“She’s a person with a painful past.”
Please give what you can to this legal fund for Cliona Ward.
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At the moment, this very long moment, there are many, many news stories that that will break your heart and make you ask what we’re trying to do here on earth. It’s relentless. People will try and tell you oh in the seventies there were nuclear was drills, that there was always a conflict in the Middle East, etc. A strange reaction, I find. Something diminished about people like that. A sort of dried blood vibe.
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I thought there was something brazen about the way all the world’s political leaders showed up for the pope’s funeral, showed up for the pageantry and wide lens shots, but ignored the simple asks of peace from Pope Francis, especially during the last year or so of papacy. I get upset when I think of his nightly calls to Holy Family Church in Gaza.
I’m being far too generous to a man who didn’t do enough, if anything at all, for victims of abuse and the LGBTQIA+ and women religious, but I believe the world lost something last week. That is a sentiment which may deeply offend you - and you’re allowed to feel that. What feels right for me doesn’t have to feel right for you. I do think what someone can represent - for better or worse, true or false - can be more important that who they actually are, were. Your legacy is shaped by people’s reactions, not necessarily your actions.
Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, whose debut novel Ordinary Saints is out now (I’ll be buying it this week and I can’t wait to read it, she’s an incredible writer) published an excellent piece last week following the death of the Pope, ‘I didn't kill Pope Francis’. It’s an excellent piece on Catholicism, the Church, Pope Francis’ tenure, the shortcomings, what he shunned, what he stood up for. If you’ve been confused by some people’s reaction to his death - my own for instance - I recommend reading it.
Without doubt, there are champagne corks popping in the Vatican tonight, and in episcopal palaces all over the western world. They’ve wanted him dead for years and now that he is, they have a better shot at rebuilding the repressive, reactionary, culture-war-waging, self-enriching church that they want. That’s bad news for Catholics and it’s bad news for all of us in an era of fascist resurgence when, despite his many failings, Francis was a powerful countervailing voice among world leaders.
‘I didn't kill Pope Francis’ by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin.
Also, worth listening to Niamh’s interview on RTÉ’s Arena about her novel and the canonisation process.
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I was thinking about the histrionics over Kneecap’s statements. Then I thought of Micheál Martin posing for photos with IDF soldiers, documented bastards, despite Ireland’s decades of solidarity with Palestine. Then Kier Starmer’s government targeting and demonising the disabled and normalising eugenics. The British Empire is always going to British Empire until the British Empire is over. We now have governments clamping down on freedom of a specific speech while letting racists march through our cities and endorsing so-called women’s right activists who are targeting the vulnerable. I hope the warm champagne they had outside court a few days ago tasted of urine.
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I saw a saying online recently which I sent to my sister immediately, an apparently Arabic phrase: “You murder the person and then show up to their funeral.” Nelson Mandela redeemed the 20th century. The next Nelson Mandela is no doubt part of an organisation that politicians currently call a terrorist group.
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People are getting brazen about being heartless. Proud of it. The other day, a woman at a fundraiser for the Special Olympics, I swear to God, said to me that a child with special need in a classroom who is dysregulated can ‘infect’ the classroom. Years ago another woman made the argument to me that these children hold back the other kids, citing her ‘bright’ younger relatives who are being robbed of the teacher’s attention. Sorry, but if you can’t handle doing some maths while someone is having a bit of a shout (see the conditions of employments for most retail and service workers) you probably weren’t destined for NASA.
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On the Irish Times website yesterday, in the business section, this headline: “Irish tech firms pivot to defence as EU re-arms”. The story was reprinted from The Financial Times. Sinister, isn’t it?
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In that piece I linked to earlier, Niamh writes about the church: “Why does it have to be like this? Why does the supposed church of the poor, the church of Saint Francis, the church of Jesus Christ, have to be like this? Surely there’s another way, if more of these men had the will or the courage to find it.”
I want to steal those words for everything right now. Why does it have to be like this? Surely there’s another way.
Please donate to the MSF Gaza Emergency Regional Fund.