An Irish cat mothering ducklings

The domestic cat is surely one of God's most delightful creatures. Last Thursday The Irish Times carried this story: Purrfect Harmony: mother cat suckles ducklings. Whether or not the cat is suckling the ducklings she is certainly mothering them.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah11:6-8 RSV-CE).

Here's a Japanese choral version of Leroy Anderson's The Waltzing Cat.

Tempus fugit - time flies: a postscript to turning 70 (and just about hanging on!)

My mother, with a smile, often mentioned Harold Lloyd, one of the biggest comedy stars in the era of silent movies. But I don't think she knew that her elder son came into the world the day that Harold Lloyd turned 50, 20 April 1943.

Above is an extract from what is perhaps his most famous scene where, in a sense, time almost does fly. 'Stewballmaxify', who posted this on YouTube,  cleverly added Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and the Comets, which was a huge hit in 1956, when I became a teenager. Though it sounds very tame now, it was part of the beginnings of a new era in popular music and of adolescents becoming a special niche in the market, not only for music but for other commodities. Sometimes I think that this was when genuine popular music was 'mortally wounded'.

Fr George Hunt SJ, former editor of the North American Jesuit magazine, America, in an editorial on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War in August 1945 - World War II had ended in Europe in May - noted that in those days everyone listened to the same popular music, parents, children, grandparents. Whether or not they all liked a particular currently popular song they were all familiar with it. That's the way that it was when I was a child in the years after the War and Sister Stanislaus, principal of the boys' kindergarten I went to, would sometimes speak disapprovingly of certain 'adult songs'. That common experience of popular music has long ceased to be and there is a fragmentation in popular culture as a result.

The day my mother delivered me my mother delivered me Lionel Hampton was celebrating his 35th birthday. On this video he is with the Benny Goodman Quartet, playing the vibraphone, with Goodman himself on the clarinet, Teddy Wilson on the piano and Gene Krupa on the drums as they perform Avalon. [Since there is also a bass player, George Duvivier, I guess the group should be properly called the Benny Goodman Quintet.]

Whatever! Enjoy!

I met 'Pope John Paul III' on Easter Sunday

On Easter Sunday afternoon in the chapel in the village where I live here in Bacolod City I baptized a girl born in January. At the celebratory dinner later a boy of nine, whom I'll call 'Carlos', approached me with a big smile on his face and told me that he wanted to be like me - a priest. But he had something even more in mind - he wanted to be Pope! And he knows the name he will call himself - Pope John Paul III.

'Carlos' is too young to have any real personal memories of Blessed John Paul but he must have heard, read and seen quite a bit about him for that pope to have made such an impression on him. He goes to Blessed Carmel Sallés School, named after the foundress of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of Mary who run the school. She was canonized last October but there are 'hoops' to be gone through before the Conceptionist Sisters can change its name. 

St Carmen Sallés (1848 - 1911)

The three Sisters at present in the community in Bacolod are Koreans and I am their confessor.

Young 'Carlos' insisted on speaking in English to me and spoke the language very well. I asked him why he would take the name 'John Paul III' and he said that Blessed John Paul was a 'success'. I'm not quite sure what he meant by that.

Later I asked him, 'What if there's a John Paul III before you?' 'Oh, I'll be John Paul IV', he said!

The first girl in the video above wonders if Pope Benedict when he was a youngster had the same idea as 'Carlos'!

I pray that 'Carlos' will grow strong in his faith and that if God is calling him to be a priest that he will answer that call.

Will Delany's Donkey win the Melbourne Cup this year?

My Dad would ask me when I was a kid, 'When did Good Friday fall on Easter Monday?' The answer was 'In Fairyhouse in the Irish Grand National'. Good Friday was a horse, at least according to Dad, and he didn't do too well in the big race on Easter Monday. Fairyhouse isn't too far from Dublin or from St Columban's, Dalgan Park, the Columban seminary where I lived from 1961 to 1968.

I've never been at the races in my life but I won some money on the Grand National - the one held in Aintree, near Liverpool - every April, a steeplechase. It's an occasion when almost everyone it seems in Ireland and in Britain has a 'flutter' - except those who do so regularly. It's utterly unpredictable.

In 1959, when I was turning 16, I backed Oxo, which won at 8/1 (thanks to Wikipedia for the details). The very scientific reason why I put my money on that particular horse was that we lived in the Oxmantown area of Dublin, where the Oxmen/Ostmen or 'men from the east', ie, Danes and Vikings, had settled after groups of them started to invade Ireland in 795.

Dad told me that his mother Jane did far better than I did when she backed Tipperary Tim in 1929. He came in at 100/1.

My encounters with horses have been rather sporadic. When I lived in the Columban house in Solihull, England, from 2000 to 2002 I befriended a gray stallion in the stables we rented to a neighbour who kept horses. He liked a bit of attention, not to mention sugar cubes and slices of apple.

The last time I sat on a horse was way back around this time of year in 1977 when I looked after the parish of Columban Fr Sean Nolan in Karomatan (now Sultan Naga Simaporo), Lanao del Norte for a month. One day we had to go to a very distant barrio for a fiesta Mass. We got lost as none of us in the party knew the way and forded the same river four times on the way. When we reached the village, which was way up in the mountains, we had to climb even further to the chapel.

On the way back I rode a horse, sitting behind a 14-year-old boy. Our 'saddle' was a sack. After some time I asked him, 'Asa ang karsada?' 'Where is the road?' He gave me the answer I wanted to hear, 'Duol-duol na', 'It's quite near'. When I asked him again half-an-hour late by which time I was feeling very sore, he told me the truth, 'Layo-layo pa', 'It's still quite a distance away'. At that stage, to the relief of horse and self, I got down and walked.

Finishing line, Melbourne Cup, 1881

Even though I'm from Ireland, live in the Philippines, and have no interest in racing - the last time I read the racing pages was when I was seven or eight when I'd read the names of the horses to amuse my brother Paddy, three years younger than me - it's impossible for me as a Columban not to know that each year on the first Tuesday of November the Melbourne Cup takes place. (We've had Australian Columbans since our very early days more than 90 years ago). Unlike the Grand National, it's a flat race  but like the Grand National it's a race that everyone has a bet on. And it's a great festival.

Probably not too many will back Delany's Donkey this year.

'John O'Brien' was the pen-name of Monsignor Patrick Joseph Hartigan (1878 - 1952), an Irish-Australian priest who delightfully captured in verse something of the life of the Catholics in the outback of New South Wales a hundred years ago, most of whom would also have been of Irish descent. One of his most popular recitations, as we call this kind of verse in Ireland, where the works of 'John O'Brien' were well known when I was young, is Tangmalangaloo. It's story is not unrelated to the Melbourne Cup.

The bishop sat in lordly state and purple cap sublime,
And galvanized the old bush church at Confirmation time.
And all the kids were mustered up from fifty miles around,
With Sunday clothes, and staring eyes, and ignorance profound.
Now was it fate, or was it grace, whereby they yarded too
An overgrown two-storey lad from Tangmalangaloo?

A hefty son of virgin soil, where nature has her fling,
And grows the trefoil three feet high and mats it in the spring;
Where mighty hills uplift their heads to pierce the welkin's rim,
And trees sprout up a hundred feet before they shoot a limb;
There everything is big and grand, and men are giants too -
But Christian Knowledge wilts, alas, at Tangmalangaloo.

The bishop summed the youngsters up, as bishops only can;
He cast a searching glance around, then fixed upon his man.
But glum and dumb and undismayed through every bout he sat;
He seemed to think that he was there, but wasn't sure of that.
The bishop gave a scornful look, as bishops sometimes do,
And glared right through the pagan in from Tangmalangaloo.

"Come, tell me, boy," his lordship said in crushing tones severe,
"Come, tell me why is Christmas Day the greatest of the year?
"How is it that around the world we celebrate that day
"And send a name upon a card to those who're far away?
"Why is it wandering ones return with smiles and greetings, too?"
A squall of knowledge hit the lad from Tangmalangaloo.

He gave a lurch which set a-shake the vases on the shelf,
He knocked the benches all askew, up-ending of himself.
And so, how pleased his lordship was, and how he smiled to say,
"That's good, my boy.  Come, tell me now; and what is Christmas Day?"
The ready answer bared a fact no bishop ever knew -
"It's the day before the races out at Tangmalangaloo.

O'Lympic Games - Irish style!

There have been some farcical aspects to the preparations for the London Olympic Games, which will run from 27 July till 12 August. Damian Kelly, the Australian media liaison officer recounts in today's London Daily Telegraph - in a good-humoured way - how the bus carrying some of the Australian team from Heathrow Airport to the Olympic Village was not only late, but the driver, a Dubliner like myself, didn't know the way. All this after a 23-hour flight from Sydney via Singapore.

Of a somewhat more serious nature is the failure of G4S, the security company hired for the Olympics, to fulfill its obligations. G4S Chief Buckles Under Pressure is a headline that can be read in more ways than one. The CEO of the company, Nick Buckles, with a salary of £830,000 per year, is to be questioned by members of parliament. Among other things, the company couldn't recruit enough security guards. So members of the army, some on leave from Afghanistan, will fill the gaps.

Mr Buckles won't suffer any pain if he loses his job. He'll walk away with £20 million, part of the £50 million his company is expected to lose in this fiasco.

The stringent security required for international events is a sad necessity of our times. But the obscene salaries and perks of many executives who cause immense harm to the lives of many people through mismanagement is a sign that society has lost its way. Many of the Aussie athletes helped their driver to find directions to the Olympic Village through text messages and what not. But millions of people in Europe, especially in Ireland, have found themselves in financial distress because of bankers who gambled with their money and lost - and walked away with huge bonuses, laughing all the way to another bank.

The words of St Columban on the top of the home page of my blog may have some relevance: Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home.

Spike Milligan's zany humour is probably an expression of a sanity that doesn't always exist in the 'real' world. Spike was born in India of an Irish father, an army officer, and an English mother. Though he spent most of his life in England he was an Irish citizen by choice. God rest his soul.

'Write it down; it's a good one!'

I think that there must be a special place in heaven for those who have the gift of making people laugh and leaving them with happy memories. In 1990 I was buying a stamp in the post office in Turramurra, near Sydney, where the Columbans had a seminary before. When I opened my mouth the woman serving me broke into a big smile and told me of her visit to Ireland and of attending a show starring Hal Roach, a comedian who died in Ireland on 28 February at the age of 84. As it happened, on my flight from Manila to Sydney I got chatting with one of the cabin crew, an Irishman named Frank Kennedy. He told me that he wrote scripts for Hal.

Hal starred in a cabaret in Jury's Hotel, Dublin, for 26 summer seasons. I attended one of his shows there many years ago with two American Franciscan Sisters who worked in a hospital in New York City. They enjoyed themselves immensely. Hal targetted in particular American tourists, laying on the 'Blarney' thickly. I remember one of his jokes from that evening: 'We had the President of Egypt here last week. After the show this guy came up and said to me, " If you're a comedian . . ."'

As it happened, Hal died only six days after another Irish comedian, Frank Carson, who was 85. Blessed John Paul II had made Frank a Knight of St Gregory in 1987 for his work for charity. One of his gags was, 'I don't think my wife likes me. when I had a heart attack she wrote for an ambulance'. In reality, Frank Carson had a heart attack in 1976 and he was buried from the church in Belfast where he had married Ruth, his wife of 60 years, who survives him.

In the 1960s Hal Roach appeared in a number of fundraising shows for the Columbans in the New England area of the USA. His humour was always directed at family audiences and a friend who knew him told me that his humour offstage was the same.

In the video above, in which Hal tells stories about children, he is presuming that his audience were familiar with the Bible and with Catholicism. I'm not sure that younger Irish comedians would or could make that presumption or that they and audiences would be so familiar with what Hal Roach took for granted.

I know from a number of sources that Hal was a very charitable person.

Hal Roach bore more than a passing resemblance to the late Kim Jong-Il of North Korea but 

I've no doubt as to which of them left the greater legacy. 

I wonder if Hal regaled St Peter at the Pearly Gates with some of his stories and used his 

catch-phrase, 'Write it down; it's a good one!'

Kim Jong-Il

A 'spirited' young Massgoer!



I came across this on Facebook. We'll have to wait in the Philippines, in Hong Kong and, I think, New Zealand, until next Advent for this.

'Feed my sheep' fine - but 'feed my cat'?

Tigresa and Whitey, two of my three cats

As a priest who loves cats I couldn't resist this story from the blog of Bishop-elect Thomas Dowd, soon to be auxiliary bishop of Montreal. I'm simply and shamelessly copying and pasting from his blog, Waiting in Joyful Hope. I don't know if he's distantly related to me. My maternal grandmother was Annie Dowd from County Meath, the 'Royal County'.

Post for July 25, 2011

Christopher Curtis, in his recent article on me in the Montreal Gazette, includes this quote: “The job can be a lot of things. When I worked for a hospital, I was on call and you would get everything from a multiple victim car accident to a guy who is sick and needs you to feed his cat.”

In case you were wondering about the reference to a cat, it is from an incident that took place on March 7, 2006. My older posts are still in archives for the moment, but I thought I’d fish this one out and repost it (with just a bit of editing to help it make sense). Enjoy!

I was sick, and you visited me fed my cat

Today I got a call on my pager, 15 minutes before I was going to leave the hospital to teach downtown. Calling the ward desk, I was told that a patient wanted to see me. Could it wait till tomorrow, I inquired? No, it was urgent, was the response. OK, then, I headed downstairs right away.

The nurse let me to the patient’s room. He was quite upset to be stuck in the hospital. I asked him what he wanted to talk about, and it turned out he didn’t want to talk about anything. He wanted me to feed his cat.

Excuse me?

It turns out that this unfortunate gentleman really has nobody here in the city to help him, and by now his cat was 4 or 5 days without food. He did not remember the number of the superintendent of his building, either, so he had nobody to call. Could I head over to his apartment and explain things to the super, and maybe be let in to feed that cat?

Well, this sure wasn’t part of the job description. Running through my head were the words of advice I had received time and time again: “Don’t try and rescue everybody out there! You have to distinguish between what is essential, and what is merely important! There is only one Saviour, and you are not him!”

But on the other hand, this situation involved a starving cat. And I’m a cat person, so I felt for the poor thing. So I said ok, with a rolling of my eyes towards the Lord, who by now (I am sure) was having another one of his divine belly laughs.

Things, it turned out, were not as simple as all that. The super is new there, just recently moved to Canada from Romania, and he could not find the proper key. So it was back to the hospital to get the key (and permission to use it, witnessed by a staff member), until I finally managed to get in the door and feed the poor cat. Boy, was he happy to see me!

It turns out that there is actually a deeper lesson in all of this. At one point, as I was heading back to the hospital, I asked the Lord what the point of all this was. And the Lord answered, in one of those moments of clarity that you just know is a divine response. “Tom,” He said, “if I had asked you to do something extravagently important for this man, something heroic, you would have done it without question. Yet now, when I ask you to merely show him a very simple kindness, you are full of doubts and questions and annoyance. Does that make sense?”

“He who is faithful in small things shows himself worthy to be trusted with greater things. It’s not the big things that count, but the little things, done with great love.”

So I fed his pet, and even pet it for awhile. I also took care of a couple of other things for the man (returned some rented DVDs, etc.) Tomorrow I will see him again, and I’ll talk with the doctor/social worker/whoever about the need to help him put some structure in his life. I know I can’t take all this on as some sort of long-term responsibility — but in the meantime, I can at least feed the cat.

Bishop-elect Thomas Dowd of Montreal, soon to be the youngest bishop in Canada and the second youngest in the world. The article in the Montreal Gazette referred to above, Montreal Blogfather Thomas Dowd ready to be bishop, shows clearly how a bishop or priest can use the internet in the service of the Gospel. It seems that Father Dowd was the first Canadian priest to blog.


Lifesite news sees hope in three recent episcopal appointments in Quebec.

Please pray for Bishop-elect Dowd and for a renewal of the faith in Quebec.

Blessed John Paul II, 'inter-species dialogue', and mangos

Karol Józef Cardinal Wojtyła on a visit to Australia

I came across this delightful photo of Blessed John Paul II this afternoon. I presume it was taken in Australia and not in a zoo. He travelled widely long before he became Pope John Paul II. I think it's a kangaroo he's feeding and not a wallaby. He and the marsupial seem to be enthusiastically engaged in this 'inter-species dialogue'!

As someone living in the Philippines, where mangos are plentiful, I was interested in this little item from Fides, the Vatican-based news agency:

AMERICA / MEXICO - John Paul II an admirer of mango

Mexico City (Agenzia Fides) - Mango, tropical fruit that grows in Latin America, was without doubt one of the favourite fruit of Pope John Paul II, who tasted it for the first time during his trip to Mexico. Considering how much he liked it, in each of his following pastoral visits, those in charge of hospitality always prepared for the Pope fresh and different dishes using this fruit. Fr. Daniel Villalobos, who was one of the people closest to Cardinal Corripio Ahumada, Archbishop Primate of Mexico, witnessed not only how much the Holy Father John Paul II enjoyed this tropical fruit, but the concern of the Archbishop, who periodically sent to Rome, some boxes of mangos so there were always some on the Pope`s table

"Even when the Holy Father was already very sick - Fr. Villalobos said in a statement sent to Fides by the Archdiocese of Mexico on the occasion of the forthcoming beatification of John Paul II - Cardinal Corripio, through a friend, sent him mangos. To check that His Holiness had received them, he asked the present Cardinal Leonardo Sandri for information, who had been nuncio in Mexico, and at that time was Deputy Secretary of State. "In Mexico there are some popular sayings that connect Pope John Paul II with two states of Mexico: Oaxaca and Veracruz, and the mangos produced in their own land were sent to the Pope at the Vatican. (EC) (Agenzia Fides 28/04/2011)

Mangos from Sind, Pakistan, where Columbans work

Filipinos have a great love for Blessed John Paul II. I wonder why they let the Mexicans supply him with this delicious fruit?!  The mango is indigenous to the Indian sub-continent and I presume it reached the Philippines before it did Mexico.

The Church in the Philippines was initially part of the Diocese/Archdiocese of Mexico.



Bill Cosby and Noah

The first reading in Mass on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week is about Noah and the Ark. Bill Cosby has made his 'Noah and the Ark' routine one of his trademarks. Above is an early version. Enjoy!

'Tweetings' of great joy!

Matt in The Daily Telegraph

I don't 'tweet' and I don't have an i-pod but this front-page cartoon from the English broadsheet with the widest circulation shows that the Good News is news!



A new perspective, from the Faroe Islands, on 'The CATechism' - and something more serious

I believe that when God created the first cat He smiled. The photo above brought more than a smile to my face. It made me laugh. I found it in the Facebook account of my friend Sr Maria Forrestal FMM in the Faroe Islands. She is from County Wexford, Ireland, Through her I spent six or seven weeks in the Faroes in the summer of 2000. There's no permanent priest there. The Faroes come under the Diocese of Copenhagen, which includes all of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, probably the only diocese in the world now that covers three countries in two continents.

Here are Sister Maria's own words to accompany the photo: Hehe, naughty but nice! Must confess to having "borrowed" the photo from another profile... There is a play of words.The title of the book the cat is "reading" is a send up of a book called "The God Delusion" by English evolutionary biologist and atheist, Richard Dawkins. He argues that God is a delusion. So here we have God spelt backwards (dog) and a cat being "persuaded" that dogs don´t exist!!! We know the answer to that one.

This reminds me of the then eleven-year-old son of one of my closest friends in Dublin who asked me if I had heard about the dyslexic, insomniac agnostic. I hadn't. My young friend informed me that he had spent the whole night awake wondering if there was a dog.

Sister Maria works through art. She conducted days on Art and Prayer on 13 and 20 November. Here is how she describes the experience:

A day during which participants relax in silence,

reflect and meditate on their lives in the light of the Word of God,

enjoy the beauty of nature in the nearby park

and the beauty of the architecture in Mariukirkjan,

discover and explore their creative talents,

share their experience together,

get to know each other

and enjoy some good food!

Here is the image, painted by Sister Maria, which inspired the day:



"Believe"

John 1:4-5

The Church and Sisters' convent in Torshavn, Faroes

You can get a brief history of the Church in the Faroes here with links to the many interesting pages, in English, Danish and Faroese, on the website of the Church there. One of the most interesting is FOCUS ON "FORBIDDEN GRIEF" (RACHEL´S VINEYARD) IN MARIUKIRKJAN Sunday, 3rd. October.

Sr Maria (right) introducing Mrs Bernadette Goulding of Rachel's Vineyard, Ireland, in the Faroes.

When I was at home in Dublin a while back I had a long chat with Fr Laurence Kettle OFMCap, who grew up there who told me about Bernadette the day before he returned to Seoul. I contacted her and when it was possible for me to visit her in Cork, where she lives, I discovered she was in the Faroes at the invitation of Sister Maria. Bernadette and I met for lunch the day after she returned. I don't know yet where all of this is leading.

Bernadette gave me Forbidden Grief, which I'm reading at the moment. There is a review of the book, with many links, on the website of the Church in the Faroes here.



I had no idea that the feline philosopher/theologian at the top would lead me here. This post is all over the place, in more senses than one - but that is how life is.

As we Irish grit our teeth . . .

The Republic of Ireland, where I'm from, is in grave financial trouble, as many know, and is being bailed out to the tune of €85billion by the EU-IMF. The UK also announced recently that it would lend us £7billion. Joan Burton TD, the Irish Labourt Party's front-bench spokesperson on finance in the Dáil, the Irish parliament, described the state last night as 'banjaxed', which means 'in a right mess'.


Britain - and Ireland - are getting Arctic weather at the moment. Above is Matt's comment in today's Daily Telegraph. Matt is a genius.

I don't know if the late John Wayne had any Irish blood in him, though Maureen O'Hara, with whom he starred in a number of movies and who turned 90 a few months ago, God bless her, is as certifiably Irish as they come by birth and by virtue of her glorious red hair. But I presume the bag we are sending is 'True Grit'.

Was Saint Monica Irish?

St Monica, Luis Tristán de Escamilla 1616

I posted the following a year ago:

The second reading in the Office of Readings for the feast of St Monica (332-387) always brings a smile to my face and leads me to ask, ‘Was St Monica an “Irish mother”?’ St Augustine’s brother had said to their mother when she was dying that it might be better if she died in her homeland in north Africa, rather than in Italy. The extract from St Augustine’s Confessions goes on: But as she heard this she looked at me and said: ‘See the way he talks’. And then she said to us both: ‘Lay this body where it may be. Let no care of it disturb you: this only I ask of you that you should remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be’.

The latter part of the last quotation appears on innumerable memorial cards and I don’t know of a better request for prayers for the dead. But it’s the ‘See the way he talks’ that makes me smile. Many’s the time I heard my own mother – and other Irish mothers – say, nearly always in a family-type context, ‘Did you ever hear such nonsense?’ It’s the kind of thing that only people intimately related can say to one another, conveying gentle criticism/a reprimand and affection at the same time.

A variation of St Monica’s request is on the memorial card of my own mother, Mary who, like the saint, died at the age of 55: ‘All I ask of you is that you will remember me at Mass and Holy Communion’.

Death of St Monica, Benozzo Gozzoli 1464-65

Tradition Day by Day carries this reading from the Confessions of St Augustine for today:

Remember, Monica, my mother

May Monica, my mother, rest in peace with her husband, before whom and after whom she was given in marriage to no man. She dutifully served him, bringing forth fruit to you with much patience, that she might also win him to you. Inspire, O Lord my God, inspire your servants my brethren, your children my master, whom I serve with my voice, my heart, and my writings, that as many of them as read these words may remember at your altar your handmaid, Monica, together with Patricius, formerly her husband, by whose flesh you brought me into this life, how I know not. May they with a pious affection remember them who were my parents in this transitory light, my brethren under you, our Father in our Catholic mother, and my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, for which your pilgrim people here below continually sigh from their setting out until their return, so that my mother's last request of me may be more abundantly granted by her through the prayers of many, occasioned by my confessions, rather than through my own prayers.

I was quite astonished some years ago reading an article in a scholarly Catholic magazine published in the USA lamenting that so many Catholic parents weren’t choosing truly Christian names for their children anymore. One example given was ‘Austin’. Clearly, the author was unaware that this is a common variation of ‘Augustine’, used especially in Ireland and in Britain. Indeed, the Augustinian Friars are often referred to in England as ‘The Austin Friars’.

When I was in primary school one of our juvenile jokes was: ‘Who is the patron saint of car manufacturers? St Monica, because she had a Baby Austin’. The ‘Baby Austin’ was a small family car produced very successfully in England between 1922 and 1939. At least we knew who St Monica and St Augustine were. I’m not sure about young people in Ireland today.

Should 'commentators' at Mass get the death penalty?

Though I sometimes have a quick temper, most people find me reasonably gentle. Since childhood I’ve been strongly opposed to the use of the death penalty. However, I’m sometimes tempted to make an exception – for ‘commentators’ at Mass. I don’t know if other countries are as plagued with them as we are here in the Philippines. Before I go any further, I have to say that some of my best friends are and have been ‘commentators’.

During the funeral Mass of the late President Cory Aquino in Manila Cathedral I could hear a commentator – they usually seem to be women – telling people when to sit and when to stand. The vast majority of those present were adults and Catholics, many of them holding some of the highest positions in the land. One prominent Protestant, closely associated with Cory, was there, former President Fidel Ramos, who frequently attends Mass on such occasions and who, as president, was a most gracious host to Pope John Paul II in January 1995 when World Youth Day was held in Manila.


Commentators are normally kind and committed Catholics but, without being aware of it, they show disrespect to people by treating them as if they were pre-schoolers. We have had the new Mass for 40 years now, for goodness sake. I have often enough been upset by officious commentators who, before the priest can say ‘Let us proclaim the mystery of faith’, tell people to stand. (Here in the Philippines we stand after the Consecration. I would much prefer if everyone remained kneeling until the end of the Eucharistic Prayer.) I find that particularly ill-mannered, though ‘commentators’ are never intentionally so.

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) clearly defines the role of the commentator at Mass (105, b): The commentator, who provides the faithful, when appropriate, with brief explanations and commentaries with the purpose of introducing them to the celebration and preparing them to understand it better. The commentator's remarks must be meticulously prepared and clear though brief. In performing this function the commentator stands in an appropriate place facing the faithful, but not at the ambo.

No mention of telling people when to sit and stand nor is the presence of a commentator a requirement.

I’m not in charge of a parish and sometimes find myself celebrating Mass in a church or chapel where I am a visitor and have to live with things that really irritate me. One frequent introduction by commentators – again well-intentioned – is ‘Let us stand to welcome our celebrant Father Sean Coyle’. We don’t assemble to welcome the priest but to worship God by celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

I often hear them say, or worse still, hear the reader say ‘Let us stand to honour the Gospel’. Again, well meant and pious but not a part of the Mass and not the role of either the commentator or reader to say.

Photos taken in St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, 19 July 2008, when Pope Benedict consecrated the new altar and celebrated Mass with the bishops of Australia with seminarians and novices participating.

Joyful, enthusiastic communication

Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say, rejoice (Phil 4:4).

H/T to Deacon Greg Kandra at The Deacon's Bench for the cartoon.

'The new digital technologies are, indeed, bringing about fundamental shifts in patterns of communication and human relationships. Benedict XVI, Message for the 43rd World Day of Communications, Pentecost Sunday, 24 May.

Chinese Chutzpah

Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Hong Kong

Imposter-priests have been with us for a long time. At best they are a nuisance, at worst can cause great distress to people, for example, who have gone to ‘confession’ to such a person. But at times you have to admire the ‘neck’ of these people.

One such is You Suibin, a young Chinese man who defrauded people in Hong Kong and in Macau, as reported in the 22 March Sunday Examiner, the English-language weekly of the Diocese of Hong Kong, edited by my Columban colleague from Australia, Fr Jim Mulroney. The story had already appeared on UCANews on 11 March.

The imposter claimed to be Fr Joseph Zhuang Zhoutan of Guangzhou Diocese. When he was found out, searches on the internet revealed his Chinese-language profile that gave his name in English as ‘His Eminence, Cardinal Francis Yau Hsui-bim SDB’. He was ‘ordained’ in 2000, so his ‘elevation’ to ‘cardinal’ in 2005 by Pope John Paul II is quite phenomenal! During his first five years as a ‘priest’ he managed to ‘study and serve’ in Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Spain and the USA. Quite a curriculum vitae, though it could also suggest that he couldn’t hold down a job anywhere! And all this despite being still in his early 20s!

Just over a week after I was ordained in December 1967 I celebrated Sunday Mass in Rush, County Dublin, where my paternal grandparents were from and where the Coyle family has lived since before 1800. After Mass I met an Irish priest(?) who said he was working in Fiji. The Columbans have been there since 1951 or thereabouts and I knew the names of all the men were there at the time. I was a little surprised when this man didn’t know any of them. However, being only eight days a priest I didn’t voice my suspicions to the parish priest. But he must have been an imposter.

I remember reading too about the late Bishop Cornelius Lucey of Cork having been taken in by the ‘Archbishop of Jamaica’ who turned out to be an imposter from Newcastle-on-Tyne, I think, in the northwest of England. A good rule of thumb is that Catholic dioceses are usually named after a city or town, even if one happens to be the only diocese in a country, eg, Suva in Fiji, Reyjavík in Iceland, Stockholm in Sweden. (East Anglia in England is an exception and the dioceses of Ireland go back to a time when there were no towns or cities there).

I’ve been ‘had’ a number of times by persons with (im)plausible stories, though never by an imposter-priest. (Real priests are prime targets of beggars, genuine and otherwise). The man I met shortly after my ordination didn’t ask me for anything. When you realize you’ve been caught you tend not to see the funny side of the situation, at least until the pain has subsided. But maybe putting ‘His Eminence’ before his name on his webpage was a ‘cardinal error’ by this young Chinese man. However, he was baptized a few years ago and is therefore a ‘son of Abraham’. And it is from the children of Abraham that we get the word ‘chutzpah’, something that You Suibin had in abundance.

'Look up at the Lord with gladness and smile'

'Look up at the Lord with gladness and smile; your face will never be ashamed' (Ps 33:6).

Communion Antiphon, Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

President of Israel Challenges Pope to Golf

The Pope met with his Cardinals to discuss a proposal from Shimon Peres, President of Israel. "Your Holiness", said one of his Cardinals, President Peres wants to challenge you to a game of golf to show the friendship and ecumenical spirit shared by the Jewish and Catholic faiths."

The Pope thought this was a good idea, but he had never held a golf club in his hand. "Don't we have a Cardinal to represent me?" he asked." None that plays very well," a Cardinal replied. "But," he added, "there is a man named Jack Nicklaus, an American golfer who is a devout Catholic. We can offer to make him a Cardinal, then ask him to play President Peres as your personal representative. In addition, to showing our spirit of cooperation, we'll also win the match."

Everyone agreed it was a good idea. The call was made. Of course, Nicklaus was honored and agreed to play. The day after the match, Nicklaus reported to the Vatican to inform the Pope of the result. "I have some good news and some bad news, your Holiness, " said the golfer.

"Tell me the good news first, Cardinal Nicklaus," said the Pope.

"Well, your Holiness, I don't like to brag, but even though I've played some pretty terrific rounds of golf in my life, this was the best I have ever played, by far. I must have been inspired from above. My drives were long and true, my irons were accurate and purposeful, and my putting was perfect. With all due respect, my play was truly miraculous."

There's bad news?", the Pope asked.

"Yes," Nicklaus sighed. "I lost to Rabbi Tiger Woods by seven strokes."

I can't 'bear' to look!

When I saw this photo and story in today's Daily Telegraph I immediately thought of my late mother. No, she didn't look like a bear. However, her variation of the English idiom 'Like a bull in a china shop', meaning very clumsy, was 'Like a bear in a delph shop'.

I've googled both expressions but only the first comes up. So my mother's expression was her own. I don't know if she got it from my grandmother or grandfather. She had many expressions that I never heard anyone else using, not even her sisters or brothers.

The bear in this amusing story that happened in British Columbia is not in a delph or china shop but in a sandwich shop. Nobody was hurt - except for the poor bear who was later put down.

The animal in the photo is a real bear, not a 'counter feet' one!