Derek Hutch Hatred and violence must find no shelter amongst communities, the priest at the funeral of murder victim Derek Hutch has warned.
Mr Hutch (27) was shot dead while he was sitting alone in a car at Bridgeview halting site in Ronanstown, west Dublin on Saturday January 20. He became the 14th victim of what Gardaí describe as the Hutch/Kinahan feud.
In his homily at the funeral Mass of Mr Hutch in Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Dublin’s Sean McDermott Street on Wednesday, Fr Michael Casey SDB described the killing as a “shocking, barbaric, violent, cowardly act”.
He told the mourners that “this reign of violence and total disrespect for human life carried out by people who have become soulless is frightening and leaves us all vulnerable.
“This spiral of violence, revenge, retaliation and the ensnarement of many in this web of what can only be described as evil has led to the destruction of the most precious gift – that of life itself and our call to be human,” Fr Casey said during the Mass.
He said that “those with hardened closed hearts have cut themselves of from life’s source, which is compassion, forgiveness, being reconciled. They have become living dead.
“They and their actions and the dark world they inhabit has no place in this sacred place nor indeed in this community. ‘Thou shall not kill’ remains, ‘thou shall not kill’,” Fr Casey said.
Referring to the cycle of violence that has plagued the local community in inner-city Dublin in recent years, Fr Casey said “this is a place and space where decent people try to live their lives as best they can with all its challenges, and they are many, in neighbourliness, in care and concern for each other, in living and letting live.
“Our faith in God, in each other, and in ourselves, makes us strong. Yes, we are a community that again has had to walk in darkness and in the shadow of death, but we like Derek have seen a great light. A light that shines, a light that is stronger than the darkness, a light that radiates healing love and drives out fear.”
Fr Casey, a Salesian missionary, recalled how the funeral Mass was celebrated on the Feastday of St Don Bosco who he deccribed as “the great friend of young people and their families, who was tireless in defending young people from exploitation and of offering them opportunities to fulfil their dreams.
“May his vision inspire and encourage us,” Fr Casey said.
Appealing for an end to violence, Fr Casey said: “let us choose and be builders of life in Derek’s memory, indeed in the memory of all who have died so often tragically, whose lives and stories are represented here in the many quilts placed around the church as part of the Family Network Service of Remembrance that is the tradition of help here every 1st of February,” Fr Casey said.