Philip Scott can regularly be heard singing in Kildare’s Carmelite church, and soon could be a household name with an RTÉ Nationwide devoted to him ahead of a concert at the National Concert Hall, but his path to success has been anything but straightforward.

Born in Kildare, Philip grew up in the orbit of the Curragh, where his father was in the army band, and from the age of 13 was regularly involved in Gilbert and Sullivan musicals in the National Stud. A pop band in his late teens got as far as signing deals in England, but nothing came of this, and he got into Ireland’s cabaret scene in his 20s.

It was during this period, performing at weddings around the country, that he was first diagnosed with depression.

“I was dyslexic as a teenager and poor in school,” he says, with his depression starting then, not being helped by him having low self-esteem as he drifted into jobs that neither paid well nor nurtured his creativity.

“I was in my late twenties before I was diagnosed,” he says, explaining how he spoke to friends about his difficulties. “Once I got a diagnosis with that I felt it was another problem I could fix,” he continues, “and could work on that to build self-esteem and perform properly.”

Depression

Depression wasn’t simply something that could be solved, though, and a few years ago his life as a wedding singer had clearly run its course. “My mood was very low towards the end of the cabaret scene,” he says, “I was suffering with depression, and was going to stop altogether.”

Driving home one night, though, he drove into the Curragh’s Herbert Lodge Arts Centre where the soprano Regina Nathan said she would assess him. “The process of learning techniques of tenor and practicing moved me along and opened up doors within me as the singing improved,” he says.

It wasn’t long after this, however, that his mother passed away in 2011.

“It wasn’t a conscious decision, but I started going to Mass and singing at Mass on Sundays,” he says, continuing, “It seemed to be something that just happened – I seemed to be drawn towards it, and gradually became aware of it, but it was a very organic thing that happened. It wasn’t a big epiphany – it was more of a slow boiler.”

At Mass, he says, he would “obviously” pray, but would also talk to his mother “and ask for guidance and clarity”. Quiet periods during and before Mass were very helpful in allowing him to reflect and gather his thoughts, he said, but coming along to Mass had other benefits too.

“Mass helped me to see how important community was in Kildare and in general,” he says, continuing, “It has become a very important hinge in my life too. You get to know your community properly when you go to Mass. You can be on the edge of your community for years and not realise what’s really going on. Church brings people together in a good way.”

With such a deep affection for his church community, it seems apt, then, that Philip will soon be singing the songs of the late papal count John McCormack in Ireland’s National Concert Hall.

“I’ve long had a great affection for John McCormack’s songs,” he says, explaining that they suit his range, and that the more he’s learned of the count, the more he admired him as “an Irish emigrant success story” and identified with him as “a family man, a man with a strong faith, a man who worked a lot for charity”.

As for his preparations for the concert, Philip says: “I’m not nervous – there’s a lot of work to do. I’ll be nervous on the day or on the day before, but there’s too much work at the moment!”

Philip Scott will be on Nationwide on October 2, and will perform at the National Concert Hall on October 4.

Fr Martin McGee OSB

My interest in dialogue and friendship with Muslims developed unexpectedly. In January 1997 I read an interview in the English Catholic weekly, The Tablet, with Msgr Henri Teissier, Archbishop of Algiers. His bravery and humility, as he faced death daily during the Algerian civil war, impressed me deeply. Several months later, out of the blue, I decided to write him a short letter of support and then I forgot completely about it. 

To my great surprise, I received an answer a few months later written by a former student of Worth Abbey School (I am a monk of Worth Abbey), Fr John MacWilliam, a White Father and missionary in Algeria. 

Fr John had been given the daunting task of re-establishing the White Fathers’ presence in Tizi Ouzou, a Berber city south of Algiers, following the assassination on December 27, 1994 of the four White Fathers living there. 

Out of this connection my interest in Christian-Muslim friendship unexpectedly grew, a wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit which has led me to write Dialogue of the Heart: Stories of Christian-Muslim Encounter (Veritas, 2015), a book which seeks to inspire Christians and Muslims to open their hearts and minds to each other.

Kidnapped

In 1996 on the night of March 26/27 seven monks from the Trappist monastery of Tibhirine, 96km south of Algiers, were kidnapped by Muslim fundamentalists, and 56 days later, on May 21, all of them were beheaded. Miraculously two of the monks, Jean-Pierre and Amédée, were overlooked by the kidnappers and escaped the fate of their brothers. 

The inspiring witness of the Tibhirine monks came to the attention of the world thanks to the Xavier Beauvois film Of Gods and Men, winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival in 2010. This film captured the imagination of countless people, many of whom had no interest in religion or religious affiliation. They were above all amazed by the close friendship which the monks had established with their Muslim neighbours. 

I have visited the two Tibhirine survivors (one of the survivors, Fr Amédée, died in 2008), who relocated to Morocco, on six occasions and was warmly welcomed by them. What is the secret of Tibhirine’s spiritual radiance? The charism of Tibhirine is, I think, to be found in the quality of the relationships which the monks have established with their Muslim neighbours. 

Their message can be summed up in one word: ‘friendship’. As Fr Jean-Pierre Schumacher, one of the two Tibhirine survivors, remarks: “The example of the brothers in their relationships with people, with Muslims, shows that one can become real brothers, in communion, together, in depth and not only on the surface. In depth before God. Certain people have lived this. It’s not uncommon.” 

These relationships, however, are founded on a life of prayer. According to Fr Jean-Pierre, “fidelity to our prayer times is the secret of our friendship with the Muslims”. Muslims who pray publicly five times a day easily understand the value of a life centred on prayer. 

This was the very reason which prompted the late Msgr Hubert Michon, Archbishop of Rabat, to invite the monks of Tibhirine in the 1980s to set up a dependent house in his archdiocese. A “real spiritual dialogue”, he wrote, could only develop with Muslims if they could see that the Christian community contained people of faith and prayer.

In a homily given at Valence Cathedral in France on May 28, 2006, to mark the tenth anniversary of the death of the monks, the present Archbishop of Rabat, Msgr Vincent Landel, drew our attention to the message which the refounded Tibhirine community at Midelt has for us: “Do we not have to understand more clearly, as our brothers liked to repeat: ‘We are people of prayer in the midst of other people of prayer.’ 

“What humility is required of us if we are to reach the point of truly believing this; Christians, priests, religious, Trappists, we haven’t got a monopoly on this ‘heart-to-heart’ with God. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are also people of prayer; they are also searching for God.”

It would be quite easy to think that dialogue with other faiths is something which is reserved for theologians and not within reach of the ordinary believer or parish clergyman. The Vatican document of 1991, Dialogue and Proclamation, (n.42), dispels this misunderstanding by making a helpful distinction between four different levels of dialogue. 

Firstly, there is the dialogue of life where people “live in an open and neighbourly spirit” and share with each other the joys and sorrows of daily life. 

Secondly, there is the dialogue of action where people of different faiths co-operate for the common good of society. 

Thirdly, there is the dialogue of theological exchange where experts seek to deepen their understanding and appreciation of each other’s faith and dispel prejudice and misunderstanding.

Finally there is the dialogue of religious experience, where the participants seek to share the spiritual riches of their respective prayer and scriptural traditions. The different levels of interreligious dialogue outlined above make it clear that it is possible for the non-expert to make a contribution, especially at the level of the dialogue of life which is founded on friendship. To engage in this form of interreligious dialogue requires “an open and neighbourly spirit,” a willingness in other words to recognise that whatever our religious differences we all share a common humanity. 

This insight is not just shared by Christians but has been lived out by many ordinary Tunisians who courageously risked their lives to save innocent tourists from the IS inspired gunman, Seifeddine Rezgui. One man, Ben Aisha, put it succinctly: “You have to understand, I don’t save them [guests] because they are foreigners, but because we are all the same. A Tunisian, an English, an Italian, we have the same body, we have the same soul, we have the same dreams, we are the same people.” 

On October, 28, 2015 we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the conciliar declaration which threw open the doors of the Catholic Church to people of other faiths. Soon after the first World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi, Italy, on October 27, 1986, Pope John Paul  II addressed the Roman Curia and spelt out unambiguously his thinking on interreligious dialogue. 

One can sense his passion for dialogue in the following quotation from this important address: “There is only one divine plan for every single human being who comes into this world (cf. Jn 1:9), one single origin and goal, whatever may be the colour of his skin, the historical and geographical framework within which he happens to live and act, or the culture in which he grows up and expresses himself. The differences are a less important element, when confronted with the unity which is radical, fundamental and decisive.”

The message of the Tibhirine martyrs for us is so simple that we can easily overlook it. We have to learn above all to get to know our Muslim neighbours, to rejoice in our common humanity, to see God’s face in them. In this way we will learn to live with difference and to be enriched by it. Our surest hope for the future lies in walking together along the path of friendship.

Fr Martin McGee is a monk of Worth Abbey, West Sussex and a native of Newport, Co. Mayo.

April Clare Welsh

Roma Downey carries her faith in her heart and with her on screen. The 55-year-old actress has carved out a name for herself as one of Hollywood’s leading ladies and last year co-produced her first ever feature film, Son of God, with her husband Mark Burnett.

But you will probably know her best from her work on long-running CBS show Touched By An Angel. Now in its ninth season, the Malibu-dwelling mum-of-three has not only scored a production credit on the hit series but also takes the lead as kind-hearted angel Monica, starring alongside bona fide American treasure Delia Reese. And 2016 will mark the ultimate achievement in the life of a career actress; Downey is to receive a star on the hallowed Hollywood Walk of Fame; not bad for a girl from Derry.

So does she feel touched by angels on a daily basis? “I do. I feel that we must be,” she tells The Irish Catholic, with a beaming, perfect Hollywood smile. “I know as a little girl in Ireland, I was raised to believe that we each had our very own personal guardian angel and that’s just stuck with me. I certainly feel that we are all being taken care of.”

Performance

Downey’s celebrated performance as former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in A Woman Named Jackie provided her with a platform to go forth and conquer. 

Working on dramatic projects with her husband also seems to be a winning combination: the husband and wife duo earned an Emmy nomination for their production on the History channel’s mini-series, The Bible, which saw Roma play the role of Mary. Over the years, Downey has deservedly gained a number of Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her acting talents, most notably the Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series for Touched by An Angel. 

But her work doesn’t begin and end with acting. For the past 20 years, she has been an ambassador for Operation Smile, the vital children’s charity for those born with cleft lip and cleft palates. 

“I’ve travelled the globe with them and for them, making movies that draw awareness and help raise funds,” explains Downey, enthusiastically. 

“I think the campaign we began has raised millions and millions of dollars and transformed the lives of countless children throughout the world. 

“It’s not just the child that gets healed; the family gets healed, the neighbourhood gets healed because the facial deformity is almost a metaphor for all that can go wrong in your life and when that’s healed and this beautiful face restored, it’s a message of hope for everybody that good things can happen and that life can be transformed.
It’s been such a pleasure to be a part of this volunteer group who give their time and talent so freely.”

Despite her demanding on-set schedule and acts of charity, Downey still always manages to look impeccable, with an enviable figure and her hair barely ever out of place. 

Now on her way to 60, how does she plan to stay healthy? “I think first and foremost it is important that I’ve been able to keep my weight down and I do that through a pretty intense cardio regime,” she says. 

“It’s not easy and requires discipline but I know in my late 40s, I started to gather that middle heaviness that sets in with middle age or onset of menopause. 

“So I really had to take that in hand. I’ve always been naturally slender and never had to do too much before, so this is quite new for me. I’ve become a runner and put in quite a few miles each week, go to the gym and I hike. 

Fitness

“My level of fitness is probably higher than it’s ever been and that’s been good for my overall health - how I feel and how I look and overall wellness.”

But for all this talk of hard slog, how does Roma Downey relax? 

“I’m a great reader and I love to read. So much of the reading that I’ve been required to do lately is work-related and so if I can steal away to read something other than what I’m demanded to read for work, that feels restorative,” she reveals. “I do like being out being near the ocean. I have no desire to be in the ocean or on the ocean, but I do love to be next to the ocean. I do my best thinking down there. 

“There’s something in the grand scheme of it that helps put everything into perspective.”

But above all, she believes that she is lucky and blessed to be doing something that helps her spread the message of love and goodness. “My faith has been a comfort to me,” says the committed Christian. 

“It’s provided me with strength and it has given me hope. It’s just such a privilege and blessing to share with people.”

A number of goals which will shape global development policy for the next 15 years are due to be adopted by governments worldwide at the General Assembly’s United Nations Sustainable Development Summit over the weekend.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which essentially replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), are the result of intergovernmental negotiations and the largest consultation programme conducted by the UN. 

While world media attention will be drawn to the summit, and Pope Francis’ address to the General Assembly tomorrow (Friday), perhaps little attention will be garnered by the significant influence of faith-based organisations on the contents of the goals – including the Sisters of Mercy, Mercy International Association who are represented by an Irishwoman. 

Sr Áine O’Connor, who was born in Limerick and grew up in Dublin, entered the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas in 1995. As a speech and language therapist, she had gone to the States at the age of 26 to do research in swallowing disorders for her PhD dissertation for Trinity College Dublin and while volunteering at a Sisters of Mercy hospital she found “the mission was alive and vibrant” and felt called to be part of it.

Administration

Working initially in health-care administration in mission and values, Sr Áine spent a year and a half travelling to the different countries where Sisters of Mercy are located, to look at the root causes of global poverty and gain experience of the reality of people on the ground, before being appointed to the position of Mercy Global Action Co-ordinator at the UN in 2011.

The Sisters of Mercy, Mercy International Association have had a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN since 1998, representing the experience of the most vulnerable and providing input into global policy-making. They are one of almost 3,200 Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) with a consultative status – about 10% of which are from a faith background with the majority being Christian.

“The reason we wanted to apply for special consultative status was because we are a global organisation. The concerns we were seeing on the ground impacting global justice, global poverty, violence against women, basic issues of life like food, water, land, were global justice concerns. We considered it really important since the UN is the only body who looks globally across issues, an inter-governmental body, that it was a place to be to speak the reality from the ground and to bring back to the people on the ground what’s coming from the UN,” Sr Áine says.

Her experience over the last four years in the UN is that faith-based groups are respected as a credible voice for the needs of the people. “I think we do have a credibility at the UN, not only a moral and ethical voice, but member states know we are there for the people and they know we are focused on a rights-based approach. It’s more about justice than charity. We want to reorder systems that have created poverty and injustice,” she says. 

“Member states see that they can rely on us for a credible experience from the ground and a critique that is not motivated by profit but to serve the people’s interest. By the very fact that we are in so many different countries and have a spiritual and faith-based perspective gives us a credibility. 

“Member states also know that we will listen and enter into dialogue and that we won’t hold back or sugar coat what we think is causing the issues from the ground. We are respectful, but we bring to the table an analysis very much based on justice and serving the people’s real human rights and needs.” 

Most of Sr Áine’s day-to-day work is spent meeting with other NGOs that share the same global concerns, such as unsustainable development and the effects of major mining projects, and in planning for formal meetings taking place at the UN “where we hope to intervene and bring a grassroots perspective and to talk to member states about the policies being implemented”.

As we speak she and her colleagues at the UN are working on a guide to understanding water and sanitation from a human rights perspective, something which the Sisters of Mercy played a significant role in having included in the political declaration which will frame the SDGs, after relentless campaigning with other faith-based groups and global water justice groups.

“The Sisters of Mercy worldwide have a growing concern about the global water crisis,” Sr Áine says. “The statistics are staggering: 1.6 billion drink fecally contaminated water and 2.5 billion remain with no access to basic sanitation. The terrible numbers of children and adults dying from water related disease is increasing. 

“Through Mercy Global Action, the sisters from various countries were bringing forward this concern not just about water sanitation and deaths, but depletion, corporations draining water, mega mining projects causing depletion or other devastating big development projects.

“We wanted to see the goal based on the human right to water and sanitation, because the MDGs, which had a target on water and sanitation, have failed in many ways. They didn’t address inequalities. For example you could have a pipe but not have water, and sanitation problems are still terrible. We believe that a human rights approach says to governments that people have a right to water and sanitation, and so it prioritises people and domestic needs over corporations and other needs. It enables people to exercise their rights.”

Management

The “availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” is goal number six of the 17 SDGs proposed for adoption by the UN this weekend. However, it does not end there; once the declaration and the goals have been adopted advocacy groups like the Sisters of Mercy will be monitoring how the goal is implemented and interpreted by governments.

“One thing we want to caution against in the SDGs is that governments look to corporations to finance and privatise water services. We are pushing for governments to claim water for the common good, to provide it through a human rights approach and that public funds and finances are used for infrastructure as well,” Sr Áine says.

“I am very cautious that the SDGs don’t radically address the root causes of unsustainable development and injustices happening to people world over. However, it is an opportunity to look with the world to what the Earth and the people need, especially the most vulnerable. 

“If we have a human rights approach to this agenda, which is accepted in the declaration, and are open to the challenge of the root causes and addressing inequality, then we will be successful. 

“But if we implement it without addressing those, we will have unsustainable development, increased poverty and inequality with increased human rights violations.”

It is an exciting time to be at the UN and while Sr Áine says she does not expect she will get to meet Pope Francis when he addresses the summit, she received a massive boost from the publication of Laudato Si’.

“It was of tremendous importance to us for the recognition of the human right to water and sanitation,” she says. “The encyclical is very inspiring. It is also very radical. I think it looks at the root causes. It looks in the eye what is the role of politics and the economy. 

“Pope Francis calls on the moral voice – he talks about how the question of justice must enter the debate on the environment. 

“There is a huge call in that and that is seriously one of the reasons why we are at a place like the UN, because of our sense of the quest for justice and having that come into issues of development, including ecological and environmental. I think it is prophetic and has really given hope to people,” Sr Áine says.

“A movie is a massive collaboration,” says Patrick Cassidy, “I suppose that’s why I like doing the other projects on the side. They’re my own thing.”

It may seem a strange comment from the man who gave us the unforgettable Vide Cor Meum sequence from Ridley Scott’s 2001 Hannibal or the haunting strains that accompanied Brendan Gleeson through his modern Passion in John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary, but it’s clear that personal projects matter deeply to the Mayo-born composer. 

“I don’t just want to be a film composer – I want to be more than that,” he says, continuing, “you can get into a trap and just be a working film composer”.

“On a movie you’re essentially working for someone else, and you’re trying to do what the director needs for his movie or wants for his movie,” he explains, “whereas when I’m writing a Mass or the opera I’m my own boss and I write what I want to write”.

Patrick was born in Claremorris in 1956 just two years after the 75th anniversary of the apparitions at Knock, seven miles away. It was a time, he says, when Knock Shrine was really taking off, and his pharmacist father was kept busy whether working as a steward at the shrine or guiding the strap stewards in helping invalids off the train in Claremorris so they could be brought to Knock. 

“He’d been a nurse in the army during the Emergency,” Patrick explains, “so he knew how they should be carried etc., and he used to teach all of the helpers how to do it properly.”

Knock

The family left Knock when Patrick was five, first going to West Cork, from where his mother hailed, and then to Shannon where he grew up, being educated by the Christian Brothers in Ennis. He went to piano lessons in the area, being taught by a Dutch lady, one Mrs Vermeer, whose husband worked at the local Dutch piano factory – “it was a very cosmopolitan town when we moved to it first”, he says.

Coming from a musical family – “my father played the violin, but all my relations are musicians on my father’s side”, he says – Patrick unsurprisingly went on to study other such instruments as flute and harp, but rather than doing music at third level he took a degree in Maths, before drifting back into music anyway, as he puts it. 

Patrick’s debut album, Cruit, featured his settings of pieces by the 18^th-century blind harpist Turlough O’Carolan, but it was 1991’s The Children of Lir that earned him his reputation as one of Ireland’s leading composers. Recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and Choir, it held the number one spot in Ireland’s Classical chart for a year and led in turn to his being commissioned a few years later to write Famine Remembrance, which was premiered at St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

Since then, of course, Patrick’s gone on to make a name in cinema, with his setting of Dante’s Vide Cor Meum in Hannibal’s Florence sequence being followed by his work appearing in such films as Veronica Guerin, Kingdom of Heaven, King Arthur, and of course Calvary. 

Right now he’s working on the soundtrack for a three-part PBS documentary on the 1916 Rising to be narrated by Liam Neeson. Every job, he says, is different, though typically it involves him being sent the film without music, so that he can “write to the picture”. 

Soundtracks can be approached in different ways, depending on the film, he explains. “Take giving a theme to characters – for a particular kind of movie that might be the way to do it,” he says, continuing, “Then you might have a movie where you’ll need a different theme for different situations. That’s another way to do it.”

In Calvary, he says, his main themes included a “very spiritual theme, that was kind of the priest’s inner voice, and I’d a kind of leitmotif when he was going around the village doing his stuff and meeting people”. 

None of the film’s themes related to the “scoundrels” Brendan Gleeson’s Fr James encounters, he says: “All the themes revolved around him, and they were for different situations, rather than for different characters.” 

Describing Calvary as a “joy” to work on, because it was such a strong film, Patrick says he’s been “lucky” in this respect. “My last two projects have been 1916 and Calvary, and they’re both the sort of projects I can at least have some empathy towards the subject matter, so it’s made it easy for me to write,” he says, continuing, “They’re both great projects. I thought Calvary was an amazing movie, an incredible movie, so hopefully the next movie will be as good!”

In the meantime, though, Patrick’s busy working on his first opera, based on Dante’s life and DivineComedy. It seems a natural subject for him, given how his take on Vide Cor Meum– with which the opera opens – introduced his work to a massive global audience. “I’ve been working on it for about three years, and expect it will be produced in the next year,” he says, pointing out that “helped by the hit aria”, there’s “a strong possibility that it might be in Ireland and in New York”. Describing meetings in the latter, he says “everybody’s interested in the Dante opera”.

With the opera’s entire libretto drawn from Dante’s own words, he explains how its overture is set at the battle of Campaldino, a 1289 clash between the pro-papal Guelphs and the Ghibelline supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor, in which the young Dante fought on the Guelph side.

Following the battle Dante meets his muse Beatrice for the first time, with the first act of the opera being based around his first major work, La Vita Nuova¸ culminating in his writing his first poem – Vide Cor Meum – and his exile from Florence.

The opera’s second act, then, is built around The Divine Comedy, with the poet finding himself lost in a forest with his path blocked by dangerous beasts. The Roman poet Virgil, a cult figure in the Medieval mind for his supposed prediction of the birth of Christ, appears, claiming to have been sent by Beatrice, and guides Dante through Hell, and up onto the mountain of Purgatory. Eventually, as each of the seven deadly sins is wiped away on the mountain’s terraces, Dante passed through a cleansing wall of flames and is reunited with Beatrice in Paradise. 

The opera is almost finished, Patrick thinks, but he wants to go over it once more in his Los Angeles base where he lives with his brother Frank, just 400 miles from where another brother and sister live in San Francisco. “I’m going to do one more pass at it, maybe for a couple of months,” he says, continuing, “It’s two hours long, but there’s a few areas that I want to have another look at before I really sign off on it.”

After lots of preparatory reading he’s been immersed in Dante for some time. “I’ve been reading Dante, rather than reading about Dante,” he says, explaining that he initially read a lot of books about Dante and that it’s important to read commentary because of “Florentine politics and all manner of little things that happened in the Middle Ages”.

Popular image

The more he reads about the Middle Ages, the more he realises how clouded our popular image of the period is, he says, pointing out that great things happened then, and that the period as a whole wasn’t as dark as people tend to think. “The High Middle Ages was a great flowering, even before the Renaissance,” he says.

Anyone lucky enough to have been in Knock when New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan opened this year’s national novena will have had a foretaste of the opera, Patrick adds, as his Ave Maria was played there. 

“I wrote my Ave Maria independently,” he explains, “but it’s made its way into my Dante opera as well”.

Distinctively written as a duet, with the traditional words augmented by Our Lady’s description of herself as the handmaid of the Lord, Patrick’s Ave Maria features in the ‘Purgatory’ section of the opera. “On the Terrace of the Proud, Dante sees statues depicting humility, and sees the scene of the Annunciation,” he says, explaining that “for Dante, Our Lady’s response to the angel Gabriel is the ultimate sign of humility.

“He says that the statues are so lifelike that you can actually see the words in the aspect of the statues,  and you can almost see the angel’s ‘Ave’ coming from his lips, and you can hear Our Lady saying ‘Ecce ancilla Dei’ as well,” Patrick continues, “So I decided to put it into the opera, so that’s the extra bit in the middle.”

Patrick originally wrote his Ave Maria when he was asked to compose a piece for Florida’s Ave Maria University, which had commissioned a sculpture of the Annunciation for the university’s church. At the time he had already been working on a Mass as part of a return to classical music – five years ago he had “decided to write a big, full-scale classical Mass on the 19th-century model” – and so he also offered the Mass to the university for a nominal fee, just enough “so I could keep a roof over my head during the period”.

Recorded in London with the London Symphony Orchestra, Patrick says his Mass is “about an hour long and is a very classical Mass, in a sense like one of the big Masses of the 19th Century, except it’s different because it’s modern. 

“The orchestration is maybe more cinematic in a sense,” he continues, explaining that “it’s big – it’s a big orchestra, a very big choir”.

Although his Mass is modern and almost cinematic, Patrick stresses that it’s also deeply traditional, having basically the same libretto as Bach’s Mass in B Minor and Mozart’s unfinished Great Mass in C Minor. “I think when you’re writing something like a Mass, you have to stay within a framework that’s been dictated by tradition,” he says, adding, “That’s very important, I think, rather than just going off and doing your own thing.”

Not, that is, that he downplays the importance of composers working in a way that’s true to themselves, but he clearly sees integrity and authenticity as things that don’t exist in a vacuum. 

“I think for a composer one of the most important things is to find your own voice, and I think if you’ve found your own voice you will approach these things in your own way,” he says, continuing, “Say, for instance, for the Mass and for Ave Maria, obviously the starting point is to listen to everybody else’s Mass and everybody else’s Ave Maria, and then go away and do your own thing.

Original

“Trying to do something original and keeping true to the tradition is kind of contradictory, but it has to be done,” he continues, stressing that “it is important to pay homage to the tradition”, explaining how even working on his 1916 soundtrack he’s mindful of Seán Ó Riada’s iconic work on 1959’s Mise Éire. 

“It’s very much in my mind what he did at the time,” Patrick says, explaining that “I think an awareness is so important, but it’s important to be aware and to be influenced, but without kind of copying.”

Sometimes maintaining that balance is difficult, Patrick adds. “It’s hard to write an Ave Maria and not plagiarise Schubert because it’s a really, really famous piece and people expect an Ave Maria to be like it,” he says, before saying that it can be done for all that. “I went off and did something completely different,” he says.

In preparing to write his Mass, Patrick listened carefully to Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, a “brilliant Mass” which Patrick also finds “kind of funny because he just can’t get away from the four-movement structure”, Mozart’s Great Mass in C Minor, of which he says, “it’s a shame it’s unfinished, but it’s a magnificent Mass”, and Bach’s Mass in B Minor, which he believes is “beautiful” and “an amazing Mass”, all the more remarkable for being composed by “a guy who wasn’t Catholic!”

“My favourite music is choral music, and I think the highest choral music is liturgical music,” he says, explaining that he likes all sorts of choral music, including Gregorian chant and Renaissance Polyphonic music, regarding it all as a continuum with one type of chant growing out of another. If he has a favourite, it’s the Baroque period, he adds, which he sees as “the culmination of it all, especially in Bach’s music which is just perfect, I think”.

Bach’s music is, he says, “a mature taste for me – the more I listen, the more I like it,” continuing, “He’s definitely my favourite composer. There’s nobody who even comes close to him, in my opinion. He’s out there by himself.”

Praising the Mass in B Minor, Patrick explains that “Context and language and everything dictate the music, and Bach wanted to write a Mass clearly – it was his own pet project, I believe.

“I don’t think it was something that was commissioned, it was his own project and was never performed during his lifetime, as far as I know,” he adds. 

The danger, unfortunately, is that a similar fate may befall Patrick’s own work, albeit for very different reasons, as it’s become embroiled in a legal quagmire which has prevented it from being shared and heard. “Now it’s in limbo,” he says, continuing, “it’s a shame to have written a Mass and I can’t perform it and can’t release it. It’s an awful pity. It’s been three years since it’s been recorded.”

Patrick’s not given up hope of regaining the rights to his Mass, though in the meantime his focus is firmly on Dante. “My main thing at the moment is the opera, but as for my next movie project I’m not sure – we’ll see what happens!” 

Statesman, patriot, Catholic, primary carer to Gertrude, his dementia-stricken wife, Seamus Mallon is in his eightieth year now and in less than robust health.

And his distinctive voice once familiar through radio and television in households throughout Ireland may not be quite as strong as when it echoed in parliamentary chambers in Dublin, Belfast and London over four decades in all.

But the inaugural Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and SDLP giant (and deputy to John Hume) when that party was a great political force, has lost none of the passion, intellectual acuity and capacity for straight talk that made him one of the most formidable and respected political figures in these islands in the last quarter of the 20th Century.

Straight talk?

You don’t get it as straight as this.

Referring to the place he knows best, his former Newry and Armagh constituency, he says: “In the main areas the [IRA] racketeering would not be going on if it were not sanctioned. I am talking about today. I am talking about a county where there is a huge black economy.”

Asked if he believes if the IRA still holds significant sway in his former constituency almost 18 years after the Good Friday Agreement he replies: “It holds sway in parts of it where the people who live there are literally in fear of their lives.”

Commenting on recent events he says: “25 people have been killed by them [the IRA] since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. That included Paul Quinn, a young man in this area beaten to death by an organised gang and as I said those things wouldn’t have happened, wouldn’t have been allowed to happen, wouldn’t have dared happen in those areas without the blessing of those who rule the IRA.”

His answers may take longer now, he thinks carefully before answering, but his words are no less thoughtful and no less direct and people still pay attention because Seamus Mallon is a person of substance, standing and achievement.

Arguably the greatest success of the Good Friday Agreement has been the new policing dispensation. It is  probable that Mr Mallon, as a MP and Deputy First Minister, more than anyone else in the House of Commons, ensured that the necessary amendments were made to the Police Bill in  2000  to thwart then Secretary of State Peter Mandelson’s attempts to water down the Patten Report at the behest of unionists.

Few can argue with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin’s description of Mr Mallon, at a function in his honour in in Armagh city last February.

Deputy Martin said he is “a genuinely historical figure” and added “by any measure Seamus Mallon is a great Irishman.”

Lord Ken Maginnis, the former unionist MP and one of Mr Mallon’s longstanding political opponents during some of the darkest days of the Troubles has said: “we disagree fundamentally on many issues but he’s truthful and principled and straight as a die.”

Seamus Mallon  is the  only  politician in history to have served  in Leinster House (he was briefly a senator in the 1980s), in Westminster, where he was MP for Newry and Armagh for nearly 20 years and in Stormont, where he was first elected to the 1973 pre-Sunningdale assembly.

His career reached its pinnacle when he was elected Deputy First Minister - a misleading title, Joint First Minister would be more accurate - after the   1998 Good Friday Agreement, a historic accord that Mr Mallon describes as “a great step forward” yet was “flawed” because it was part of “a flawed process.”

“Flawed” he argues because it came from a shift in the policy positon of the Irish and British governments and especially the Irish government.

“The Anglo Irish Agreement [1985] and the Joint Declaration [1993] were based by the two governments on the strategy that you built out from the middle. Now that changed to a position where you told the middle to f*** off in reality and brought in the extremes and there is where I believe it was flawed.”

That flaw he believes arises from Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern’s impatience to get into the history books as peacemakers and for that reason they made a fundamental mistake in not insisting that the IRA decommissioned it weapons before Sinn Féin got into government.  

“I don’t blame [former US President Bill] Clinton. He liked 365 days in the sun and had an American Irish electorate.”

Mr Mallon’s CV from civil rights activist to be effectively joint prime minister of Northern Ireland in a historic power-sharing government led by David Trimble and himself – dubbed the Odd Couple because they were both highly able but prickly individuals - looks and is impressive but it masks many long troubled years of political deadlock and death on the streets and country lanes when Seamus was an unpaid political activist during which Gertrude, a nurse, was the sole earner.

“At one point I was getting £4.78 per week in supplementary benefit. It lasted for three weeks,” Mallon recalls.

He had sacrificed the secure and prestigious post of headmaster of the local St James’ primary school, a post once held by his father, Frank, when he was elected to the 1973 Assembly.

That body paved the way for the Sunningdale Agreement with its mandatory power-sharing executive and  strong Council of Ireland  which collapsed as a result of the loyalist strike of 1974, British weakness and unrelenting IRA bombs in the centre of Belfast which made Brian Faulkner and Gerry Fitt, the leaders of the Executive, look feeble and irrelevant.

Mr Mallon famously described the Good Friday Agreement as “Sunni2ngdale for slow learners.”

We met early in the morning in the study of his bungalow on the outskirts of his native Markethill in mid-Armagh which has been home to Seamus and Gertrude for the past 50 years.

It’s the home where they brought up their daughter Orla and the home that was attacked at least half a dozen times by loyalists during the conflict including a particularly serious petrol bomb attack, one of two such attacks in the fraught summer of 1986 in the wake of the Anglo Irish Agreement which enshrined a say for the Irish government in the running of the North for the first time.

Markethill is well over 90% Protestant and even now, Union flags are flown liberally around the village which was founded by the Acheson/Gosford family who came from Scotland at the time of the Plantation of Ulster around the second decade of the 17th century when the lands of the native Catholic Irish were confiscated by the English crown.

Mr Mallon says that most of the population of Markethill today are descendants of those who came with the Acheson family (later known as the Gosfords) “as retainers and soldiers and servants for the family. They were there to protect the interests of the British in taking that land.”

It is evident from speaking to Seamus that a lifetime living cheek by jowl with Protestants in an overwhelmingly Protestant area, and serving them as a public representative, has given him an understanding of the unionist psyche and an empathy with the plight of unionists probably unmatched any other nationalist politician in Ireland.

He was born in the village of Markethill in 1936. His earliest memories are of wartime. “I remember vividly the first time I ever saw a banana sitting in the window of a little shop.” He also recalls “not so vividly we were all evacuated up to a field beside this house with gas masks.”

“We sat there all night. The stupidity of it never ceased to amaze me. As if the Germans were going to bomb Markethill! We had to live with that type of absurdity.”

“The other stark memory of my earlier days were marches, the sound of drums. As a child the music appealed to me but they all seemed to be playing the same tunes. There was the excitement of hundreds of people marching past your door.”

But were they telling you who was king of the castle?  “They were making that very clear, yes.”

The most influential figure in the formation of the future Deputy First Minister was his father, Frank. “He taught myself and my sisters. He was a very strong man. He acted almost as a public representative for this area. By that I mean that people from all sections of the community would have come for references, for help with various aspects [of their lives.]

“His influence was great. I remember once this person came to the door who would have been a fairly vocal anti-Catholic. I remember him saying to my father ‘I thought maybe you would turn me away from this door’. My father grew himself up to a height and said ‘nobody will be turned away from this door.’”

It is something that Seamus has never forgotten and he takes pride in his record serving both sections the community and reminds me that he would not have got elected to Westminster for the first time in 1986 without Protestant votes.

A huge big part of that constituency work was spent “in police stations, in army barracks, in jails making representations on behalf of people who were blackguarding me.”

Most of those were republicans who regarded him as a traitor but they didn’t hesitate to ask him to try to secure their release and he aided many young loyalists who had got into trouble with the police. 

His paternal grandfather came from Middletown, Co. Armagh and his mother, Jane O’Flaherty from Co. Donegal. Both came from Republican anti-Treaty families and both his parents communicated to him “a sense of deep disillusionment and a sense that one should not get involved in republicanism.”

The source of that disillusionment was “the futility of violence, the futility of facing the future and what you might get with a gun in your hand. And the fact that so many families of their time had been bereaved.”

“The sense of exclusion was very great at that time. Partition had taken place and the North’s Catholic population had been thrown to the wolves.  That was the major part of the disillusionment.”

As SDLP Justice spokesperson for many years during the Troubles he was the scourge of the Provos and the loyalist paramilitaries and security forces in equal measure, expressing his revulsion at killings on all sides, highlighting the apparent collusion between elements of the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries when it was not fashionable to do, Fr Denis Faul and Fr Raymond Murray excepted.

Speaking of collusion now Mr Mallon says:” The level at which it operated was very, very high” and that it had to be sanctioned ultimately by the British Prime Minister.

Mr Mallon stresses that emergency legislation designed to combat the violence actually “debased the law itself and the police and judiciary, both the law and the police.

“Two of the essential elements in society, policing and the courts, were blighted.”

The damage was not confined to the North, he says, pointing to findings by the Smithwick Tribunal of collusion between some members of the Garda and the Provisional IRA in the murder of two senior RUC officers in 1989.

He says that some Garda collusion extended beyond the IRA to “a few loyalists also” and all this “diminished the concept of the Garda and sickened decent policemen”.

Several times over an interview that ran for more than two hours Mr Mallon returned to his central theme that the process had been flawed by the failure of the British and Irish governments to insist that IRA weapons were decommissioned before Sinn Féin entered government.

“Some people don’t realise that two and a bit years before Good Friday the Provos had already done their negotiations with London and Dublin and with America. They had been talking to the British, they had been talking to [John] Hume and had been talking to Dublin and they had been talking to America.

“And they had been laying down their basis for ending [their campaign] before the [Good Friday Agreement] negotiations even started.”

This had straddled both the John Major/Albert Reynolds/John Bruton and the new Blair/Ahern administration, he insists.

“The total fundamental weak part of it was that the governments allowed them [Sinn Féin] to set the agenda.”

When it is put to him that Michael McDowell SC, former Justice Minister had recently correctly identified the dilemma facing the two governments and had shown how “an inert IRA” was the “lesser of two evils” and had avoided a dangerous split in the IRA, Mallon is not convinced.

“I don’t question the man’s integrity but I do question his judgement in relation to that. It is a faulty thesis.”

“If you take the murders of Jock Davidson and Kevin McGuigan and relate those to the McDowell thesis you will see it is a faulty thesis.”

Mr Mallon was not surprised that an initial SDLP/Sinn Féin engagement in 1988 quickly became the famous and controversial ‘Hume/Adams’ engagement and that Hume was even meeting Adams during the initial engagement.

When I put it to him that it must have been difficult for him to trust his leader “who tended to act alone” he says that was not the case. 

“It’s not that I didn’t trust John. I knew the people he was dealing with too well and I knew that they would use John in every way possible which they did.” Pressed on who the “they” is he will not name names but replies “the Shinners, that organisation.”

“They used John to legitimise themselves, in this island and elsewhere and specifically in America where they would never have been in contact with Ted Kennedy had it not been for John and that was part of their strategy to establish that legitimacy. The difficulty with that is that meanwhile back on the ground there was no way in which you could legitimise what they were doing or even to this day legitimise what they were doing.”

So they had got this legitimacy, courtesy of John Hume, that they had neither earned nor deserved?

“How could people killing people the way they were doing, racketeering the way they were doing, running a black economy the way they were doing, making hundreds of millions of pounds, how could they deserve  legitimacy?,” Mr Mallon fires back.

And he insists he is not saying all this with the benefit of hindsight.

“Oh no, it could and should have been done differently. And it all centred on that one point of resolution, get rid of your arms.”

The failure of them to deliver had resulted “in the destruction of David Trimble who had made a courageous decision, took enormous abuse and at the end of the day was thrown out of the boat by the two governments when they called the [2003] election.”

This had happened because Blair and Ahern “couldn’t wait to get the result, and because of that they were giving the Shinners what they wanted. These two men wanted a result, wanted big handshakes and to be known throughout the world as the men of peace who had brought the warring tribes together.”

He believes that had the two governments told Sinn Féin they would not be in government until the IRA got rid of its arms “they would have done it [decommissioned] because they were holding onto the arms as a political weapon”.

The governments’ failure “was bad tactical politics and devalued and tarnished the Agreement and the currency of politics.”

Mr Mallon is most scathing in his description of Tony Blair: “Massively able, tremendous performer within the Commons, and the media. A man who had a moral position on everything and had no compunction about acting immorally.”

That's very close to saying he was a hypocrite? “Oh God yes, I have no problem with that at all”.

Having been number two to John Hume for nearly 20 years it seems Mallon would have welcomed the opportunity to have become leader of the SDLP at the same time Hume designated him Deputy First Minister in 1998. Asked if he regretted not going for the leadership himself when Mr Hume stepped down in 2001 (at the same time he stepped down as Deputy First Minister to care for Gertrude, his wife), he replies: “It could be legitimate to argue that should have happened at the beginning of my term as Deputy First Minister.

“But, come this later date my wife was ill with dementia and where did my responsibilities lie?

“I found that a very difficult decision to make but at the end of the day there was only one decision I could make.”

He reveals that after he retired undefeated as MP for Newry and Armagh he was offered a peerage and declined.

Did he not think he should have accepted it rather than let the SDLP’s voice be absent from the House of Lords? His reply is revealing and suggests he would not be uncomfortable with another SDLP person accepting a peerage if they so decided.

“That's an issue I decided for myself, I will not decide for other people. From my political perspective I want Britain out of here. Wouldn't it be gross hypocrisy, if holding the political views that I have, an act of gross hypocrisy for me to become a Peer of the Realm that I wanted to disengage from?”

He is loath to comment on the current internal debate in the SDLP around whether the party leader should be based in the Assembly now that present incumbent, Dr Alasdair McDonnell MP has been obliged to abandon “the double mandate” and concentrate on Westminster.

However, he does accept that there are some in the party who are too inclined to look over their shoulders at Sinn Féin. The SDLP has been a much reduced force ever since John Hume brought Sinn Féin in from the cold in the interests of peace so does the party have a future? “Yes, provided it sticks to its integrity of policy position.”

But could it become again the dominant nationalist party? “It can be a party that will, as we have done for the past 30 or 40 years, lay the basis for the political arrangements that others have benefited from.”

I wondered if one possible pathway back for the SDLP might be them presenting themselves as a prospective Opposition with the Ulster Unionists come the next assembly election in May (if the assembly is not dissolved before then).

He is dismissive. “We had 80 odd years sitting on the side-lines - not going back there! No. It [Opposition] of course itself would be a rewriting of the Agreement.”

So the SDLP can set the agenda again as Hume did when he devised the three sets of relationships at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement?

“Let me reply to your question in this way. Are the people of the North of Ireland happy with the DUP and/or Sinn Féin writing the way in which people here will live politically?”

Mr Mallon has said that SDLP MLAs who are personally opposed to same-sex marriage “should be strong enough to follow the dictates of their conscience.” On the four occasions that the Northern Ireland Assembly has debated the issue a minority of SDLP MLAs opposed  to the redefinition of marriage have abstained in the interests of party discipline.

The Party supports same-sex marriage. “It's a matter of conscience, it's a matter for each single person. It is not a collective conscience and each person should be strong enough to follow the dictates of their conscience”.

Asked how he would vote on the issue if he was still a MLA Mr Mallon said: “That is a hypothetical situation. I would follow my conscience.”

Pressed as to whether he supported MLAs going against the party’s current rule that no MLA is permitted to vote against same-sex marriage Mr Mallon said: “I am not going to surmise but I think I am saying enough when I say I would follow my conscience”.

Surveying the present crisis at Stormont, I cannot resist the temptation to ask Mr Mallon if Charles Haughey, the man who appointed him to the Senate in 1982 was right when he described Northern Ireland as “a failed political identity”.

The reply is vintage Seamus Mallon. “Let me put it this way,” he says after a long pause. “1921 [Partition] was a contrivance. Sunningdale was a contrivance. The Good Friday Agreement is a contrivance. What will the next contrivance be?”

I asked him if we were possibly moving in the direction of joint sovereignty which some see as the ultimate compromise? “That would be a contrivance too”.

So what is your best guess on what would be the most durable solution? “These are all contrivances because the North of Ireland itself is a contrivance. I think the Good Friday Agreement was a tremendous step forward.”

And then Seamus Mallon returns to the failure of the two Governments to get guns before government.

Seamus Mallon has always considered himself a Catholic who practised his faith while volunteering that he considers that he has not always “worshipped as well or as often as I might.”

He adds: “I have always felt the need for communal worship. It's that feeling, a feeling of awe that one should have in the presence of the Sacrament, the numinous…that sense of awe.”

Seamus recalls that at home growing up, particularly under the influence of his father, who was also his teacher, “the way that we lived didn’t include anything but the true values of Christianity.”

He has already recalled how his father, the school principal, welcomed everyone who sought help at his door and he served Mass for many years in the oratory near his home.

It is not surprising therefore that Seamus says he is touched by St Paul’s invocation I Cor. 13:13: “Now we have faith, hope and love, these three [virtues] but the greatest of these is love.”

However, for him the “most striking words in the entire New Testament” are from Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 25 when he tells us we will be judged by how we loved our neighbour: “Truly I say to you: whenever you did this to one of these little ones, my brother or sister, you did it to me.”

“That will do me,” Mr Mallon says.

Asked if his faith sustained him during the most difficult days of his career, including when he received death threats he replies: “It did, yes, yes in hard days.”

However Seamus Mallon says: “I never wore my Catholicism on my sleeve. I was a public representative who by an accident of birth was a Catholic. My first duty was to my constituents whoever they may be”.

He makes an interesting use of the words faith and believing in the same sentence. “There are things that I can’t rationalise and without faith I could not believe in those things, like a hereafter. Sometimes I try to imagine a hereafter. Is there a hereafter? What is that hereafter? Where do the billions of people who have died all go? It takes faith down that road.” He smiles. “Because you can't have a belief without it”.

And what is his sense of God and what type of a Person is God? “I can only answer that in terms of what I hope that he would be, that it would be, that he would be, appreciative of human weakness.”

Although Cambridge University’s Dr Richard Rex believes the award-winning bestseller Wolf Hall contains “some pretty major blunders” for “a work which aspires to a high level of historical accuracy”, he’s quick to stress that he’s fully aware that historical fiction requires a certain amount of creative licence.

“Of course, I think everybody understands that,” says the university’s Reader in Reformation History, continuing, “It’s a rather cheap game to pick your way through a historical novel and say ‘ooh, that’s wrong’ an d ‘she’d never have said that’ and things of that kind, but equally, the extent to which you might criticise a work of fiction on historical grounds varies very much with the kind of work of fiction it is, and indeed both the aspirations of the author and the reception accorded to it by its readers.”

Named after a Wiltshire family home, Wolf Hall is a fictionalised account of the nascent English Reformation, centring on the rise of Thomas Cromwell, a man of lowly birth who rose to become Henry VIII’s right-hand man, overseeing the imprisonment and executions of Ss John Fisher and Thomas More. 

While historical fiction can be enjoyable and can inspire an interest in history which can be developed in other ways, he believes there’s a problem when historical fiction “consciously or unconsciously misrepresents and distorts the past”.

Narrative

Conceding that “any kind of narrative about the past obviously has some kind of fictive element to it”, Dr Rex recognises that “historians as much as novelists and others are telling stories”. The difference, he says, is that historians, if they’re doing their job, should be “genuinely and professionally trying to get as close as they can to what actually happened and why it actually happened”, whereas historical fiction tends to be written on a spectrum, at one end of which is pure story, the classic Walter Scott-style novel where fictitious characters and plots take place against a historical background.

“I think we can say without misrepresenting it that Wolf Hall takes us quite a few steps away from story and towards history, and that’s deliberate,” says Dr Rex, adding that Wolf Hall’s author Hilary Mantel “herself has said that she does not much care for that classic model of the fictitious story against a historical backdrop, so she’s doing something else”.

Explaining how the book attempts to put fictional flesh on the bare bones of the known historical narrative, Dr Rex says that while that’s “a perfectly legitimate aspiration”, it’s also one that’s bound to invite criticism and analysis from historians.

“From my perspective as a historian, once novelists start to make claims about historical accuracy, I feel I have a kind of historical licence to comment and if necessary to criticise,” he says.

Critical historical eyes can at times be a curse as much as a blessing, he suggests, saying that among historians there’s “a common professional reaction” against historical fiction set in their own periods. “You just know it too well and you get too irritated by things that strike you as wrong,” he says, relating how within the first three minutes of watching 1999’s Elizabeth he was “bouncing off the ceiling”.

“It was a travesty,” he says, “and to be fair to Wolf Hall it doesn’t do such grotesque things as alter people’s life spans.”

Asked whether historical novels perhaps tell us more about our times than about the times in which they’re set, he says “I think that’s always going to be the case, though there’s an extent to which that case can also be made about historical writing in general”.

“Most historical fiction has a greater or lesser admixture of fairly blatant anachronism because the characters tend to have to be made rather more amendable to modern tastes,” he continues, before taking the unfashionable view that the level of characterisation in Wolf Hall is rather low, even juvenile, with most characters other than the protagonist Thomas Cromwell being emblematic types.

Characterisation

“I struggle in reading Wolf Hall to find a single character who cannot be characterised as either a goodie or a baddy,” he says, pointing to “the supporting cast of nice wishy-washy Protestant clerics or mean and nasty Catholic clerics”. Conceding that one could argue that Cromwell is fairly well rendered, Dr Rex nonetheless feels his characterisation shows “a whole panoply of late 20th- and early 21st-Century social attitudes”, and maintains that St Thomas More is painted as “a double-dyed villain, irredeemable in every degree and every respect”.

St John Fisher isn’t invariably presented as a nasty Catholic, Dr Rex admits, saying, “Fisher pops in only here and there through the novel, and when it suits the novel’s purposes, he is presented indeed as a gullible old twit, but elsewhere he’s also presented as a standard Catholic bishop, which is to say a mean, heartless, cruel persecutor”.

Neither side of the fictional Fisher seems to tally with the historical champion of better-educated clergy and laity that was the subject of the first of Dr Rex’s many books, but this doesn’t surprise the historian.

“Let’s be frank about this,” he says, “Wolf Hall is not interested in presenting very much of the modern revisionist tendency in the history of the Reformation.”

Said tendency may have taken its name from a 1987 essay collection entitled The English Reformation Revised, edited by Christopher Haigh, author of the subsequent English Reformations. A.G. Dickens, whose 1964 The English Reformation was for long the standard work on the period, had called for historians to examine more closely the texture of ordinary life during the Reformation, but was not prepared for the results.

“Our understanding of the history of religious change in this period has been transformed over the past generation, or perhaps we should say two generations now,” explains Dr Rex. “Rather ironically, Dickens’ call for a greater engagement with lower level records produced in the end interpretations very different from the ones he expected to find and the ones he thought he did find of a rapid popular uptake of the new ideas.”

A succession of historians – Haigh, Dr Rex’s Cambridge colleague Louth-born Prof. Eamon Duffy, and Jack Scarisbrick being but the vanguard – have since shown that England’s late medieval Catholicism was far more vibrant than popular Protestant myth subsequently claimed and that the widespread uptake of Reformation ideas in 16th-Century England was very much slower, more reluctant, and more piecemeal than hitherto believed.

Faced with a sea change in how the English Reformation would have to be understood, Dickens assumed that Haigh must have been a Catholic, and on learning that he was not and never had been one, famously exclaimed in incredulity, “then why does he say such things?”

While Wolf Hall shows no awareness of developments in mainstream Reformation research, “it’s well enough informed on the revisionist scholarship of a slightly different kind on Thomas More, the hostile picture sketched out in the 70s and 80s by Geoffrey Elton and Richard Marius,” Dr Rex observes.

The popular image of St Thomas More is the iconic hero of Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons, unforgettably played on screen by Paul Scofield. Bolt’s More, a champion of truth and conscience who refuses the state’s demand that he deny what he believes to be true to prove his loyalty, had his roots in R.W. Chambers’ 1935 biography of the saint.

Geoffrey Elton, the great Cambridge historian of the Tudor era, in exalting Thomas Cromwell and attempting to exonerate him from the charge that he had perpetuated a reign of terror, utterly rejected Chambers and Bolt’s construction of More, and his rejection was built on by Richard Marius, whose 1984 biography of the saint portrays him as a ‘failed priest’ plagued by a repressed and somewhat perverse sexuality.

“Marius really starts from where Elton left off – he takes his departure from one or two articles that Elton wrote in the 70s,” explains Dr Rex, who says Wolf Hall draws on Marius, Elton, and “a few extra little bits as well that have been added on by rather inferior historians and biographers since”.

One of these bits, he says, was first advanced as a hypothesis in Brian Moynihan’s 2002 book If God Spare my life: William Tyndale and Thomas More, A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal, which details, he says, “the utterly absurd story that Thomas More from the Tower of London in 1534-1535 was somehow masterminding the capture of William Tyndale in Antwerp through paid agents?

While he said that “laughable hardly begins to describe it”, he’s clearly troubled by the notion that “people will read Wolf Hall and would come away with that idea”.

More may have died a saint and martyr, but Dr Rex is under no illusions that he was without flaws. Ahead of his times in some ways, he was also very much a man of his time, and when Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor had been responsible for the execution of six Protestants.

“I don’t think there’s anybody out there, never mind any respectable historian, who denies that Thomas More played his part in the persecution of Protestants especially when he was Lord Chancellor,” Dr Rex says. “But the construction on the top of that of this mythography that Wolf Hall picks up of this slathering bloodthirsty torturer who took perverse pleasure in inflicting pain upon his victims – for this there is little, very little evidence. There are one or two things upon which you can base such a claim but the picture is obviously untrue and is largely embroidery and long-range psychoanalysis.”

The fact that there’s so little evidence for such a construction is striking, given how the 16th Century is a historical period for which a vast amount can be known, even about people of relatively humble backgrounds due to the tendency of people in the era to write wills.

“There are chronicles and other narratives, there are letters, particularly in the case of Thomas More who left a reasonably sized corpus of letters behind him, not obviously by any means as many as he wrote but because of his character and his state more of them survive than might otherwise have done, personal account books, a mass of administrative materials you can mine in various ways, some biographies, and lots of public writings,” the historian explains.

“And of course from the reign of Henry VIII on in Britain and most of Europe there are portraits and pictorial evidence,” he adds, “though one has to handle it with care as we tend to read more into portraits than to read out from them.”

In a 2010 interview, for instance, Wolf Hall’s author Hilary Mantel said that “Hans Holbein painted this incredibly dead picture of Cromwell, and since then it was almost as if everybody backed off,” continuing, “what I wanted to do was tell Cromwell’s story, because it had not been told, to clear out the junk and the prejudice and get a fresh start with the character.”

Rather than attempting to breathe life back into the picture, as Dr Rex inferrs Ms Mantel had been trying to do, he as a historian is instead drawn to ask “why does a painter as skilled and insightful as Holbein paint this incredibly dead picture of Cromwell?”

In contrast, he says, Holbein’s celebrated portrait of More is “full of life”, noting how in the BBC documentary Holbein: Eye of the Tudors art historian Waldemar Januszczak commented on the two paintings that face each other on either side of a great fireplace in New York’s Frick Collection and said that forced to choose between what he called a recent fictional portrayal and Holbein, he knew whose vision he was inclined to believe.

Wolf Hall has since its 2009 publication received an even bigger audience through being adapted this year into a successful BBC series. 

As far back as 1935, G.K. Chesterton was warning of “a real danger of historical falsehood being popularised through the film, because there is not the normal chance of one film being corrected by another film”, pointing out that “when a book appears displaying a doubtful portrait of Queen Elizabeth, it will generally be found that about six other historical students are moved to publish about six other versions of Queen Elizabeth at the same moment”, but that few people are in a position to fund, produce, and distribute films to counter dubious cinematic representations of historical events and characters. 

For Dr Rex, the problem is worse. “Not quite so apparent to Chesterton in that pre-television age, we’re much more aware that the visual impresses itself on people so much more forcefully than the purely verbal,” he says, citing the old line that ‘seeing is believing’.  

“If a false view of the past in its broad proportions is turned into film or television,” he continues, “then of course it reaches not only more people but it reaches them more impressively in the literal sense”.

Saving grace

The one saving grace of what Dr Rex dubs ‘Hollywood History’, is that “one can always hope that people won’t take it seriously as a guide to the past”, but while sophisticated viewers might be inclined to view historical dramas with a certain scepticism, that scepticism is often at odds with the assumption that the broad strokes of such dramas must be correct. “It’s no use having inbuilt scepticism if you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr Rex says. “It doesn’t matter how sceptical you are – you can only judge things when you know. Knowledge is much more important than anything when dealing with the past.”

Ultimately, Dr Rex says, his main problem with Wolf Hall is that for all its accuracy in innumerable tiny details, its central engine – the relationship between St Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell – “is fundamentally out of proportion because both characters have been fundamentally misunderstood”.

While he accepts that there’s lots of very respectable research work in Wolf Hall, the historical record tells a very different story from the novel. 

“Truth, as Hilaire Belloc used to say, resides in proportion, and this book just gets the 1530s out of proportion almost all the time,” he says, concluding, “Its myriad accuracies do not redeem that.” 

Why is it that in spite of the growth of secularism in Ireland and the steep decline in Mass attendance, certain Christian denominations have grown enormously in membership in the last decade? 

Not all of this is due to immigration. According to the census, the number of people in Ireland belonging to Pentecostal or Apostolic churches has grown from about 3,000 in 2002 to just over 14,000 in 2011. About 10.5% of this number is ethnic Irish. 

Likewise, those who describe themselves merely as ‘Christian’ on the census have gone from roughly 29,000 in 2006 to just over 41,000 in 2011, of whom about 24,000 were native Irish. This number does not include those who identify as ‘Evangelical.’

So what draws those who were raised Catholic to other denominations?

Devout Catholics

Darren Mulligan (35), a recording artist who grew up in Ballinode, Co. Monaghan, recently moved to Tennessee with his wife and children, but before that they attended the Monaghan Elim Pentecostal church. “I was raised a Catholic and both of my parents were devout Roman Catholics,” he said. 

As a child he “took the sacraments, attended church and prayed regularly” but he felt he had “no real understanding of who Jesus Christ really was and of the great depth of his love for me”. In his late twenties Darren started attending a local Pentecostal church where he said “Christ gloriously rescued me and completely transformed my heart”. 

His experience of Catholicism in contrast was that “Mass appeared cold and disconnected from the Jesus I was hearing about and who had been revealing himself to me… The Catholicism I experienced was lifeless for the most part and appeared to focus on religious rites rather than on establishing a living relationship with the Jesus I read about in the Gospels.” 

What attracts him about Evangelical churches in general is the “vibrancy in worship and a lifestyle that is joyful (and) hope filled”. Other important features of this style of worship include a strong focus “on a true and living relationship with Jesus Christ” as well as a “wonderful sense of community”. Although Darren feels that “Ireland can be a hostile place at times” for Christians, nonetheless “things are changing” and “there is a real hunger for truth and for a faith that is genuine”.

Curious to see one such an Evangelical church for myself, I paid a visit to Trinity Church, a non-denominational Evangelical church on Lower Gardiner Street in Dublin. According to the congregation’s website they are “a Christian community helping people rediscover their true identity and destiny … by a radical encounter with Jesus and his kingdom”. 

Smiling ushers waited inside the door to welcome everyone into the foyer. The service itself took place upstairs. It began with lively praise and worship music complete with band and lyrics projected onto the wall, the hall gradually filling to capacity. Spontaneous prayers took place in between hymns whilst some people waved flags bearing biblical messages. 

After the first hour a man named Declan spoke of his work helping disadvantaged children and evangelising in Dublin 7. Then another member of the church delivered a sermon on chapter six of Ephesians. Teenagers and children left about halfway through for talks aimed at their age groups in other parts of the building. 

The whole service lasted for about two hours. 

The congregation was incredibly diverse, featuring people of all ages, nationalities and socio-economic backgrounds. When it was finished, the leaders invited everyone to come back down to the foyer where a small kitchen opened up and people mingled as they ate and drank tea, coffee, biscuits, soup and sandwiches.

After the service I spoke with Paul Rothwell (53) from Drumcondra, one of the leaders of Trinity Church. According to Paul roughly half the congregation came from a Catholic background with the rest from other Protestant traditions. 

Paul described his parents as “devout Catholics”. His father was a daily Massgoer who always prayed the rosary at home with the family. Paul made his First Holy Communion and Confirmation and at one stage even considered the priesthood. The factors that drew him out of Catholicism “moved from relational to doctrinal”. 

As a youth, he encountered the Scripture Union Beach Mission through other Christian teenagers. He said that the personal contact and the group’s emphasis on outreach were important factors in his deciding to go along. 

Before attending he “couldn’t really make sense of scripture” but then came to understand “what Calvary was all about”. 

He spent a year of both attending Mass and Plymouth Brethren services but he said that “my experience of Mass was that I was having difficulty reconciling my experience of God with the theology of Mass”. 

The key difficulties Paul had with the Catholic Church were “the issue of the priesthood of all believers and the lack of community… there wasn’t community in the Church but there was in the (local) community” especially amongst people his own age. Searching for community in a religious setting led him elsewhere. He eventually ended up in Fellowship Bible Church, which became Trinity Church.

Faith traditions

Áine Darling (49) has attended Trinity Church for almost 20 years. Originally from Wexford, she now lives in north County Dublin with her husband Keith and their four children. 

Áine was “brought up in a very devout Catholic family” which meant she was “very grounded in faith in God coming from that background” and “identified strongly as a Catholic”. Her maternal grandmother as well as other members of her extended family were daily Massgoers. Her “initial point of searching” was when she met Keith, who grew up in the Church of Ireland. 

Áine felt that their respective faith traditions presented “difficulties on emotional as well as practical levels” in relation to their marriage which “didn’t sit well” with her. After getting married they lived in several different countries, including Australia, New Zealand and Britain. They attended different churches looking for an “expression of church that wasn’t divisive between the two of us”. 

Eventually, they met a Christian family in New Zealand whose energetic style of prayer at first made her “want to run” but as they spent more time together they began to impress her as their faith “wasn’t a display” but obviously more profound. Another key turning point for Áine was an Alpha course she attended in England. For the first time she felt she was somewhere that “allowed questions, it allowed for honesty, it allowed for doubts”. 

There she “first saw who Jesus was. As a Catholic I certainly believed in God, I knew about Jesus… but didn’t know he was central”. 

She realised that she “could have a personal relationship with Jesus… and the Word of God as a living thing”. In contrast the sermons at the Catholic parish where she grew up during the seventies “had not really helped me… to understand the Bible”.

Committed

I also spoke to Paul’s son, Gavin Rothwell (20), a law student in Trinity College Dublin and former President of the Christian Union (CU) there. While some Catholics have attended, Gavin says that “most of the people who are committed to CU are in families committed to Evangelical churches”. 

Their goal as a Christian Union is to provide a place for Christian students to socialise with one another and to reach out to those seeking God on campus. Gavin says that “it is a secular campus, though people are seeking... if you engage in a loving, truthful manner you can reach out to them… the truth of Jesus is still the same as it was 2,000 years ago”. The key to reaching out to others is via building up good relationships with fellow students so that they can get to know Christians on campus.

Trinity’s CU is affiliated with the Irish branch of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) which is based in Belfast and has links to 30 Christian Unions in universities and ITs across the whole island of Ireland. IFES is a trans-denominational organisation with links to Evangelical students in 154 countries. 

The Irish branch was set up in 1997. According to its website, the mission of IFES is “Inspiring and equipping students to become passionate lifelong followers of Jesus Christ”. Rev. David Montgomery, the director of IFES Ireland, was a Presbyterian minister until he took over the organisation in 2013. Speaking of IFES’ work with students, he said: “IFES is student-led... on a local level (through) campus CUs and national level through our Student Council... As an umbrella body, we offer resources, staff, training and fellowship. Our staff visit and train and encourage the CUs. Our annual conference (brings) together dozens, or even hundreds of students from different colleges to learn and share together, thus showing them that they are part of a wider national, and even world movement. 

“This is particularly helpful for the smaller colleges where perhaps the CU may be in single figures. The bigger regional and national events are a lifeline for many of them.” 

Asked if Irish students tend to be open to the Gospel message, Rev. Montgomery says he  thinks “there are probably a few more barriers to be overcome (than) 20 years ago, but once good relationships have been established then there is indeed great openness… many people, and students are no different, have misconceptions about the message of Jesus”. 

IFES encourages students “to look first and foremost at the Gospels” rather than to any particular church or religion. In order to be successful, Christian Unions need to have “a gracious and winsome confidence in what we believe... (and) desire to reach the campus with the Good News” as well as have “a heart for the university, to contribute to the life and culture of the university and desire to see it truly flourish”. 

Developing this last point, Rev. Montgomery says that he is “thrilled when I see members of the CU captaining the sports teams, advocating on various issues, standing for election to the Student Councils, involved in poverty and justice issues, participating on the University Senate or other bodies”. 

‘Faith neutrality’

This is not always easy. In recent years, he has seen “a type of anti-religious totalitarianism developing in some institutions”. 

He says that “we have had some colleges, under the guise of ‘faith neutrality,’ making life difficult for CUs’ by preventing them from organising on campus. 

“Part of our job is to advocate on behalf of these CUs and dialogue with the university authority, showing that a vibrant CU will add much to the culture of the campus and seeking to exclude religious groups or drive them off campus will impoverish the university… and completely undermine any university’s claim to be a place where there is freedom of thought, speech and assembly.”

When asked if many of the students he has worked with come from a Catholic background, Rev. Montgomery says: “In the past this would have been less the case, but there has been an interesting development, I think. IFES Ireland (has) a doctrinal basis: a statement of belief and core values that we believe can be signed up to by individuals from a very broad sweep of denominations… 

“There are some, mainly some brands of Protestantism, who believe our doctrinal basis is too broad… Others, perhaps some Catholics, think it… is too narrow and would like it broadened. We believe our doctrinal basis has stood the test of time as a necessary maximum and a necessary minimum. 

“We are able to avoid being too exclusivist while keeping our distinctiveness.

“With the increased secularisation of the culture, young students of faith are coming together around the things that truly matter. Also, chaplaincy provisions in some places are a little hit and miss...  

“So, for example, a young Catholic student who wishes to pursue their faith in a self-consciously Catholic way would probably decide that the CU’s doctrine and practice is not for them. 

“However, other young Catholic students who are interested in Bible study and persuasive evangelism… have found a home amongst us. In this case they do what any Protestant student does: they put their denominational loyalties to one side in favour of the larger goal of reaching the campus for Christ. 

“At Freshers’ Week in one college a young Catholic student came up to me and said ‘I’ve looked at all the religious groups and all the chaplaincies and what they are offering, and this is the group whose activities are closest to what I am looking for, can I join?’ We said ‘Of course’. 

“She is still Catholic. She may not agree with everything about us, but we are delighted to have her.” 

Rev. Montgomery concludes by saying that any successful revolution “has always gained the ear and heart of the student population”. “We are praying for a revolution of love and truth in Christ to capture the hearts of this generation of students... A strong Christian student movement today means a strong Church tomorrow.”

It is clear from the growth of these churches that even when the Catholic Church has difficulty in getting the Gospel message across, people still feel drawn to it. Several common strands run through the experiences of former Catholics who have left for one of the new Protestant denominations around Ireland. 

A love of scripture, a desire for community with other believers and for a personal relationship with Jesus all feature strongly. 

Also of interest is the fact that those I spoke to who grew up in devout Catholic families were perhaps primed to seek out a church when they felt dissatisfied with Catholicism rather than simply lapsing as many other Irish tend to do. 

The Church here in Ireland should take note of these factors in its outreach. Rather than simply managing its decline here, a proactive attempt to renew our focus on the person of Jesus and the Gospel message as well as creating strong Catholic communities might draw those who are open home to the Church. 

In addition to this, the Church would do well to take note of Rev. Montgomery’s experiences working with Christian students. 

As articles in previous editions of The Irish Catholic have noted, Catholic student societies face many difficulties on campus. 

In the absence of broader support from the rest of the Church they may find themselves limited in their ability to provide a local community for Catholic students and reach out to those who have drifted away.

Tanzania, located in East Africa, is one of the least-developed countries in the world. With a population of 49.25 million, it is ranked 159th of 187 countries in the world on the United Nations Human Development Index.

I travelled to the Morogoro region in eastern Tanzania with Sightsavers, the global charity fighting preventable blindness. Morogoro is home to more than two million people, many of them subsistence farmers or working in the wider agricultural-based economy.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that some 80% of all visual impairment can be prevented or cured. My aim in Tanzania was to see the work that Sightsavers is doing – quite often in very isolated communities – to prevent and treat blindness and other visual impairments.

Cataract is the world’s biggest cause of blindness, with over 20 million people affected. The effects are particularly devastating in the developing world: having lost their sight, people inevitably lose their livelihood and their ability to support a family and forge a better life. 

Vast majority

The vast majority of people blinded in this way are among the poorest of the poor – already only scraping by, their loss of sight is a catastrophic setback in a world with none of the safety nets or supports we have come to take for granted in the West.

Cataract is a build-up of protein in the eye’s lens that causes it to gradually go cloudy, preventing light passing through. Cataract leads to a blurring of vision, worsening until it is like looking through frosted glass. Treating cataract involves an operation to remove the lens, and replace it with a plastic one.

A cataract operation takes less than an hour and can cost as little as €36 to complete. This modest, yet life-changing procedure, can offer a brighter future to families in urgent need.

Sightsavers is passionate about fighting blindness, and the enthusiasm of its staff and partners is infectious. They launched the Million Miracles Appeal in 2014 to fund a million sight-restoring surgeries by 2018 with the aim of transforming lives and galvanising support for this neglected area of healthcare provision.

In Morogoro, eye health services are given a very low priority in the region’s severely limited public health system, resulting in a large and ever-growing backlog of unmanaged blinding eye conditions.

Currently, there is estimated to be 10,037 people waiting on surgery that will restore their sight. An enormous barrier to tackling the problem is the largely rural nature of the area and the fact that people are dispersed over a wide area. The Morogoro Regional Hospital coordinates up to 40 outreaches throughout the region each year.

I travelled to witness a week-long outreach in Mtibwa district hospital. On the very first day, more than 700 people arrived at the community centre from villages near and far in the hope of being screened. People arrived from very early in the morning and continued to arrive throughout the day. 

The screening officially started at 8am and continued until almost 7pm each day. What struck me forcibly was the patience: the medical staff worked painstakingly to deal with all the people who had gathered from far and near. And the throngs of would-be patients stood for hours without complaining, often smiling widely at the thought of having their eyes treated after, perhaps, more than 20 years of blindness.

In advance of the outreach, Sightsavers and local partners work hard to build awareness about the screenings. Ahead of our trip, two weeks of public awareness initiatives had taken place, using radio to reach to those who are illiterate, press advertising, posters, a mobile van with loud speakers and they also leveraged community centres and churches to spread the word. The awareness raising was clearly very successful judging by the sheer numbers of people arriving to the screening.

Mtibwa is a real assault on the senses. As I arrived at the screening centre, my first impression was one of chaos. It soon became apparent, however, that what appeared to be as chaos was, in fact, a very well-organised and well-oiled machine. 

Hundreds of people had gathered at the screening centre based in the local community hall. This was used to triage people so as not to overrun the small hospital nearby.

People presented with all manner of eye complaints and waited with their families to be assessed for the next phase of the process. For many, this involved having their eyesight assessed with eye charts. 

Those whose eyesight could be improved with glasses were given glasses free of charge (a key incentive in getting patients to present) and those assessed with more serious conditions were referred for further examination. Those in need of surgery, made the short walk to the hospital. 

By the end of the week, 3,018 people had been screened during the camp in Mtibwa, 611 had cataract surgery and 12 people had other eye surgeries.

This was an enormous achievement and a huge success.

Case Study

Habibu Athuman, age 80, suffered from bilateral cataract and has been blind for 10 years.

I first met Habibu sitting outside the local hospital where he was waiting to have his cataract surgery. He was led everywhere by his devoted nine-year-old grandson Peter Daniel.

Peter carried a heavy responsibility for his years that would confound many adults. He anticipated Habibu’s every need and was a model of gentleness and tenderness. I watched as he gently took his grandfather by the hand and led him to the safety of a bench outside the hospital 

Before marrying, Habibu told me, he spent 19 years working on a large sisal plantation (a crop grown for making ropes). His main responsibility on the plantation was washing clothes, but he also told us that he played a role in raising the plantation owners’ children. 

He took time to explain that the children were white children and that he loved them very much. After marrying his wife Herieth Athuman, he started a small farm. He has a son and a daughter and five grandchildren.

“My sight deteriorated slowly. I realised that it was becoming a serious problem when I started to make mistakes on the farm. I would sometimes confuse my crops with weeds. I have been completely blind now for 10 years and it has been a difficult time. I cannot farm and I can no longer do any building work. Even eating is difficult. Most of the time someone has to hand me my food,” he said describing his life without sight.

Sense of humour

Evidently, Habibu has not lost his sense of humour: “When the family sit down to eat a meal together I have learned that I need to eat quickly or otherwise there will be nothing left.”

Habibu’s blindness has had a dramatic effect on the family: “When I lost my sight we were living on our farm in Tanga. My grandson Peter came to live with us when he was four as I needed support at home, someone to help me. But my biggest challenge was that I didn’t have enough money for food.  At first my friends and neighbours gave me a lot of support. They gave us money and helped us with farming work. But this couldn’t continue and eventually they stopped.”

Habibu realised he could no longer continue to live in Tanga and made the decision to leave his friends and community and move to Mtibwa to live with his son and his family.

“We simply couldn’t afford to stay independent. The local church gave us the money we needed to travel to Mtibwa to be with my son. He takes care of all of my needs now, but I do not have a single penny in my pocket for anything that I might want to buy. As a man, for any man, if you have no money in your pocket it is very difficult. I find it very hard to be dependent on my son.”

Habibu was absolutely dependent on his grandson. “Peter is a great support. He helps me move from place to place. He brings me to the market, he brings me even to the toilet. God is the mastermind and ultimately he will decide Peter’s future, but I have been telling him since he was a young boy that he could be a doctor when he grows up but that he must study very hard.”

We asked Peter if he thinks life will change for him after his granddad’s sight is restored. He said “I will be very happy, but I will still stay with my granddad – we are a team. We are used to being together.”

Habibu went under the surgeons knife and we promised to see him the following day to see how the surgery had went. We re-connected with him just before the bandages were removed from his eyes.

The nurse cleaned his eye and he slowly opened it. “I can see your hand,” he said to the nurse, “I can see the photographer, I can see the movement.” This was before Habibu had put on his sunglasses and we were initially worried that perhaps he couldn’t see very clearly. The doctor explained that because he had been blind for so long, it could take a day for him to adjust properly to the bright light. 

As the doctor was explaining this to us Habibu turned to his grandson and told him with a big smile on his face and to everyone’s delight: “I can see the orange stripes on his t-shirt.” 

Turning to the doctor who had performed the cataract surgery he said; “I thank God for the work that you have done. I thank God and I thank you. I hope that you continue to the have zeal and the energy to keep up the good work that you do.”

This was the first time that Habibu had ever seen his grandson clearly. The boy who for the past six years had been his helpful shadow, always there, always helping and guiding him through his daily life.

*In the edition of October 22, Michael Kelly will share the stories of more people who have had their sight restored.

Did you know?

18 million people worldwide are needlessly blind due to cataract, yet a straightforward operation could give them back their sight.

39 million people in the world are blind, yet 80% of blindness is preventable or curable.

””””

90% of people who are blind live in the world’s poorest countries.

Treatments available for blindness are among the most successful and cost effective of all health interventions.

”””” 

The impact of cataract surgery is significant.

”””” 

The restoration of sight through surgery generates increased economic productivity in the first year equivalent to 1,500% of the cost of the operation.

””””

Irish supporters of Sightsavers can make a blind person in the developing world see for just €36.

www.millionmiracles.ie

For congressman Chris Smith, who has represented New Jersey in the US House of Representatives since 1981, opposition to abortion rests on the same principles as his roles as co-chairman of the Coalition for Autism Research and Education and of the bipartisan Congressional Alzheimer’s Task Force.

“To me it comes from the same impulse,” he told The Irish Catholic. “It’s about helping people who are sick, disenfranchised, disabled and it’s the same identical commitment that we all have as Christians and Catholics towards the least of our brethren.”

Mr Smith was keynote speaker at the Pro Life Campaign’s annual conference last weekend, addressing a crowd of more than 500 people in the RDS. A major figure in the campaign to bring to light the practices of Planned Parenthood, he says the American media’s failure to cover properly a succession of videos revealing how the organs from aborted foetuses have been sold for profit “was a cover-up”, but he insists the campaign must continue.

“We’re going to keep persisting, exposing the facts, bringing legislation, holding hearings,” he says, asserting that the Planned Parenthood brand has been built on multiple lies that are currently being shredded, and maintaining, “They can only hold back the truth for so long.”

The pro-life movement is definitely changing, he thinks. Abortion has been in sharp decline across the US for some years, even in states which have not tightened their abortion laws, and young adults are repeatedly shown in polls as being far less likely to support abortion than their elders.

Feeding into this, Mr Smith thinks, is the fact that post-abortive women, enabled by such campaigns as Silent No More, are speaking out, so that “it’s becoming more and more apparent that hurting women are seeking help, and have to”. Describing them as “as pro-life, if not more so, than anyone else”, he says in the early years of the movement “none of us counted on that”.

Another important development is that young adults have grown up in a world of high-definition ultrasound images that make it impossible to maintain seriously that unborn human beings are the mere clumps of cells of pro-choice myth. 

Exclaiming that he couldn’t even count how many people have shown him pictures of their unborn children, he says of the pro-life movement, “it makes sense that this is a righteous cause for women. Abortion is anti-women! More than half are girls who are killed in abortions, and it’s gotten even worse.”

Marvelling at the dedication of millennial pro-lifers, he says “they have a fervour”. Two years ago he spoke at a Students for Life conference and was amazed to see 1,800 people before him – four per college. “I was bowled over,” he says, “because they’re saving lives every day on the college campus and they’re also building a pro-life culture.”

On campus

Ireland now has its own Students for Life movement, introduced on the RDS stage by Katie Ascough, who told The Irish Catholic that “Students for Life is an idea that came up because of students needing more support in college, because it’s very difficult to have a society for students who are pro-life on campus”.

“In some universities it works,” she continues, “but in others, because the Union of Students in Ireland, which represents 354,000 students in Ireland, is openly campaigning for abortion, it’s really difficult to set up a pro-life movement.” Students for Life, she hopes, can make a real difference and help pro-life students run events even in colleges where they lack the support ordinary student societies might take for granted.

Other speakers included Prof. William Binchy, who explained the history of Ireland’s constitutional protection for the unborn, Ade Stack, who spoke about how she set up Hugh’s House, a home-from-home in Dublin for the families of seriously ill children, and Caroline Simons who spoke about the misleading arguments of those who would try to chip away at the Eighth amendment.

Prof. Binchy was unflappable when the stage was invaded by a group of pro-choice advocates who loudly announced their presence before squatting behind him for the duration of his presentation, while journalist Melanie McDonagh was disappointed they had departed the stage by the time she began to speak about freedom of speech and the importance of speaking a language everyone can understand.

Stressing that pro-life campaigners should avoid confessional language that might alienate people, she said as the law affects everyone and the protection of unborn human life is a human rights issue, it’s important to engage “with the entire body politic, not just the part of it that we agree with”.

Contesting the notion that there’s “a seamless continuity between the gay marriage issue and issues relating to abortion”, she said “one was about institutionalising a type of relationship, whether you agree with that or not, and the other is about the right to take away another human life”. As such, she said, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that many supporters of marriage redefinition would also be opposed to abortion.

“If we’re talking about a rainbow coalition,” she said, “I think this is the one that’s got the spectrum of opinion.”

Sally McEllistrim

We could come back to our ‘comfortable’ lives.

That was the overriding thought in my mind as we stood in the baking heat in Manila and watched children naked and crawling with lice and sores run about the cemetery where they live. Yes, the cemetery where they live. Takes a while to sink in doesn’t it. We were there for a World Missions Ireland (WMI) trip to the Philippines and South Korea; Jackie Pallas and I from WMI were joined by journalist Charlie Bird. We have all seen some sights in our lives, but none of us could really get our heads around the idea of people living in a cemetery. The reality of finally seeing it was shocking. Almost 2,000 people are born, live and die amongst the grey tombs in Paytay Cemetery in Manila. They have nowhere else to go. They scratch out a living looking after the tombs and are particularly busy during November, the month of the Holy Souls. Just one public toilet caters for all these living souls. They have no running water; they have no electricity bar those who ‘jump’ it illegally putting themselves in mortal danger of electrocution. They are not on any tourist guide; they are invisible to most people, most of them don’t even have a birth certificate. It is a shocking inditement of their society to think that they are only acceptable to the dead.

They have hope however, and that hope takes the form of two Korean Columban Sisters, Sr Julie and Sr Bella. 

“When I first saw them they were like animals; eating and drinking from the ground, it was shocking and sad,” says Sr Julie. “We have done a lot of work with them; we have feeding programmes, we have taught them about hygiene and personal health, we have taught them about respect for others and themselves but it is an uphill battle. Their lives are a constant daily struggle. I say to them what colour is your God and they say yellow, the colour of hope.”

Offering hope and dignity to the most cast aside and marginalised is at the core of what missionary priests and sisters do. We saw plenty of examples of their sterling work both in the Philippines and South Korea during our mission visit. We saw it in the eyes of the children rescued from paedophiles and other abusers by Fr Shay Cullen in Olangapo. His 40 odd years in the Philippines have not dimmed his fervour for the rights of children to a happy, innocent and risk free childhood; we wondered what would have happened to the Badjao people, sea gypsies, were it not for the passion of Sr Evelyn Flanagan, a vocal and tireless defender of their rights; Limerick Columban Noel O’ Neill would put any businesses magnate to shame such is his success in building factories which employ people with intellectual disabilities, all of whom now have  the dignity of work and have the distinction of numbering Incheon Airport in Korea as one of their clients.

Staying in Korea, we had the privilege of standing with the people of Jeju who are opposing the construction of a massive naval base. We only stood with them for one day but Fr Pat Cunningham from Westmeath is there day after day. He passionately believes in their right to protest and as peace and justice coordinator for the Columbans in Korea, he walks the walk. He is at the peace camp where he stares down the police and tries his best to stop the juggernaughts intent on constructing this blight on the landscape. Of course if it was just blight on the landscape that would be bad enough but we all know the far more serious consequences of a massive naval base in Korea. Fr Moon, a local Jesuit who also maintains a presence at the peace camp told me: “We are in agony here with this development but the Columbans reached out to us and are standing with us, like the Good Samitarian.” Back in Seoul, Frs Donal O Keefe, Sean Conneely and Liam O’ Keefe are just some who concelebrate the weekly open air Mass for the people drowned in the ferry disaster last year. The families of the deceased are still waiting for justice.

Sr Nora Wiseman from Cork is larger than life and has created a lovely old people’s home in Chuncheon where the residents are cherished, loved and valued. One of the most touching and surreal moments there was listening to one of the residents, a tiny little Korean lady of about 90 singing Danny Boy! Cherished loved and valued too are the people living with Aids in Seoul in a welcoming haven provided by Sr Miriam Cousins. Rejected and ostracised by their families, Miriam has brought them into the wider ‘missionary family’ who take care of them and treat them as people not as objects of derision.   

This is but a short overview of our World Missions Ireland mission trip and just a tiny glimpse into the worlds and work of our missionaries abroad. For me, one of the Columbans in Seoul, Denis Monaghan, summed it up better than I ever could when he said: “Missionary work is like shovelling light into a dark hole.”           

*World Missions Ireland is the official mission charity of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It supports missionaries and mission projects in up to 80 mission countries abroad, both spiritually and financially. Your help makes this possible. Contact: World Missions Ireland, 64 Lower Rathmines Road, D6 or 01-4972035 or see www.wmi.ie

Sally McEllistrim

The Badjao Tribe or Sea Gypsies in the Philippines are known as the people ‘ofno value’.

Imagine that; their very name translates as ‘of no value’. They have been a constant presence on the Sulu Archipelago off the Southwest Coast of the Philippines and eek out a living, mainly from the sea, by diving, fishing and selling their wares. They have been cast aside, ostracised, treated like no human being should ever be treated. They are not even recognised as Filipino on their death certs. The saddest thing of all is that they themselves have only begun to realise that they do indeed have a right to respect and dignity. They are now going to school, learning new skills and some have even graduated from college.

This is down in no small part to the Trojan work of a Presentation missionary sister from Galway who together with the late Redemptorist missionary priest, Fr Frankie Connon, literally found them by accident in 1997. Sr Evelyn Flanagan has seen a lot in her 71 years, but even she was shocked by the conditions in which she found the people living on the sea. “I was horrified and angered,” says Evelyn, an engaging, hard working and passionate missionary.

“Myself and Fr Frankie had heard about them and made it our business to track them down. It’s a hard concept to get one’s head around; people living on the sea and their conditions were horrendous. They lived on house boats or houses on stilts with absolutely no adequate living conditions whatsoever. They were lovely but their lives were anything but. We started visiting them on a regular basis, we brought food and we began to work with them where they were in their lives. We were struck by their gentleness and lovely ways but stunned by what they had to endure. They were the ‘untouchables’, totally shunned and downtrodden and that both upset and angered me. We found them to be totally trusting and innocent and they are recognised as being the most peace loving of all tribes. Because they are so trusting they have been hugely let down in the past and exploited by those who had no respect whatsoever for them,” she says.

“I remember one of the first people I met, he was a  little child who had a massive cyst on his head and going to the hospital was alien to the Badjao as quite frankly they wouldn’t have the money and  would generally  never be treated with any little bit of respect. I brought the little guy and his mother to the hospital and it was quickly and simply removed, but that was only because I was with them and I just made sure it was done. Imagine that, the child could have died for the lack of a simple procedure but the whole incident spoke volumes to me.”

Sr Evelyn says she likes people who follow the beat of their own drum but nobody should be treated the lesser for that difference. “The Badjao are quite a mystical tribe, they are an Animist people in that they worship the soul world; the moon, the stars and the all important sea, they have a huge and lovely affinity with the sea and naturally for them everything revolves around it. They worship Tuhan, the God who protects them. They live by rituals; they have a ritual for absolutely everything; birth, death, love and everything in between. It is fascinating really. I would love if people took time to get to learn about them and know them.”

As she began to learn about them and know them Evelyn set to work on what they needed.

“Well, they needed everything! They needed shelter, food, education, a voice and people who would stand by them. We listened to them, and it was probably the first time they were ever listened to. The chief of the tribe asked us to educate his people. Education truly does set people free and we wanted freedom for them. Education really is paramount. We set to work; we lobbied for a large trance of sea to be reclaimed so that we could build a bit of structure for them and hats off to the Irish people as every single cent of this was donated by them,” she says.

“It is important to stress that we made sure they were still clustered around the sea as it would have been shameful to take them away from what they loved and had always known. However in 2005 they were burnt out, we still have no answers as to why or who did this and it was an awful setback for them and for us but we just persevered and got on with it. This time we built quadrant brick houses that are more solid so no more ‘accidents’ could happen. I say ‘accidents’ as at the time it was claimed to be an ‘accident’, but we can only surmise!”

It was but on a tough hard road for the missionaries and funding continues to be a major problem. “It is a constant worry for me as I am afraid it will run out and we won’t be able to pay the teaching staff,” Evelyn says. “However the Irish people are just great, they are a decent generous people and support us on a regular basis, both financially and practically. Lots of Irish students come with SERVE for weeks at a time each summer. I once hired a teacher and to be honest I had no idea where the money to pay her would come from. A woman from a very wealthy family came to visit us and initially she was very wary of the people. However she has proven to be one of our most loyal and steadfast supporters, she funds the salary of that teacher and she is just an unbelievable support to us. Just shows, God works in mysterious ways!”

Today the project consists of 140 quadrant houses which house four families in each building, the Nano Nagle Centre Educational Centre and St Bridgid’s Health Clinic. “We also have a ritual house for the people to observe their rituals and we have a vegetable garden and water tank so that they can have clean fresh water. We do something on child protection every single month, both for the parents and the children. We have 90 little ones in kinder and a feeding programme, we have made huge strides,” Evelyn says.

Another great stride being made is the selection of community leaders. “We have had 13 leaders drawn from the community since 2011. It was beyond them to think that they could ever be leaders of anything. They are now role models for their community and are fostering a sense of pride in being a Badjao. Our educational programme has worked wonders, Evelyn says.

“Venerva, our first female to ever graduate is now teaching others and she has her Masters and another, Junni, is also teaching. In all we have 14 graduates now including three from Marine Engineering College and a criminologist - amazing achievement.” Indeed on the day we visited Evelyn on our World Missions Ireland trip it was immensely touching to see a video that showed the graduations.

Also touching was the respect and admiration the Badjao have for Evelyn. One member said “She is kind and fun, she is like a mother to us. She has lifted us up and makes us feel good about ourselves. Above all she has stayed with us and has not abandoned us.”

And that is the essence of missionaries and their work. Please think of them this Mission Sunday. 

World Missions Ireland (WMI) has taken a fresh and novel approach this year to engage Irish people about mission.

Journalist Charlie Bird accompanied WMI staff members on a mission trip to South Korea and the Philippines and a DVD, filmed by the well-known broadcaster is due to be shown in Churches across Ireland on Mission Sunday.

As the official organisation of the Catholic Church for mission awareness in Ireland, WMI is eager to show the diversity of the work of the missionary Church, the joy of being a missionary and a Catholic.

This short DVD features reportage of missionaries as they go about their daily work, serving the people and being a visible, important witness and presence to those in most need.

WMI is hoping that the DVD will be shown in as many Churches as possible on Mission Sunday, October 18. It is also being shown on parish and diocesan websites, YouTube, social media and WMI’s own website www.wmi.ie

Fr Maurice Hogan SSC, National Director of WMI says: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to show the very valuable work that missionaries are involved in abroad. This footage showcases the incredible, positive and uplifting work the Church is engaged in through its mission outreach. This DVD is a valuable resource for priests on Mission Sunday to encourage their parishioners to support missionaries and the work of our Church.”

“Corrymeela is a space of encounter and welcome where we can hear stories particularly from people who feel excluded, or denied their truth and where we examine power within that, and confess our complicity in the divisions that inhibit our society.”

So says Cork-born Pádraig Ó Tuama (40), poet, theologian, disciple of St Ignatius of Loyola, one time aspirant priest and first Roman Catholic to hold the post of Leader of the Corrymeela Community, the Christian-based internationally recognised organisation committed to reconciliation and peace-building.

It’s been a past winner of the prestigious Japanese Niwano Peace Prize joining laureates including Dom Hélder Câmara and Cardinal Arns. Corrymeela is based in one of the most picturesque locations in Ireland, on the north Antrim coast just outside Ballycastle overlooking the Sea of Moyle – immortalised in the Irish legend Children of Lir – with Rathlin Island a short distance away and the Mull of Kintyre 14 miles to the north east.  

Conversations

Looking out the window towards Rathlin Pádraig, Ó Tuama says: “You don’t have to decorate this scene. There is something about this beautiful place that speaks to you. Conversations in this place help people to move towards each other.”

A recurrent theme in our conversation is Corrymeela’s mission to facilitate encounter between those who are different and to heal relationships that are fractured. 

Seventeen years after the Good Friday Agreement he says frankly: “I think we have come very far but that isn’t far enough. Peace is going to be painful and requires people to share well with each other.”

With a community of 150 members, thousands of supporters worldwide and 28 staff it works with 11,000 people of varied backgrounds and welcomes 6,000 visitors to its centre each year “a place of gathering, work, faith and discussion”.

Income comes from bookings, private donations and grants from government and foundations “but without 80,000 volunteer hours a year Corrymeela couldn’t breathe”.

Corrymeela pre-dates the Troubles and describes itself as the oldest organisation dedicated to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland. 

They cherish the international links they’ve forged down the years with the Agape Community in Italy, L’Arche, Focolare and more recently with the One Day At A Time (ODAT) group that combats crime culture in California as well as important long standing connections nearer home with Coventry Cathedral and the Iona Community. 

When Mary Robinson, poet Michael Longley and Kathleen Kuehnast of the United States Institute of Peace lead the celebrations marking Corrymeela’s 50th anniversary at a gala reception in Belfast City Hall on Friday, October 30 they will recall with gratitude Rev. Ray Davey, the Presbyterian visionary who founded Corrymeela in 1965.

Davey served as its first Leader until 1980 describing it as “an open village welcoming to all”.

An ecumenical service of thanksgiving in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast on Sunday November 1 will be attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby and the Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin.

Corrymeela is said to mean “hill of harmony” in Irish so it is a fitting place for a peace centre that Pádraig Ó Tuama says “people come away from and feel that I have met myself, I have met my faith, God, each other and I have met something important that I am taking away from here and it’s the experience”.

Pádraig, a gay man, felt that experience for himself the first time Corrymeela registered on his radar, in early 2003 when as a 27-year-old he attended a retreat for gay and lesbian people “looking at faith and spirituality”.

He has written that he had known he was gay from the age of 11 or 12 and of that first Corrymeela encounter: “It was my first time to be in a place where my sexuality and my spiritualty weren’t antithetical to each other.”

Pádraig explains he couldn’t afford to study full-time at university and after several years doing youth work abroad in various countries including the Philippines, Uganda and Lithuania, as a mature student he secured a BA  in Divinity from the  Maryvale Institute, Birmingham, validated by the  Pontifical University, Maynooth and a Masters in Theology from Queen’s University where his dissertation was entitled Jesus and the Marginalised: a narrative analysis of encounters in the Gospel of Mark.

Given his strong ecumenical leanings it was appropriate that his Masters course was run by the Presbyterian Union Theological College, a part of Queen’s. 

He recalls that he commenced his Maryvale/Maynooth degree with the firm intention of becoming a seminarian at Maynooth as he felt a strong calling to the priesthood. However, half way through his course, in November 2005, Pope Benedict XVI ordered the publication of an instruction stating that persons “with deep-seated homosexual tendencies” cannot be admitted to seminaries as “such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women”.

A bishop who was giving pastoral support to Pádraig at the time advised him he could, therefore, not proceed towards the priesthood.

He recalls this time, on reflection, as “a desperately painful experience having to read about myself in this way”, as a potential candidate for the priesthood described in a Vatican document as not being capable of forming normal relationships.

“It [the instruction] was inaccurate and factually wrong and unfair to the many priests who are gay, who are great priests and who keep their vows. I think gay people are just as capable of psychological health or ill-health as anybody else.”

Asked if he would still like to be a priest it is evident that he has moved on and is comfortable in his skin as a practising Catholic exercising the common priesthood of the baptised faithful according to their particular vocation.  

“Priesthood is a verb and I think I am doing it already,” he says with a little chuckle. 

“I have found my vocation. I love the Gospels more than I ever have in my life through my study of them and my love of them and they are challenging me. I have to look to the horizon because today is so rich with the possibility of finding ways in which we can be better towards and with each other.”

How does it feel to be the first Catholic Leader of Corrymeela? Pádraig calls it “an amazing honour” and points out that he was chosen a year ago after a period of discernment both by himself and Corrymeela. 

Corrymeela has, for him “always been a place of ecumenical friendships, so I hadn’t really registered that we hadn’t had a Catholic Leader”.

“I think my Protestant friends in Corrymeela were more aware than I of this in the lead-in to my appointment. As we’ve been celebrating our 50th year this year it has been important to remember that Corrymeela was begun initially as a Presbyterian witness to peace, the thinking being that by remaining under the banner of one denomination that the witness to peace could be more effective”.

But as time went on it “became clear that Corrymeela’s membership was to be open to all, and so that’s how it progressed”.

He reminds me that there has been a Leader from the South before, Trevor Williams, the retired Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe from 1994 to 2003. 

He believes that “having a Catholic in this role feels indigenous to what’s always been there – that we are called to be in work, worship, witness and learning with each other in community and faith”.

Pádraig Ó Tuama speaks with a fervour about “my daily companion” St Ignatius of Loyola that would rival that of the most committed Jesuit. 

“For me my relationship with faith and the Word was changed when I heard those words that were so central to Ignatius ‘The glory of God is found in a human being fully alive’.”

“There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think of the words ‘fully alive’.  I look out for it in the people I meet at Corrymeela. I wonder how we can design our programmes in such a way that participants can experience themselves and others in a fully alive way, and I look for the unexpected moments of surprise and delight.” 

Perhaps only St Ignatius knows what surprises await during Pádraig Ó Tuama’s leadership in Corrymeela.

From the Second Vatican Council up to the current Synod on the Family, we have gradually learned of the necessity and beauty of “walking together”.

From the beginning of my ministry as Bishop of Rome I intended to enhance the synod, which is one of the most precious legacies of the Second Vatican Council. For Blessed Paul VI, the Synod of Bishops was meant to keep alive the image of the Ecumenical Council and to reflect the conciliar spirit and method. The same Pontiff desired that the synodal organism “over time would be greatly improved”. 

Twenty years later, St John Paul II would echo those sentiments when he stated that “perhaps this tool can be further improved. Perhaps the collegial pastoral responsibility can find even find a fuller expression in the synod”. 

Finally, in 2006, Benedict XVI approved some changes to the Ordo Synodi Episcoporum, especially in light of the provisions of the Code of Canon Law and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, promulgated in meantime.

We must continue on this path. The world in which we live and that we are called to love and serve even with its contradictions, demands from the Church the strengthening of synergies in all areas of her mission. And it is precisely on this way of synodality where we find the pathway that God expects from the Church of the third millennium.

In a certain sense, what the Lord asks of us is already contained in the word “synod.” Walking together – laity, pastors, the Bishop of Rome – is an easy concept to put into words, but not so easy to put into practice. 

After reiterating that the People of God is comprised of all the baptised who are called to “be a spiritual edifice and a holy priesthood,” the Second Vatican Council proclaims that “the whole body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in matters of belief and manifests this reality in the supernatural sense of faith of the whole people, when ‘from the bishops to the last of the lay faithful’ show their total agreement in matters of faith and morals”.

Infallible

In the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium I stressed that “the people of God is holy because this anointing makes [the people] infallible in matters of belief”, adding that “each baptised person, no matter what their function is in the Church and whatever educational level of faith, is an active subject of evangelisation and it would be inappropriate to think of a framework of evangelisation carried out by qualified actors in which the rest of the faithful people were only recipients of their actions. 

The sensus fidei prevents rigid separation between “Ecclesia” (Church) and the Church teaching, and learning (Ecclesia docens discens), since even the flock has an ‘instinct’ to discern the new ways that the Lord is revealing to the Church.

It was this conviction that guided me when I desired that God’s people would be consulted in the preparation of the two-phased Synod on the Family. Certainly, a consultation like this would never be able to hear the entire sensus fidei (sense of the faith). But how would we ever be able to speak about the family without engaging families, listening to their joys and their hopes, their sorrows and their anguish? 

Through the answers to the two questionnaires sent to the particular Churches, we had the opportunity to at least hear some of the people on those issues that closely affect them and about which they have much to say.

A synodal Church is a listening Church, knowing that listening “is more than feeling”. It is a mutual listening in which everyone has something to learn. Faithful people, the College of Bishops, the Bishop of Rome: we are one in listening to others; and all are listening to the Holy Spirit, the “Spirit of truth” (John 14:17), to know what the Spirit “is saying to the Churches” (Rev. 2:7).

The Synod of Bishops is the convergence point of this dynamic of listening conducted at all levels of Church life. The synodal process starts by listening to the people, who “even participate in the prophetic office of Christ”, according to a principle dear to the Church of the first millennium: “Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debet” [what concerns all needs to be debated by all]. 

The path of the synod continues by listening to the pastors. Through the synod fathers, the bishops’ act as true stewards, interpreters and witnesses of the faith of the whole Church, who must be able to carefully distinguish from that which flows from frequently changing public opinion.

On the eve of the synod of last year I stated: “First of all, let us ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of listening for the synod fathers, so that with the Spirit, we might be able to hear the cry of the people and listen to the people until we breathe the will to which God calls us.”

Finally, the synodal process culminates in listening to the Bishop of Rome, who is called upon to pronounce as “pastor and teacher of all Christians,” not based on his personal convictions but as a supreme witness of “totius fides Ecclesiae” (the whole faith of the Church), of the guarantor of obedience and the conformity of the Church to the will of God, to the Gospel of Christ and to the Tradition of the Church.

The fact that the synod always act, cum Petro et sub Petro – therefore not only cum Petro, but also sub Petro – this is not a restriction of freedom, but a guarantee of unity. In fact the Pope, by the will of the Lord, is “the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops as much as of the multitude of the faithful”. 

Concept

To this is connected the concept of “ierarchica communio” (hierarchical communion) used by Vatican II: the bishops being united with the Bishop of Rome by the bond of episcopal communion (cum Petro) and at the same time hierarchically subjected to him as head of the college (sub Petro).

As a constitutive dimension of the Church, synodality gives us the more appropriate interpretive framework to understand the hierarchical ministry. 

If we understand as St John Chrysostom did, that “Church and synod are synonymous,” since the Church means nothing other than the common journey of the Flock of God along the paths of history towards the encounter of Christ the Lord, then we understand that within the Church, no one can be raised up higher than the others. On the contrary, in the Church, it is necessary that each person be “lowered” to serve his or her brothers and sisters along the way.

Jesus founded the Church by placing at its head the Apostolic College, in which the apostle Peter is the “rock” (Matthew 16:18), the one who will confirm his brothers in the faith (Luke 22:32). But in this Church, as in an inverted pyramid, the summit is located below the base. 

For those who exercise this authority are called “ministers” because, according to the original meaning of the word, they are the least of all. It is in serving the people of God that each bishop becomes for that portion of the flock entrusted to him, vicarius Christi, (vicar of that Jesus who at the Last Supper stooped to wash the feet of the Apostles (John 13:1-15 ). And in a similar manner, the Successor of Peter is none other than the servus servorum Dei (Servant of the servants of God).

Let us never forget this! For the disciples of Jesus, yesterday, today and always, the only authority is the authority of the service, the only power is the power of the cross, in the words of the Master: “You know that the rulers of the nation’s lord it over them, and their leaders oppress them. It shall not be so among you: but whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20:25-27). “It shall not be so among you:” in this expression we touch the heart of the mystery of the Church and receive the necessary light to understand hierarchical service.

In a Synodal Church, the Synod of Bishops is only the most obvious manifestation of a dynamism of communion that inspires all ecclesial decisions.  

The first level of exercise of synodality is realised in the particular (local) Churches. 

After having recalled the noble institution of the diocesan synod, in which priests and laity are called to collaborate with the bishop for the good of the whole ecclesial community, the Code of Canon Law devotes ample space to those that are usually called “bodies of communion” in the local Church: the Council of Priests, the College of Consultors, the Chapter of Canons and the Pastoral Council. 

Only to the extent that these organisations are connected with those on the ground, and begin with the people and their everyday problems, can a synodal Church begin to take shape: even when they may proceed with fatigue, they must be understood as occasions of listening and sharing.

The second level is that of Ecclesiastical Provinces and Regions, of Particular (local Councils) and in a special way, Episcopal Conferences. We must reflect on realising even more through these bodies – the intermediary aspects of collegiality – perhaps by integrating and updating some aspects of early Church order. The hope of the Council that such bodies would help increase the spirit of episcopal collegiality has not yet been fully realised. 

As I have said, “in a Church synod it is not appropriate for the Pope to replace the local Episcopates in the discernment of all the problems that lie ahead in their territories. In this sense, I feel the need to proceed in a healthy “decentralisation”.

Universal Church

The last level is that of the universal Church. Here the synod of Bishops, representing the Catholic episcopate, becomes an expression of episcopal collegiality inside a Church that is synodal. It manifests the affective collegiality, which may well become in some circumstances “effective,” joining the bishops among themselves and with the Pope in the solicitude for the People God.

The commitment to build a Synodal Church to which all are called – each with his or her role entrusted to them by the Lord is loaded with ecumenical implications. 

For this reason, talking recently to a delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, I reiterated the conviction that “careful consideration of how to articulate in the Church’s life the principle of collegiality and the service of the one who presides offers a significant contribution to the progress of relations between our Churches”.

I am convinced that in a synodal Church, the exercise of the Petrine primacy will receive greater light. The Pope is not, by himself, above the Church; but inside it as one baptised among the baptised, and within the College of Bishops as bishop among bishops; as one called at the same time as Successor of Peter – to lead the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches.

While I reiterate the need and urgency to think of “a conversion of the papacy,” I gladly repeat the words of my predecessor Pope John Paul II: “As Bishop of Rome I know well…that the full and visible communion of all the communities in which, by virtue of God’s faithfulness, his Spirit dwells, is the ardent desire of Christ. I am convinced that you have in this regard a special responsibility, above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian communities and in heeding the request made ​​of me to find a form of exercise of the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation.”

Our gaze extends also to humanity. A synodal Church is like a banner lifted up among the nations (Isaiah 11:12) in a world that even though invites participation, solidarity and transparency in public administration – often hands over the destiny of entire populations into the greedy hands of restricted groups of the powerful. 

As a Church that “walks together” with men and women, sharing the hardships of history, let us cultivate the dream that the rediscovery of the inviolable dignity of peoples and the exercise of authority, even now will be able to help civil society to be founded on justice and fraternity, generating a more beautiful and worthy world for mankind and for the generations that will come after us.

This is a working (unofficial) translation of the address given by Pope Francis at a commemorative ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the institution of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican on Saturday.

Archbishop Eamon Martin has revealed plans to develop a “very strong” charter of family rights to ensure the entitlements of Catholic families are defended.

The Archbishop of Armagh told The Irish Catholic he would like to see a “revisiting” of the Church’s 1983 Charter of the Rights of the Family that would “articulate the rights and entitlements of families” in today’s world.

Archbishop Eamon said such a charter would outline “very clearly” the Church’s position on key issues such as the right to life, education and the entitlement of parents to raise their children in accordance with their faith.

Furthermore, the archbishop insisted that the charter would enable the Church “to call on policy makers, on the governments North and South” to uphold the rights of Catholic families.

“To have a very strong charter of family rights is something that I think would be well worth looking at in coming months,” he said.

Speaking to this newspaper on the final day of the Synod of Bishops on the Family in Rome, Archbishop Eamon also revealed his intention to establish an apostolate of family prayer to “help families pray together”. 

“A lot of young parents are simply unsure about how to go about praying with their children so an apostolate of family prayer is something I would be very interested in developing in Ireland in the next year or two. Prayer for the family, but prayer in the family,” he said. 

Looking back at the three-week-long meeting of world bishops, Archbishop Eamon said the Synod on the Family had been a “very important moment” in his life as a bishop.

He said he valued the opportunity to hear from the world’s bishops about the “different nuances in their pastoral programmes and their pastoral care of their people” while at the same time, sharing with them the “struggles and joys” of his own experience as a Church leader. 

Acknowledging that the meeting was an opportunity to “exercise” collegiality with other Church leaders and the Pope, the archbishop said it was a “great honour” for him to have such an experience “so early” in his ministry.

Praising the final report of this year’s assembly, Archbishop Eamon noted the key text was “wholly different” to the synod’s working document, the Instrumentum Laboris.

“It’s a very much fuller and more developed document. It’s tighter and shorter. I think it benefits from a very beautiful and powerful articulation of the vision for marriage as held by the Catholic Church,” the Primate of All-Ireland said.

Noting that the final report “captures in a comprehensive and stark way the real challenges that there are out there to living in a family today”, the archbishop insisted that the document does so in an “empathetic” way.

The primate said he felt the synod fathers had benefitted from reading responses to the questionnaires that had been distributed to the faithful prior to both the 2014 and 2015 synods, referring also to beneficial “listening meetings” he held with “very strong lobby groups from various parts of the spectrum”.

“All of that listening, if you multiply it up by the number of synod fathers who were there, you are actually getting a document that is enriched by the reality of family life in the world today.”

Final report

Archbishop Eamon said “a very definite pastoral imperative” exists in the synod’s final report.

“That pastoral imperative is to go out, to listen and to integrate more into the life of the Church those who may be hitherto on the peripheries. That of course is totally in keeping with Pope Francis’ manifesto Evangelii Gaudium where he has asked the Church to put everything into a missionary key,” he said.

Turning to some of the more controversial sections of the synod’s report, namely the paragraphs dealing with Communion for divorced and remarried and people in same-sex unions, Archbishop Eamon said there “has always been this sense among people who are not living the Church’s teachings that somehow they are excommunicated, that they aren’t part of the Church”.

The archbishop insisted, however, that while such people “may not be living the Church’s teaching”, they are “still members of the Church” and “we want them to be”.

“I think that is difficult for many people to understand but the key to it all is to be able to balance the tension between doctrine and pastoral practice, between mercy and justice, between forgiveness and reconciliation. The only way we can balance those is in the person of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Turning his attention to Ireland, Archbishop Eamon said the synod was a “fantastic resource” that provided a “springboard for our preparations” for the World Meeting of Families which the Pope has announced will take place in Dublin in 2018.

The archbishop said the synod’s final report “provides us with a manifesto type document to begin the pastoral action needed” for the renewal of the Faith in Ireland, adding that it had made him revaluate his own approach to pastoral practice in his archdiocese.

“It has made me examine my own pastoral practise, my own systems and approaches in the diocese. I have to say, speaking very honestly from my own point of view, I have found myself wanting. 

“I think that it has given me a lot to think upon. We have just launched our pastoral plan and we have left a space on it for a response to the synod. Our people, teams, parish pastoral councils and commissions are at the ready for the material from the synod to decide what pastoral actions to take,” he said.

Dismissing the need for further consultation, Archbishop Eamon said he would be “disappointed” to return to Ireland and hold “more talking shops”. 

“I think there is enough in this synod to be establishing family support systems, support structures for marriage preparation, for the initial years of marriage and for families in difficulty,” he said.

Archbishop Eamon also said he wanted to put into place “a network of families” as suggested by Indonesian and Indian bishops at the synod. 

The archbishop insisted that after much reflection he had been “convinced” that the future agents of family ministry in Ireland “will be other families”.

“We somehow need to find ways of empowering young couples, with their young families to become agents of the new evangelisation and family support for other families. I see a very joined up thinking of family catechesis, family support, the new evangelisation and the establishment of parish pastoral councils throughout Ireland who are actively involved in pastoral ministry to other families. 

“There is loads there for us to be getting on with and we ought to hit the ground running,” he said. 

Even though I’ve worn eyeglasses since I was a child, I’ve always taken my eyesight for granted. I remember when I was young going to Mass with my parents and hearing in the readings – especially the Gospel – about people who were blind and who sought healing from Christ.

I often reflected on how debilitating it must be to be blind. Close your eyes for a moment and experience the darkness: imagine getting up and walking around, trying to find your way around your home, trying to complete basic household chores. Imagine that this is your daily reality. And then contemplate the fact that 39 million people live with the crippling consequences of blindness. And then think that – for at least for 80% of people – the suffering and isolation is curable.

I say I’ve always taken my eyesight for granted. That came to a shuddering halt when I was diagnosed with glaucoma two years ago. Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness and there is no cure and vision lost cannot be restored. 

No symptoms

There are no symptoms – my glaucoma was detected during a routine medical check-up and I was quickly prescribed with medication. With regular check-ups and assiduous adherence to my medication regime, my condition will not deteriorate and further eyesight loss – while possible – is unlikely.

It has been a worrying period and one that was to the forefront of my mind when aid agency Sightsavers invited me to travel to Tanzania to see the vital work they are doing. By chance, my association with Sightsavers goes back a long way. When I was in college, I worked for a summer going door-to-door trying to solicit donations to fund the amazing work that the charity does in the developing world.

Tanzania is an assault on the senses: as soon as I arrived in Dar es Salaam airport I knew I was in a different world. I have never been to East Africa before and the chaotic hustle and bustle was something to behold.

As we travelled east along the Morogoro highway, the terrain became increasingly remote and increasingly beautiful.

My first stop was Mtibwa district hospital, I was stunned by the hundreds of people who were queuing, many of them waiting for surgery. At the nearby community centre, there were even more people being pre-screened.

I felt that I had been invited in to a privileged space. I met and spoke with so many people who had been blind for many years, some had lost the hope of ever seeing again.

Yet, the thing that struck me was the quiet acceptance: if being blind is difficult in Ireland, it is a hell in the developing world. Absolutely nothing is in place to make life easier. And, if one is unable to work, then one is unable to earn money. There is no safety net, no disability allowance and no blind pension.

Isolation

Time and again, people told me that one of the most difficult things to come to terms with was the social and economic isolation caused by their blindness. There was frustration about having to stay at home all day, often alone. The lack of ability to earn any money brought its own humiliation too.

And the sad thing – the maddening thing – is that the simple cataract operation costs as little as €36.

It was fascinating to journey with people from initial pre-screening and diagnostics, through to surgery to the following day when they waited patiently to have their bandages removed and – hopefully – their sight restored.

Everyone was extraordinarily gracious and welcoming. At times, I felt like I was an intruder: I stood before the patient as the bandages were removed. Often I was one of the first people that they had seen in many years. A fact evidenced by the amusement on their face as they pointed at me and said in Swahili “mzungu” meaning white person. At least it was ample proof that the operation was successful if they could see my pale skin!

“It’s a miracle,” one woman told me. And it certainly was. I felt during the week in Tanzania that I had witnessed dozens of miracles. Oftentimes when we give to charity or aid agencies, it can appear that the money is going in to a bottomless pit. In Tanzania, I saw the concrete and decisive change a small donation to Sightsavers can make to a person’s life.

Michael Kelly travelled to Tanzania with Sightsavers. www.sightsavers.ie

‘I had faith in God that one day I would see again’

Forty-year-old Joyce John has an infectious laugh and a smile that would warm the hardest of hearts. Seeing her joy as she waited patiently outside Mtibwa hospital in the blazing sun, it’s hard to believe that she’s been blind for 25 years.

She had been accompanied to the hospital by her daughter Maria who was carrying her son Raphael Shabani in a sling on her back. Joyce had bilateral cataract for 25 years. Her sight deteriorated to a point where all she could make out was rough shapes, light and dark shading, but all detail was gone.

Since her marriage broke up she has lived with her younger sister, her three daughters and two grandchildren. Her sister and daughter share responsibility for earning the money for the whole family, working as day time house maids.

Joyce and Maria had travelled by motorbike to the outreach, a three hour journey over rough terrain. “I had faith in God that one day I would see again.” Ahead of her surgery, Joyce said “I am really excited to see my grandchildren for the first time and my daughter Maria.

Huge hug

“I love Maria so much and the first thing I want to do when my sight is restored is give her a huge hug. Maria takes care of me and it was Maria who brought me here today.

“I’m not at all afraid of the surgery. If I can go through labour four times, I can do this,” she joked.

Maria revealed some of the struggles that her mother’s condition has caused. “It has been a very difficult year for us. There has been a lot of sadness. I felt very sad for my mum. When our father left us, we sold our plot of land and have been using the money from this to cover our costs at this time. I felt so responsible for her. When I was away from the house I knew she would find it difficult to manage and I felt guilty not being there with her. I worked very hard to raise money to eat and pay the rent for mum. While I was working mum was trying to mind Raphael. But now that Raphael is starting to move, it’s too dangerous for mum to mind him because she can’t cope.

“A complete person is a person with eyes. Without eyes you cannot work. You cannot live if you cannot work,” Maria adds.

I met with Joyce the day after her surgery. We waited patiently for the bandages to be removed from her eyes – it’s a tense moment. Sometimes while the cataract surgery is successful, there is an underlying eye condition. It sometimes happens that a patient will not be able to see. However, the moment the bandages came off, the joy and delight on Joyce’s face was a sight to behold. She looked around almost not believing what she was seeing but taking it all in.

“I am so very happy. Truly I didn’t expect it. God is great. I can see. Oh wow, the world is really like this? Today the world is new!” 

Then she laughed and said: “I didn’t expect to see a white person. Can I tell you it has been a very long time since I have seen a white person.”

‘Is it really true that I can see again?’

Ibrahim Ally (69) lost his left eye many years ago. He lost the sight in his right eye due to cataracts two years ago.

“Before I lost my sight I used to farm maize and rice. My family now do all the farming and I feel bad that I can’t make a contribution. Sometimes I will go with my family to the fields just so I am not alone all day in the house, but I feel bad that I cannot help them,” he said.

But Ibrahim gives some insight in to the isolation many blind people feel in the developing world. “Most of the time I stay at home all day. My grandchildren have started to repair bicycles at our house so when people come to get their bikes fixed I can have a chat with them. I feel very lucky to have this company,” he said.

After his bandages were removed, Ibrahim initially seemed underwhelmed. “Very good, very good,” was his simple reply, but as the realisation dawned on him, his excitement grew. As the doctor cleaned his eye with cotton wool Ibrahim kept thanking him  –“thank you doctor, thank you. Is it really true that I can see again? I feel so blessed today. Thank you.”

Then turning to his nephew with a massive smile on his face and clearly enjoying his improved vision he said: “I can see your eyebrow, really, I can see the hairs in your eyebrow.”

After the surgery, I travelled the short distance with Ibrahim to meet his family and friends in the nearby village. To see him walking unaided down the road and greeting his neighbours was very moving.

“I can’t almost believe it, I can see again,” he said. “I am so grateful to the doctors, and so grateful to God for this blessing.” As we sat with his family, they told me how happy they were for him. “I will be able to help with the farming again,” Ibrahim told me. “The gift of my sight is amazing.”

‘I find God in helping the poor’

Sr Dementina Kibua has been a nun for 36 years and has spent her entire ministry working as a nurse with some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. She is a theatre nurse assisting with the cataract surgery. “We go to where the need is greatest in the community and because we travel we reach more people”, according to Sr Dementina.

While she is based in the Morogoro Regional Hospital, Sr Dementina travels regularly to work in outreach clinics. “In the Regional Hospital, we get a lot of eye-care work done but we simply don’t reach the volume of people that turn up at the outreaches. This is because it is difficult for many people to reach the hospital. For many it is simply too far away and is too expensive for people to afford the cost of travel”.

Sr Dementina admits that the huge numbers of people who turn up at the outreaches is a challenge. “It is hard work, very long hours and at the end of the day you do feel tired. But I feel very fulfilled and happy to do this work. Imagine if we came here and found no-one! That would be a failure. 

“The large number of patients arriving every day gives me courage and the energy to work hard,” she adds.

Sr Dementina dreams big. “For Tanzania I dream that one day we will have all the eye equipment we need to support eye surgeries appropriately. I also hope that we can have more outreaches across the country.”

Her work in helping the blind see is the key to her vocation. “I find God in my work with the patients and in helping the poor. A key aim of the work of the Church is to help the poor and the elderly. This work lets me do this.”

‘When a blind person can see, that comforts me the most’

Dr Sencodri Njau is a cataract surgeon and regional eye care co-coordinator for Morogoro. To describe him as a busy man would be an understatement.

He literally walked out of the operating theatre having completed a cataract surgery, spoke to us for ten minutes and walked back into the operating room to start another surgery.

“This outreach has been an enormous success. We expected 2,000 people to arrive for screening and so far over 4,000 people have arrived. 

“We believe this is as a result of two things:

“Firstly, the regional government decided to support the outreach by investing in corrective lenses for people who need them. This meant we could encourage people to attend the eye screening by explaining that if they need glasses, the glasses will be provided free of charge. 

“Secondly, we improved our advertising strategy. On this occasion we used two radio stations instead of one and the additional station, Planet Radio, is very entertainment-focused so has a very young audience. I believe this resulted in us getting our message that the outreach was going to take place out to more people.”

He is grateful for Sightsavers’ invaluable support. “Sightsavers is the most stable partner we have and has been instrumental in helping to ensure significant improvements in eye care for the people of Morogoro Region. 

“It’s a strong partnership especially in relation to the outreach work. 

“In addition to covering the costs of all the surgeries that take place over the course of the outreach, Sightsavers cover the cost of food, accommodation and transport for the eye-care team”.

Dr Njau is clearly a driven man. “I was not happy seeing people needlessly blind. I felt their needs were not being served well and I knew I could do something that would make a difference.

“I enjoy my work. 

“When you are responsible for restoring sight, when a person can see again after a long time, that comforts me the most.”

Exorcists tend to be decidedly tight lipped about their curious work. 

Although, perhaps that’s for good reason.

Books such as The Exorcist and its 1973 on-screen adaptation can unfairly sensationalise ‘possession’ and its effects.

Exorcists are keen too not to draw any unwarranted attention to the ‘possessed’ for fear they would be unfairly made subjects of public curiosity.  

Fr José Antonio Fortea Cucurull, however, has no qualms about speaking publically about his experience fighting evil ‘demons’ as one of Spain’s leading exorcists.

When it comes to selecting priests to become exorcists, the world renowned expert in demonology has particularly strong views. 

Acknowledging the importance of a stable spiritual life for any exorcist, Fr Fortea insisted that common sense should be the priority for bishops in selecting priests to tackle demon spirits.

“I would suggest to a bishop to find a priest with common sense. If the priest has a very good spiritual life that is wonderful, it’s very important, but common sense is the first condition for somebody who has to discern what is demonic and what is not. Common sense cannot be learned from a book,” he told The Irish Catholic.

Prejudices

Noting that it was “important not to have prejudices, to be neutral and to try to be open to the possibility of demons doing something within a person”, Fr Fortea warned that potential exorcists should at the same time “not think that everything is demonical”. 

“Most of the time what happens around us is just nature,” he said.

Fr Fortea is outspoken too about the situation in Ireland, urging Church leaders here to train more exorcists.

Given that every diocese is required by law to have an exorcist, there should be at least 26 in Ireland today. The bishop may also delegate the role to other priests if he so wishes.

Irish exorcists, however, tend to shun the limelight, preferring to conduct their business away from prying eyes.

Dublin based Vincentian priest Fr Pat Collins is perhaps the most prominent cleric in the field and has been called in to deal with many cases of demonic disturbance around the country.

But how does one become an exorcist in the first place? 

Fr Fortea, himself an experienced exorcist and priest of the Diocese of Alcala de Henares in Madrid, said the best training he could suggest for a priest would be to observe as many exorcisms as possible, provided they were conducted by experienced exorcists. 

“There are things you cannot be taught from a book,” he said, warning that trainee exorcists should witness between 10 and 20 exorcisms before conducting one themselves.  

Fr Fortea’s own interest in demonology was peaked when, as a newly ordained priest, he was asked by his bishop to specialise in exorcism while undertaking further study.

Given his studies up to date had focused on Church history, the bishop’s request came as a surprise to the young Fr Fortea, who initially resisted. The bishop’s insistence, however, meant he had no choice.

Upon completion of his studies, which included spending time with famed Vatican exorcist Fr Gabriele Amorth who is reputed to have cleansed tens of thousands of demonic possessions, Fr Fortea was the only exorcist in Spain. 

New cases began to flood in every day and Fr Fortea eventually came to “accept” that this type of work was his “destiny”.

“I never thought as a seminarian, before that or even in my first year as a priest that I would dedicate my life to this,” he said.

Starting out in his unique career, Fr Fortea insisted that he was never frightened. He had watched film’s like The Exorcist and so was “curious” to see what might happen when faced with the experience in real life.

Any “spectacular” preconceptions of 360 degree head spinning or levitation he may have had, however, were swiftly expelled after witnessing 13 exorcisms in Rome under Fr Amorth.

Fr Fortea said that while possessed people may become aggressive, shout, cry and tremble while the exorcism is taking place, he has not experienced “much more” than that.

He rejected too the notion that the possessed person may make predictions, but he has “never heard a true prophesy” in all his years of work. Exorcisms can take various forms, Fr Fortea explained. 

He uses a combination of prayer, the invoking of saints and specific scriptural references in an attempt to “cast out” evil spirits from possessed souls.

Fr Fortea differentiated between “full possession” and “people who suffer from demonical influences”.

In Spain, he would typically see up to six new cases of “fully possessed” people annually. However, he could deal with more than 100 cases of “demonical influence” each year.

Full exorcism is not required in the case of demonical influence, Fr Fortea said, noting that he blesses these people and prays for them instead.

Such people, he noted, may begin to tremble or experience an oppressive feeling “but nothing more”.

“That is a demonical influence. It is not normal that I pray for somebody and they feel something inside their bodies.

“If that happens there is influence from the dark world inside that person and they need to pray, to change their lives, to approach God, and it will disappear,” he said.

Fr Fortea dedicates “hundreds”, if not “thousands” of hours to praying for such people each year “because it works”.

The amount of times he prayers varies from case to case but eventually he says, they “improve” or “become free”.

Turning to how people become possessed in the first place, Fr Fortea said that “most of the temptations in the world come from our heart”. “Even if demons didn’t exist, evil would still remain,” he added.

Noting that the “temptations from our world and the culture we live in. can lead us to evil”, Fr Forte insisted that “only a small number of temptations come from demons”.

What concerns the experienced exorcist, however, “is not so much the actions of the devil but the secularisation of society”. 

“The protagonist of history is human beings. History is in the hands of man,” he warned.

Pope Francis and his early frequent references to the Devil 

The Devil was a subject broached surprisingly frequently by Pope Francis in the early stages of his Pontificate.

The Pope’s preaching, it seemed, was much like his renewed approach to the papacy – unfamiliar. 

In true Latin American style, Pope Francis departs from the preaching trends in the Church of the west which is at times silent about the Devil or reduces him to a mere metaphor.

Theology’s treatment of evil today, by and large, trivialises the Devil. However, it seems Pope Francis wants to call everyone back to face the reality of evil and educate them on how exactly to confront ‘Satan’.

Not a myth

One thing is certain. For this Pope, the Devil is not a myth, but a real person.

In one of Francis’ early morning homilies in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae where he lives, the Pope insisted that the Devil was responsible for the persecution of Christians in the world today.

The path of persecution “is a consequence of the hatred of the world and the prince of this hatred in the world,” he warned.

Insisting that dialogue “doesn’t work” with the Devil, Pope Francis said “the only defence is the word of God, humility and meekness”.

“These are the weapons that the prince of the world, the spirit of the world does not tolerate,” the Pope said, because he “makes proposals” for vanity, riches and worldly power.

Pope Francis also insisted that the Devil hates Christians because they “have been saved”.

Resurrection

With his death and resurrection, Christ “ransomed” Christians and all humanity from worldly power and the Devil’s grasp, the Pope said.

From his preaching it is clear Francis not only feels it is important to speak about the Devil, he believes it is essential to advise the faithful on how to combat such evil too. 

Arming themselves with humility and meekness, according to the Pope, means Catholics can be confident that the power of God will always triumph over that of Satan, good over evil and love over hatred. 

As the First Letter of St John states: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the Devil’s work” (1 John 3:8).

The Church’s teaching on evil

“Behind the disobedient voice of our first parents,” according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy”. 

“Scripture and the Church’s tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called ‘Satan’ or the ‘Devil’,” the Church’s key teaching document says.

The Church teaches that God, in the beginning, created Satan as a good angel. 

According to the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215: “The Devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own actions.”

Satan comes from the Hebrew word for ‘the opposer’, while Devil is derived from the Greek diabolos, ‘the slanderer’.

There are numerous references to Satan, otherwise known as the Devil, throughout the Scriptures.

We are told in Matthew 25: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels’.”

Darkness

Likewise, Peter writes: “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to Hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). 

The Gospel of John adds: “The one who does what is sinful is of the Devil, because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the Devil’s work” (1 John 3:8).

Based on the teaching and example of Jesus in the Scriptures, the Church has always maintained that the Devil is a real creature, rather than a mythical personification of evil.

The Church’s teaching on the subject is clear from its liturgy. At baptism, those to be baptised are called upon to reject Satan, his works, and his empty promises. The Church too provides an official rite of exorcism, which presupposes the existence of the Devil.

The Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship in 1975 issued a document called Christian Faith and Demonology explaining the Church’s teaching on the subject. This document quotes Pope Paul VI’s teaching regarding the devil:

“He who refuses to recognise its existence, or whoever makes of it a principle in itself which does not have, like every creature, its origin in God, or who explains it as a pseudo-reality, a conceptual and imaginary personification of the unknown causes of our ills, departs from the integrity of biblical and ecclesiastical teaching.” 

Neither exegetes nor theologians can neglect this caution, the document warns.

God, according to Church teaching, created the Devil as good, punished him for his sin and allows his present activity. 

“It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity,” the Catechism asserts, adding, however that “in everything God works for the good with those who love Him”.

Four years, almost to the day, since she retired after 14 momentous years as eighth President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, devout and questioning Catholic, stateswoman, peacemaker, Pope Francis admirer, qualified Canon lawyer, wife, mother and grandmother, is relishing the freedom that comes from being a private citizen again while being forever grateful for the privilege of serving as elected Head of State.

Well, as private as any former president can be, one supposes. 

She has more free time with husband Martin and her family including their two year old grandson.

Gone is the 24/7 personal protection, Mrs McAleese is driving herself again although she loves all the walking in Rome where she has spent several periods between other commitments acquiring a Licentiate in Canon Law at the Gregorian University.

She is generous with her time when we meet in the comfortable modest-sized apartment she shares with Martin in Dublin.

In the second half of 2016 she plans to return to the Gregorian to complete her doctoral thesis in Canon Law, entitled ‘The Christening Contract’, which examines what the 1983 Code of Canon Law says about the rights of and obligations to children.

Her research has revealed inter alia how the Church, for all the darkness of recent decades was a champion of children’s rights in medieval times by helping to stamp out arranged marriages which still remain prevalent in some cultures today.

Issues

Above all, Mary McAleese is now properly enjoying the freedom to speak her mind in a way a president is constitutionally precluded from doing and to choose “the issues that affect faith I may or may not wish to comment on”.

Ever the academic at heart she is thrilled to have been able to return to her books and accept invitations (from the literally thousands of requests of all sorts she has received from far and near since she left office) to teach at such distinguished Catholic institutions as Boston College and the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

In January she’ll commence a six months engagement as Distinguished Professor teaching Irish history and law at the Centre for Irish Studies, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Britain’s largest Catholic university.

She sees seats of Catholic higher learning as places of intellectual ferment where dialogue can thrive between faith and reason, seeking to eradicate the ignorances the religious and secular words often share.

Such is her workrate that within less than a year of leaving office in 2011, as a scholar of Canon Law, she wrote a book “as one of Christ’s faithful”, as she put it in an introductory note (Quo Vadis?, Columba), which examined collegiality – the sharing of power and responsibility between the Pope and the college of bishops.

She showed that while Vatican II defined the Church as the People of God and the Code of Canon Law stipulated that the faithful have “at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church” there “is no forum in the Church for determining the views of the People of God on the subject of governance or collegiality or virtually anything else for that matter”.

As eloquent and as compelling as ever her strong faith shines through. “I see myself as a member of the Church trying my best to be a member of that Church, trying to live the faith that I inherited and grew up with and have decided to remain with.”

Yet, despite this and the Church’s strong opposition to same-sex marriage, she believes “it would have been an act of craven and unchristian cowardice” to have stayed out of the referendum debate. Though clearly at odds with Pope Francis and the Church, she insists: “My views are founded emphatically in the Gospel. That’s where they come from. They don’t come from some weird Godless secular world. 

“What infuses me, what is the essence of my being, is my faith in Christ. And it is the love of Christ and his offer of mercy to the world, the sense that every single person is a child of God, it is that which infuses me, gives me the outlook I have on the world.”

And that, she goes on, “is the outlook I have on our gay citizens” pointing out that it must have come as no surprise that she became involved on the ‘yes’ side because she has been supporting gay campaigns since she joined David Norris and others campaigning for homosexual law reform 40 years ago.

Her son, Justin, a Ryanair executive who is gay, gave her “an even greater insight” into the prejudices confronting gay persons though she has had numerous gay friends for a long time.

“I am ashamed, frankly, of my Church’s failure to be a champion of gay rights and of women’s rights. I am ashamed of my Church’s involvement historically in anti-Semitism”.

But what would being “a champion of gay rights” look like for the Church?

“That would be very simple. It [the Church] wouldn’t necessarily have to be a champion of gay marriage. I’m quite happy for the Church to stay away from civil marriage and let the State provide for that – that is not the issue.”

It would mean “not adhering to views from the Old Testament about homosexuality, which have long since been discredited by medical science” and being “actively engaged in today’s world with all the information that it has [about homosexuality.]

“It would mean looking at the language that the Church uses to see whether that language is capable of hurt, and of conducing to homophobia, which it most certainly does”.

“I see my Church as a major conduit for homophobia which is toxic, a form of hatred that has nothing to do with Christ and is unchristian.”

Responsibility

She would “like to see the Church take responsibility for the extent to which its words and its language conduces to homophobia” citing such words as “evil” in relation to homosexual acts and “disordered”. These are not “ancient” words, she says, but were written by Pope Benedict himself: “It is not enough to say we love the sinner but not the sin.”

She drew a parallel between homophobia and sectarianism in Northern Ireland recalling an inter-Church study on sectarianism she co-led which found that words which were not intended to cause hatred or to make people feel hated had that effect.

“The target of such language is entitled to reply and say how they feel when they hear those words and if they say those words make them feel hated, belittled or instil fear in them then those who utter those words in the first place have to listen very carefully”. 

Mrs McAleese says it’s not that long ago since the Church “had to acknowledge that its historical teaching on Jews had been atrocious and undoubtedly a major contribution to the cultures of anti-Semitism all over the Christian world”.

She cites, for example, Jews being herded into ghettoes in the Papal States and forced to wear yellow markings in Rome.

In her view there are parallels between Catholic treatment of the Jews that fuelled anti-Semitism and teaching on homosexuality that still contributes to homophobia today.

“The Church has to be able to say that at times, in God’s name, we got some things badly wrong and bad things happened. The Church is not good at saying we managed to get things wrong and doing something about it.”

She defends and elaborates on her recent statement that Church teaching on homosexuality is “wrong”.

“I believe the Church’s teaching on homosexuality to be wrong. Period. I am not going to fudge my language just because somebody doesn’t like the language I am going to use. I am as entitled to stand up and state it to be wrong just as someone else is entitled to stand up and say that I am wrong. That is fine.”

Freedom of speech

Asked about journalist Bruce Arnold’s criticism during the referendum, that she had broken the convention that former presidents don’t get involved “on any matter that affects the public”, she is dismissive: “I firmly believe in freedom of speech as long as I have power of speech.”

Mary McAleese is a great admirer of Pope Francis because he is encouraging debate in the Church that, she believes, has not been seen since Vatican II, more than half a century ago.

“We thought there was room for debate after Vatican II but then came John Paul II and Benedict and we got this line about obedience and not challenging the Magisterium, without it being explained to us that obedience is not the same as abject and craven silence in the face of things that are manifestly incorrect.”

In support she cites the criticism Pope Francis himself has levelled against the Roman Curia and the Synod of Bishops.

Mrs McAleese describes Francis as “by far the most intriguing Pope of my lifetime” and after just two and a half years “his greatest legacy to the Church has been his welcoming of debate after the stultifying and suffocating imposed silence” of his two immediate predecessors.

Their time saw “this culture of imposed silence, this idea that unless you conformed 100% to the Church’s Magisterium in everything you said, you were expected to remain silent.”

“The Catholic intellectual world has been suffocated by this inability to talk, debate, and discuss, to push the envelope without being seen as being heretical or schismatic.”

She said Francis’ “wonderful gift to the Church is to welcome the debate that has been going on any way in all the quiet spaces where two or more were gathered, and festering in frustration, and he has just let it out and that is a joy”.

“I am more comfortable with the chaos of debate than in the festering suffocation of silence. I think Francis is allowing the Church to breathe and that is a wonderful thing. I don’t agree with him on everything but I really like the man.”

Mrs McAleese recalled that with her husband Martin she watched Pope Francis come out on the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica for the first time – as this writer did – and was won over “by his big smile and buona sera”.

“I think from that moment he won over the world and people love him. I love him. I like the fact that I could have a rattling good argument with him, he doesn’t mind argument at all.”

When it is put to her that there are some who fear that Francis’ openness to debate may sow seeds of confusion in the Church, she replies: “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. They probably said that about Christ too.”

She also praises Francis for his humble and earthy style.

“He’s not afraid to admit mistakes and is not trying to look like a walking saint every day of the week.”

Mrs McAleese commends his ecological encyclical Laudato Si’ as “a wonderful document that set an agenda for the care of the earth as a Christian duty” and his setting up of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

I wondered had she been in touch with the Pope since her letter to him two years ago which some believe contributed to the lifting of all sanctions on Marist priest Fr Sean Fagan.

“I communicate with the Pope occasionally. For example, I have raised with him the problem of youth suicide and self-harm since the Church provides educational services to a majority of children in Ireland and some 50 million worldwide.

“It has an important role to play in helping create a culture that supports good mental health. I have raised the Church’s support for corporal punishment of children which is set out in the Catechism and which the Committee on the Rights of the Child regards as a violation of children’s rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which the Holy See is a state party.”

She recalls with satisfaction that Pope Francis has set up a working party on corporal punishment chaired by Peter Saunders under the auspices of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

One issue Pope Francis has so far done nothing on, Mrs McAleese believes, is the issue of women in the Church, apart from saying that the Church must do something about it.

Her starting point is “my Church’s long history of misogyny, it has never been a champion of women” and she traces this back to the legacy of old Roman law’s patria potestas (power of a father) which treated wives and mothers as servile second class persons.

Misogyny

She can think of numerous examples of what she considers misogyny ranging from a 19th-Century ban on women singing in church choirs, to the description of women as “objects of suspicion” in the 1917 Code of Canon Law to a current Vatican rule which gives bishops the power to permit girl altar servers but parish priests the ultimate power to ban them.

Mrs McAleese says Mary, Mother of God, whom she is named after having been born on the Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help 64 years ago, “is more complex than the idealised version of the Virgin Mary”.

Rather she was “a terrified 14-year-old child” whose obedience to God expressed in the words “behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be according to your word” only came after she had plucked up the courage to question the Angel Gabriel and receive his assurance. “There is a process here and we tend to have that process edited out.”

Mrs McAleese is telling us that the Virgin Mary, child and all that she was, was far from silent and there are lessons for us.

She favours the ordination of women priests but I put it to her, as a senior priest told me, St John Paul II came as close as he possibly could to declaring this to be an infallible teaching and did it not have to be accepted?

Mrs McAleese: “It is either infallible or it is not.” She said she “is obliged to accept the infallible teaching of the Church” but she did not accept that the teaching on the exclusion of women from the priesthood is infallible doctrine and pointed out that there are different views on this teaching.

She explained she had “no problem being obedient to the teaching that Christ is the son of God, it wouldn’t occur to me to question it”.

Doctrine

Referring to St John Paul II’s teaching on the ordination of women, Mrs McAleese said: “If he wanted to make that an infallible doctrine he only had to put one line into the text. He knew Canon Law as well as anybody and it says if [a doctrine] is going to be infallible the Pope has to say it is infallible. He didn’t do that.”

The question she asked herself subsequently was ‘if he had been so sure why did he not say it was infallible?’ and she thought the answer is “he wasn’t sure it was infallible”.

“The doctrine of women’s exclusion from priesthood is not an infallible doctrine currently. It may be someday and if that happens I would have serious difficulty with that.”

Asked if she was ever tempted to look to another denomination, she admitted to “looking at options” regularly but “had never found anything to attract me because the Catholic Church is woven into me and I relate to it and for all its messiness it calls me home”.

Pressed why she apparently did not accept the requirement in Canon Law that the Christian faithful follow with obedience the teaching of the Church she replied that some people “erroneously interpreted this as meaning silence” and that “not all the teachings are necessarily correct”.

I wondered what she would tell the Pope if she had five minutes to advise him on how to address the problem she identified in Quo Vadis? – the absence of a forum for the People of God to have their voice heard.

She says the key to finding a voice for the People of God at all levels is to have “formal standing structures that are active and working continually to set agendas.”

The Church has a lot to learn, she says, from, for example, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the ongoing British–Irish Inter-governmental conference enshrined in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Vatican II had “died on the vine” so given the opportunity she’d advise Pope Francis to consider standing advisory synods of priests, religious and laity at diocesan and national level and of bishops, priests, religious and laity at the level of the Universal Church.

Mrs McAleese “accepts the teaching that legislation and governance is always going to be in the hands of the Pope and bishops who are always going to be male until we get over this argument over whether women can or cannot be admitted to the priesthood”.

“But now we need advisory talkback facilities and those are best organised at diocesan, national and of course universal Church level.”

Like everyone else Mary McAleese is awaiting with keen interest Pope Francis’ response to the recent Synod on the Family.

She thinks it unlikely that Francis will simply publish the final synod report as an Apostolic Exhortation, points out that the synod is merely advisory and that the Pope has options that range from publishing his own motu proprio to appointing committees to further advise him.

Does she still meditate, I wonder? Mrs McAleese replies that she meditates for 20 minutes morning and evening every day. She doesn’t usually use texts but sometimes some of her favourite Psalms “as a trigger”.

“The kind of meditation I do is an emptying of the mind and sitting literally in the presence of God. Sometimes it is petitioning, chatting to God about things I need help with. I feel that God is always present, of course, but I use this time to make myself more present to God.”

And what is Mary McAleese’s concept of God? “I believe in God, a phenomenal source of this great renewable energy that is love that leads to mercy and forgiveness and the good things in this world. The force that can redeem and reach into the hardest of hearts and soften them, turn their faces to the sun and away from the darkness.

“I’d like to think God is some way beyond gender.

“God, the author in some way of creation, helps me to reach into parts of my being that sometimes I’d like not to confront, helps me to live with the messes, helps me to construct a vision for the present moment and for the future, and gives me strength to speak. It is important that God is not cross with me about the things I want to say.”

Peacemaker

Mary and Martin McAleese are both Redemptorist Oblates and the only non-family picture in their living room is that of one of Mary’s heroes, Fr Alec Reid CSsR, the late and great peacemaker.

“Fr Alec means so much to me and remains my inspiration, a great witness to Christ.”

His picture reminds Mary McAleese of his part and that of all the others who contributed to the ceasefires and Good Friday Agreement and of how significant an achievement they were against all the odds.

Mrs McAleese’s own contribution, with her husband, to creating conditions which have helped anchor the peace is recognised in the Mary McAleese Boyne Valley Bridge, a permanent memorial to her phenomenal efforts to promote peace and reconciliation through her mission of “Building Bridges” – the theme of her presidency.

“I never expected anything like this and I am very grateful.”

She hopes that all who cross the bridge “will remember the emotional, mental, and cultural bridges we have to cross to get beyond all the hatreds and prejudice.”

Reflecting on her presidential theme she says: “My view was that God placed me in this role to do something local for the place that I live”.

Mrs McAleese’s mission of building bridges had its apogee when she hosted the historic visit of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II whom she praises for wanting to contribute to the peace process “out of her deep sense of Christian conviction”.

“We both hoped that it would be a very healing time and it was. It was four days of healing.”

On the failure of the Stormont parties to make the Good Friday Agreement work well after 17 years, she’s anxious that people don’t lose perspective saying she never believed Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) would govern together in her lifetime.

She singles out Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, while recognising the work of Albert Reynolds and John Major before them, and others, “for the leadership it took to galvanise the yesness that was lurking in people’s souls but couldn’t get out”.

Mrs McAleese says “of course there will be further difficulties given the history” but the “frustration and impatience of people is a good thing because it sits on the backs of politicians who can overcome the latest problems”.

Looking ahead, Mary McAleese’s diary is full well into 2017 and her immediate priority is to undertake her engagement at St Mary’s University in London and then return to Rome to complete her doctoral thesis and publish accompanying books.

Retired heads of state or government of the calibre of Mary McAleese – once described by Forbes as one of the most powerful women in the world – receive numerous requests. So I was curious why Mrs McAleese, anxious as she is to finish her thesis, said yes to a request from Francis Campbell, Newry-born Vice-Chancellor of St Mary’s University and former British ambassador to the Holy See to join his campus at Twickenham. 

There turns out to be more to it than the fact that Mr Campbell is an old friend and has persuaded many big names, hers being the biggest, to join St Mary’s.

There is on Mrs McAleese’s part significant family connections and an admiration for a Catholic seat of learning with close Irish links and a record of service to both parts of our island.

System

Her cousin, Dr Jim O’Hara, who was brought up in the same street in Belfast founded the Centre for Irish Studies St Mary’s, Strawberry Hill, as it was then known and “this was the start of Irish history being taken very seriously by the British establishment scholarship system”.

Two other cousins, brothers John and Henry McGreevy, who became Christian Brothers, Br Bede and Br Fidelis, and educationists in Belfast and South Africa respectively, qualified in St Mary’s.

“I developed a heart for St Mary’s, it was always associated with Ireland, with education and with teaching and we owe so much to its teachers like Br Bede and Br Fidelis who transformed so many lives.”

As Ireland prepares for the respective centenaries of the Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme, Prof. McAleese is preparing to teach a history course in St Mary’s examining the 1916 period and “how the 1914-18 War has been brought into modern consciousness in Ireland and what kind of a contribution that may have made to the peace process”.

She’ll likely recall to students how she made history as president by honouring the too-long-forgotten Irish Great War dead both at Messines, Belgium (with Elizabeth II) and Gallipoli, Turkey. One expects there’ll be many students in St Mary’s University feeling excited to have such an eminent teacher at such an evocative time.

In all the talk nowadays about school patronage and divestment, it can be all too easy to forget how local schools are often cherished local institutions, dependent from their very beginnings on local initiative and effort.

Portlaoise’s Stewart Quinn hasn’t forgotten this, and when he was approached earlier this year to help record a Christmas CD for the band and choir of the soon-to-be closed Sacred Heart school, he thought the school could be a bit more ambitious.

“I was originally asked to produce a Christmas CD involving the school band and choir,” he told The Irish Catholic. “This was recorded in February, but I thought the school was missing an opportunity to showcase what the school’s ethos was about – I thought that should be showcased, and not just a Christmas CD.”

Sacred Heart National School is closing down next year, moving from central Portlaoise to a new site just off the Stradbally Road, where it will amalgamate with two other schools from the town: Scoil Mhuire, which like Sacred Heart is run by the Presentation Sisters, and the Christian Brothers-run St Paul’s.

“I felt as it was the end of an era we should mark it as such,” says Stewart, explaining that having opened in 1824 – before Catholic emancipation – Sacred Heart is Laois’ oldest school run by a religious order.

Originally, he says, the local parish priest invited three Carlow-based Presentation Sisters, Srs Magdalen Breen, de Chantal Wilmerding and Angela Mooney, from Carlow to set up a convent and school in the town, then called Maryborough. A local businessman donated a house and land, he says, explaining that “the idea was that they’d educate poor kids in Portlaoise, as there was no facility for that at the time”.

“215 people turned up on the first day of the school,” he says, “which at that stage was in the basement of the convent!”

Keen to do more to preserve the school’s memory than produce a Christmas CD, Stewart says, “I presented the idea of a book including archive photos rather than just ones from just this year.”

In the end, they’ve produced a 36-page book, which has, Stewart says, “some really, really fantastic photos”. Many of these, he says, are from the Terry Redmond collection which he says is “synonymous with Portlaoise”, although he didn’t limit himself to those, including, among others, prints from the National Library’s Eason collection.

To show how things have changed, he says, “we also photographed a lot of same places from the same spots – it shows how quickly things can fall into disrepair if not looked after”.

“The current photos are mostly buildings as they are and the students themselves,” he continues, saying “the idea was to kind of capture the present.  We approached it like a future history project – the Redmond photos are like what today’s photos will be like. This was our one chance to get it right.”

Stewart’s wife Ann-Marie took the current photos of “moments in the day summing up the essence of what the school is about”. Describing shots of teachers working closely with their students as “very fly on the wall, intimate, and right in amongst them”, he says “it almost gives you an opportunity to relive your old school days”.

The book will also include a contribution from students and teachers past and present, with poet, author and RTÉ presenter Pat Boran writing about how Portlaoise’s character will be effected by the departure of two schools from the town’s historical quarter.

It will also be accompanied by the CD that sparked the whole project. Recorded in February, the CD is, Stewart says, “made of Christmas songs and traditional Irish songs, attempting to capture the band as it is now in its 50th year”. 

An aural journey

It will also feature nursery rhymes and old religious songs from the infant classes as well as a ‘Day In The Life’ piece which he describes as “an aural journey through the day with all the sounds of the school”.

“One of the school’s teachers,” he notes, “was in the original band in the 60s and 70s and is now band leader. She teaches music – recorder and violin.”

In working on the project, he says, he came across the sister who originally set up the school band and other impressive and much loved Presentation Sisters including Sr Anne Keating, who had been the school’s principal when he was a boy at St Paul’s.

Meeting such figures, he says, “led to the idea of doing interviews with Presentation Sisters and current and former teachers”. The book, he explains, includes a code giving access to an exclusive dedicated YouTube channel where such audio-material can be found. This can keep being added to, he says, explaining that “it keeps it current, so it becomes a much broader project, looking into the history of the town and the kids there”.

The project will be officially launched at a presentation on December 1, when audio/visual segments will be interspersed between performances by the band and choir. 

The event will be live broadcast by Midlands 103 and covered by Joe Little and others. Starting at the school, the event will then move to the nearby Ss Peter and Paul’s Church, with which the school has close ties.

A substantial number of sisters with links to the school will be there, Stewart says, explaining that the event will be open to anyone who attended Sacred Heart – “which is pretty much everyone over the age of 50 in the town” – all of whom will be invited to “look around the school for a last time as it will be gone come June”.

Given that Stewart himself never attended the school, his affection for the place might seem strange, but he says that he started school in St Paul’s when he moved from Dublin at the age of seven, the same age as his Sacred Heart-attending daughter. 

“Though I tried, I couldn’t remember my junior days in school,” he says. “I hope my daughter will remember. Part of the idea behind this is that she could hang on to her memories – the building will probably be gone.

“I felt that once I put my child into the school I was part of the town for the first time,” he continues. “The teachers are so loving to the kids – it’s unspoken but so clear. 

“We tend to look back fondly on our past, and sometime embellish and dream up our memories, but would be great to record this as a kind of time capsule how things really were.

“For all the faults we’ve had over the years, the teachers  were always aspiring to the same thing in the vast majority of cases and sometimes that gets a little bits lost,” he says.