that a pagan is one who does not worship the true God.
We sisters have often to remind ourselves that we are first and foremost confirmed members of the Catholic Church, before we are Sisters of Mercy, and that it is the truths of the Catholic faith that underpin our vocation. As a Sister of Mercy myself I pray for our sisters in Pairc a Tobair, and for all of us, that God, who is not an "other worldly God", but who is with us always, everywhere, will, in the words of Psalm 85. . . show us its way, show us its way, and guide our hearts, so that we may walk in His Truth.
Yours etc,
Sr. Aloysius McVeigh, Sisters of Mercy, Derry.

So what are you doing on June 30th?

This story, by Michael Kelly, appears on page three of the latest edition of The Irish Catholic, issue dated June 8th:

A Mercy nun has claimed that Christianity has much to learn from pagans.
Sr. Margaret Twomey, who is among a group of Mercy Sisters organising a celebration of the pagan festival of solstice later this month, told The Irish Catholic that "traditional religions such as paganism have much to teach us about how to live in harmony with other beings."
Countering criticism that the festival of solstice is not centred on Christ, Sr. Twomey said that "maybe sometimes we could focus too much on God and forget God's ways.
"If we are very focused on an other (sic) worldly God we can forget that God works through all God creates. In that forgetting we cannot treat it with the awareness or respect that it deserves."
She said that "maybe we have denigrated paganism too much, paganism itself is a religion, we can learn from it."
Sr. Twomey is one of a number of sisters who will gather in a West Cork field to sing, light a bonfire and perform a traditional circle dance on June 30.
"I wouldn't describe it as a liturgy", she said. "We call it a ritual in terms of a space where we gather. Prayer has different meanings for different people, some people are obviously from the Christian background, but many people come from other faiths or other belief systems.
"We emphasise what unites us rather than what divides us, in that sense we pray with people to whoever God is for them, if they use that word", she said.
The sisters, who live in a Dutch-built wooden house near the village of Rosscarbery, run the Pairc a Tobair centre to emphasies the interconnectedness of nature. "It's funded entirely by the Mercy Order" Sr. Twomey explained. "We see the park as an expression of our ministry of education and healing".
She explained how "the leadership of the Order wanted to make a practical response to questions about the damage humankind was doing to the planet, and also to our knowledge that all of life is interconnected."
The land was available, and the Order appointed two nuns to run the project initially, and there are currently three sisters engaged in the ministry, which, Sr. Twomey says has a threefold dimension:
1. restoring biological diversity,
2. healing and education,
3. self sufficiency.
"We are trying" Sr. Twomey said, "to develop a way of life that integrates the whole of our life".

And on the back page of the same paper, in the Notebook column, David Quinn gives a short but pointed response:

"A group of nuns are to celebrate the summer solstice at the end of this month in a ceremony of some sort. This strikes me as very strange. It is no part of the Christian tradition, and never has been. Christianity should have the care of nature as one of its concerns, but it is not a nature-centred religion. It is a Christ-centred religion, and its ceremonies, its rituals and its liturgy must always reflect this. It must be Son-centred, not sun-centred".

South Dakota gets on RTE News

Wednesday evening last, on RTE's Six One news bulletin, the network's Washington Correspondent, Robert Shortt, filmed a report on the recent abortion legislation passed in South Dakota.

To see the report, you must do the following. Go to here:

On the left, there is a drop-down menu titled News Archive. Make sure this is dated 07 June 2006.

Then below the drop-down menu, click the link: Watch the NEWS.

The whole programme is over fifty minutes, but the South Dakota item starts at 35 minutes and last about two and a half minutes, so you'll have to use the scrolling buttons.

Two points: first, at the very end of the piece, in his final piece to camera, Shortt noticeably uses the words "the right to choose", but almost uses the words as if he assumes he is addressing a converted audience.

Second, watch out for the VISA sign on the wall of the abortion clinic.

Hurry! While stocks last!!

This is in the current edition of the London-published satirical magazine Private Eye.

It's the "I-Spy" feature, where readers send in photos of strange things they have seen.

The magazine is published every fortnight, and the website changes, so I have kept the photo, and here it is, before they take it down. The photo was (the magazine states) taken opposite Rosslyn Chapel, Edinburgh.



And I hereby announce that, henceforth, this blog is a DaVC-free zone!