Pity the people in positions of authority, especially if they’re in the public eye. Their every word is pored over, judgement is made on every off-the-cuff remark. As a result, many prominent people opt for the safest option.
Just one example. Most priests, in the course of most Masses, deliver a homily. This can be on passages from the Bible, but also from contemporary events. So what’s the line on the horrible events getting more horrible by the day in Gaza?
Well, it’s a bit like during the Troubles here: call for peace and reconciliation. There’s at least one catch with that: it stands aside from making any judgement as to who is responsible for what. And yet personal responsibility for our actions as individuals with choice has been and is the bed-rock of morality in the Catholic Church.
To lament all suffering is commendable, but isn’t there a case for declaring just who is responsible for most of the suffering? The Israel-Gaza situation begs for clear and resounding statements. While the killing inflicted on Israelis was surely unspeakably cruel, it sprang from years and decades of plunder and persecution of the Palestinian people.
But you’d better not say that, if you’re in the public eye. Such statements tend to be seized and pushed into the headlines. If a priest on a Sunday says what he probably believes – that the treatment of the Palestinian people, for decades before and during the Israeli bombing is ghastly, sub-human – it’s easy to see the headlines: ”Catholic priest extends support for Hamas”. During our Troubles, any murmur of condemnation of the British forces in this part of Ireland would have been hurried into the headlines: “Provo priest expresses antagonism to forces of law and order.” And so most clergy opt for the safer middle path: there is much suffering on all sides, we should all pray for peace.
I have some sympathy with that sentiment. All horror, regardless of who creates it, is to be condemned. But surely there comes a time when even clergy have to get off the fence and say who they see as the source of the conflict in the Middle East? After all, they’d no problem pointing the finger during our Troubles.
& the Catholic church wonders why it has haemorrhaged worshippers over the years.
I’m sitting here, warm and dry, after a good breakfast. My acquaintances discuss upcoming Xmas, the half term, a city break, change of car or whatever. As the middle classes of Britain and Ireland shudder at the continuing Zionist murders in Palestine and are very glad that it is happening far away. The score now is Zionists 8k and Hamas 1.4k. How many brown deaths equals a “European” death? As these same people clutch their pearls and tut tut, remember if we treated animals in the same way they would be up in arms. The older survivors recall the immolation of the civilian population of Dresden and Agent Orange in Vietnam by the UK and the US. Is it any wonder that they preside over the racial obliteration of the Palestinians.
Our priest in Glengormley delivered an excellent sermon based on the first reading of Exodus, the Law of Moses: do not oppress the stranger in your midst, for you too were once strangers in Egypt, and the Gosoel of St Matthew: love God and love your neighbour, for this is the whole Law and the Prophets. Some people claim to be religious adherents, but cannot see the wood for the trees.. No sermon was ever more timely, nor more apposite.
people still fear the well honed ‘anti semite’ character assassination machine with good reason – it has brought down too many genuine, principled and well meaning names. cynically conflating nationalism, religion and extremism has worked well – put your head above the parapet of reason and you are surely a goner