June 29, 2016

Chris McDonnell, UK

Between here and gone

(Comments welcome here)

chris@mcdonnell83.freeserve.co.uk

Democracy is an expensive and often times, inconvenient pattern for reaching decisions. It requires listening to many points of view, asking awkward questions, hearing answers that are uncomfortable and generally getting grubby in the market place of honest exchange. But, for all that, it is the better option than the alternatives, one, being told what to do by the person with the loudest voice and most threatening stance.

We talk often of ‘ownership’, of those affected by a decision having ownership of the exchange that finally leads to a particular course of action. If you have been part of the process, you are more likely to accept the outcome.

But not all have full and open access to the background discussion and the position they take is affected accordingly.

Recently this matter was addressed by the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin. He is quoted on the website of the Association of Catholic Priests after a report in the Irish Times, as saying that he bemoans the lack of Catholic intellectuals in

Ireland

. The Church, he feels, needs ‘competent lay men and women well educated in their faith’. The Catholic Church in

Ireland

, Martin commented, is ‘very lacking’ in people of intellect who can address the pressing issues of the day. ‘If the place of the Church in the current social and political discussion in Ireland risks becoming increasingly marginal, this is not just due to some sort of external exclusion; it is also because the Church in Ireland is very lacking in keen intellects and prolific pens addressing the pressing subjects of the day’.

This perceptive comment brings to the forefront a significant issue of our time, the role of the laity and the reality of evangelisation, a clarion call indeed.

For too long the Church has relied on an elite class whose words and actions have gone unquestioned, who, through their ecclesiastic education have formulated all the answers and often, through circumstance, come to the wrong conclusions when considering difficult questions.

Access to Tertiary education, to the Web and to an ever-growing library of the written word has changed all that.

Some will argue that the Church never was and never can be a democratic institution. Maybe. But without question it can be (and really must be) a listening community, anxious for a transparent analysis of available facts. It is to be regretted that the Archbishop’s voice is a lonely one and that what he says falls on so many deaf ears.

In recent weeks, the people of the

United Kingdom

have wrestled with the consequences of continuing membership of the European Union or with the option of leaving our European neighbours. Now with the Referendum over and the votes counted, we know the result. In the early hours of last Friday morning it was announced that the vote had gone in favour of our leaving the EU. How sad that selfishness and xenophobia have won the day. Within hours the Prime Minister resigned. The new reality is one that contradicts all that we have striven to achieve over the years following the Second World War. Now we have the immense task of bringing together a deeply divided nation, uniting a people who apparently share radically differing views. One can only trust that the words of Julian of Norwich ring true in our time. "All will be well and all will be well and all manner of thing will be well”

Only a week before that vote, a member of the House of Commons, Jo Cox, a wife and mother, lost her life in a senseless and raw murder on the streets of her Yorkshire Constituency. I will conclude with the few words that I wrote the following weekend. May she now rest in peace.