The Church connects us all as children of God, writes Andrew O’Connell
Thirty years ago, during the winter of 1984, the world watched scenes of horror emerge from Ethiopia. A harrowing report by BBC correspondent Michael Buerk on October 23 that year first drew public attention to the desperate conditions in the country. The resulting outcry led to an international response memorable for the Band Aid Christmas hit and the following year’s legendary Live Aid concert.
It was an iconic media moment with lives saved by the power of television; an example of media mobilising public opinion.
Though I was only a child at the time, I can vividly remember the images from those evening news bulletins: the vacant looks of resignation on the mothers’ faces as they cradled their emaciated babies, the walking skeletons of adult men and the flies crawling over the faces of the children – nature’s own insult to the dignity of these human beings.
And I remember the cruel moment of realisation that the aid would not arrive in time to save most of the people we were watching on television. Their fate was sealed and, as a child, I was puzzled: if television cameras can be there, why can’t food and medicine?
I was preparing for my first Holy Communion that year. We were being taught that all people were children of God and we could address God as ‘our Father’. The natural logic of this, understandable even to a child, was that those starving people on our televisions were not distant strangers – they were our brothers and sisters.
And that led to a sense of frustrated outrage: How could the dignity of these people – their awesome dignity as human beings, as children of God – be violated so brutally and so publicly?
I sometimes think that this is one of the reasons that I remained close to the Church as I grew up – at an early age I had learned that faith was more than a comfort blanket: it was also a challenge to look beyond myself and to feel connected at a very deep level with other people.
Research
The Ethiopian famine taught us all a lot about how the world works. Research has since revealed that the British government had been aware of the suffering in Ethiopia since 1982, but it took media attention to spur them to action. Europe had also enjoyed a bumper harvest that year and had stockpiled food while others starved.
One million people died during that catastrophe. But one million is a sober statistic. It’s more disturbing to deal with the tragedy of one child starving to death. And there was one child that I remember from 1984: he had been found alone in a refugee camp by an aid worker, his parents presumably already dead. The television news reporter documented the little boy’s condition each day for a week until he eventually died of malnutrition.
One is tempted to finish a reflection like this with some story of hope, some news of a successful development project perhaps. But to jump so quickly to reporting an uplifting story can reduce the memory of those who starved to an historical footnote. The death of one person, let alone a million people, is something to be grieved over for a long, long time.
Yes, we serve their memory best by working for justice but in November we also pause to remember.
On the feast of All Souls, Pope Francis asked us to pray in particular for people who died as a result of hunger and war, “those who no one remembers”.
So, 30 years later, I find myself remembering those people, our brothers and sisters, who died so horribly during that ugly winter of 1984.
Listellick 150
I was home in Tralee recently for the 150th anniversary celebrations of my alma mater, Listellick National School. Bishop Ray Browne offered a Mass of Thanksgiving at the church of Our Lady and St Brendan which was packed for the occasion.
A commemorative book was also produced and it includes a chapter listing the many clergy and religious from the school. While most parishes in the country could compile a similar list, this one is remarkable on account of the number of recent vocations. Over the past few years, there have been seven ordinations and religious professions: Fr Niall Howard (1999, Kerry), Fr Liam Lovell (2000, Kerry), Fr Bernard Healy (2007, Kerry), Fr James Hurley (2010, Opus Dei), Br David O'Connor (2011, Lumen Dei), Sr Margaret Culloty (2012, Franciscan Missionaries of Mary), Sr Mairéad Regina Hurley (2013, Little Sisters of the Poor).
In addition, Fr Kieran O'Brien, who preached the homily, attended Listellick and was ordained for the Diocese of Kerry in 1993. Proof, if it were needed, that religious vocations are by no means a thing of the past.
