Michael KellyHas consumerism hardened our hearts?
It took the death of a homeless man in the shadow of the Dáil to put the homelessness crisis on the political agenda. It’s both heart-breaking and maddening that Jonathan Corrie died huddled in a doorway in the early hours of what advertisers dubbed ‘cyber Monday’ – the day we were being encouraged to spend millions shopping online.
The fearless campaigner for the homeless Sr Stanislaus Kennedy – who has worked with this vulnerable section of society for decades – has said she has never seen homelessness as bad.
There’s a depressing lack of political will to tackle the issue: long-term solutions are vital. But, in the short-term, there is a lifesaving need to provide emergency accommodation for those who are sleeping rough in our towns and cities, particularly as temperatures continue to drop.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has shown courageous leadership in making available a diocesan property to act as an emergency shelter. Not for the first time, the Church is to the fore in tackling what is fast becoming a national emergency.
Heroes
Heroes like St Stan, Fr Peter McVerry and Bro. Kevin Crowley have spent decades dealing with those who our political elite – and often wider society – don’t really care about.
Many of the people who are sleeping rough in our towns and cities suffer from a variety of problems: mental wellbeing is often an issue, substance abuse can sometimes be part of the problem, estrangement from family and community are an ever-present reality.
These people, made in God’s image and likeness and cherished by him, live on the ‘existential margins’ that Pope Francis talks about when he speaks of a Church that is poor with the poor.
The Church is doing tremendous work to alleviate real suffering. But we must do more. As well as material resources, the wider Church and parish communities must continue to be the persistent – even niggling – voice pricking the conscience of Ireland and confronting our society with the way we treat vulnerable members of our community.
We need to ask are we beginning not to care about each other any more? Do those of us with jobs and money regard those without as a little less human than ourselves? Do we begin not to notice them, to harden our hearts, even to blame them for their own hardship?
The death of Jonathan Corrie is a national shame in a country that has known a lot of shameful episodes. From our vantage point we look back at the 1930s, the 1950s, we wonder how those who went before us tolerated the widespread abuse of children, the stigmatisation and dehumanisation of unmarried mothers. Twenty or thirty years from now, I wonder how Ireland will look back on us.