Brendan O’Regan
I picked a good week to dip in to iWitness, RTÉ 1’s nightly reflection programme, described as ‘the spirit of Ireland, one voice and one minute at a time’.
Bro. Anthony from Glenstal Abbey started the week with a poetic reflection on God’s work in Nature. Working in the forest he found that God speaks new things to us with every sunrise.
On Tuesday Patrick Muldoon, a young layman from Meath spoke of his work of evangelisation, aspiring to live his life with Christ as his model. Wednesday’s episode featured Mary Geraghty from Westmeath who had received the gift of knitting from God. Apart from knitting for her family as they were growing up, she also knitted for a variety of charities and we saw her working on some beautiful knitted figurines for the Christmas crib.
On Thursday David Saint from Maynooth spoke of the Irish Church Music Association Summer School (on now, July 6-9) and how music can be a powerful tool and servant of the liturgy.
Friday’s focus was on Sr Muriel Fetherston, who described how she was the first Irish person to join, in 1950, the Disciples of the Divine Master. Now the work involves perpetual adoration, taking care of elderly priests and having liturgical centres open to the public, work that brings ‘great satisfaction and joy’.
Last Saturday Jasper Rutherford from Antrim outlined his work organising the ‘Summer Madness’ multi-denominational youth festival. Here young people know that God loves them as they are, so there’s no need for pretence.
Last Sunday night Michael O’Meara from Tipperary town felt he was passing on something of God in himself to others by a particular work of service – facilitating those tracing their ancestors through church burial records.
Also last Sunday, both Sunday Sequence (BBC Radio Ulster) and Sunday Morning Live (BBC One) were still poring over the entrails of the Brexit vote. These were thorough discussions with a welcome diversity of opinion, often concentrating on the ethical as well as the political dimensions of the issue – for example concern over a possible rise in racism following the vote, though I’ve certainly noticed a rise in ageism, with some vocal young people blaming the elderly for the Leave vote.
One contributor on the former show thought it was hyperbole to make out that Britons had been robbed of their identity by the vote, but presenter Róisín McCauley thought that in the North of Ireland at least identity was a crucial issue.
There was also criticism of David Cameron for allowing himself to be excluded from EU meetings though for now the UK is still very much a member. Across both shows there was unhappiness with sensational media reporting, a fear of fragmentation, both of the EU and British society, and, despite differences, a sense of common humanity regardless of political structures.
Agenda
Back home the abortion bill promoted by Mick Wallace TD, though probably doomed to failure, gave some elements of the media another golden chance to promote an agenda of opposition to the Pro-Life (Eighth) Amendment. Stoically in the line of duty I sat through the Dáil ‘debate’ on Oireachtas TV and was disgusted to find, among the 18 who spoke, no TD supporting the rights of unborn children. Some, like Health Minister Simon Harris, spoke against the bill because it was unconstitutional, but I would have been more impressed had he objected because it was unjust, immoral or unethical.
The Government line seemed to be ‘Oh we’d love to support this but the nasty old Eighth Amendment won’t let us’. Newstalk’s Lunchtime last Friday recycled another story of ‘fatal foetal abnormality’ (of course it was one where a termination was done), when Amy Walsh, the mother in the case, added political advocacy to personal story and made a curious distinction between the ‘unborn who cannot live’ and the ‘life of the living’.
Minister Harris also appeared on a particularly biased Sunday Show on Newstalk last weekend.
On the pro-choice side to a greater or lesser degree were Harris and Ivana Bacik, while on the pro-life side there was… oh wait, there was no-one.
Guest presenter Mick Clifford didn’t compensate by offering challenging questions from the pro-life perspective, and in fact when Bacik said ‘in principle all of us support the need to legislate’, Clifford concurred – ‘in principle I think everybody would’ – factually wrong and totally partial, in my opinion.
Pick of the Week
Documentary On One: Tearoom, Taylor, Saviour, Spy
RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday, July 9, 2pm
Margaret Kearney Taylor was an elegant Irish émigré who helped orchestrate the escape route of Allied servicemen and Jews from Madrid during World War II.
Sunday Morning Live
BBC One Sunday, July 10, 10am
Naga Munchetty (pictured) and a panel of
guests discuss moral and ethical issues.
KATERI
EWTN Wednesday, July 13, 8.30 am and Wed (night) 3.30am
After witnessing the atrocities of war, a young, orphaned Mohawk girl embarks on a fervent journey of faith as a Catholic missionary for her people. An EWTN original movie.