Mary Kenny
“This is the time for Ireland to step up to the plate, show leadership and assume a greater role within the councils of Europe”, writes Mary Kenny
“The whole world’s in a terrible state o’chassis!” were the last, ringing words of Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock. And that just about describes the crisis involving all of the European Union (and the global money-markets) after the British vote to leave.
Some Irish responses have been bitter, and some have been despairing and especially concerned about how this may affect our border with the North.
But there is another approach. This is the moment when Ireland should be positive, strong, affirmative and constructive.
This is the time for Ireland to step up to the plate, show leadership and assume a greater role within the councils of Europe.
I reported from Brussels back in the 1970s, at the time when Britain, Ireland and Denmark were entering the then EEC. It was striking how close Irish and British officials and civil servants were, and how well they worked in co-operation.
Respected
Joe Carroll, a contributor to our books pages, was then a significant figure in the EU Commission, and I observed how well respected he was by British colleagues, as well as by the French.
Back in the days when Irish missionaries first worked in Africa, they often acted as a helpful diplomatic link between the Brits and the French: they were frequently part of French orders, such as the Holy Ghost Fathers, but they would be operating within British dominions.
Instead of lamenting and uttering ochones about the outcome of a democratic vote – which we all predicted would go the other way, albeit by a small margin – let Ireland take up a role it once played so successfully within its ‘spiritual empire’ and act as the influential broker between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
It’s the right thing to do, it’s the patriotic thing to do and it’s the constructive thing to do.
Will women rule the world?
It is probable, though not certain, that Mrs Theresa May will become the next British Prime Minister – considered to be a safer pair of hands than the entertaining but sometimes flakey Boris Johnson. Mrs May, born Theresa Brasier, is the daughter of a Church of England clergyman and attended a Catholic convent for a time. She is a churchgoer and has a reputation for being pro-life, having voted to restrict British abortion law. She seems to be a good person, but she is also a cautious politician, unlikely to act on inner convictions alone.
Until the Brexit referendum, Theresa May also had a track-record of being opposed to the EU, but she kept very quiet and refused to commit during the referendum campaign. This is deemed, now, to contribute to her prudence.
By the autumn, Mrs Clinton, Mrs Merkel and Mrs May could rule half the western world!
Peter and Paul most fascinating Biblical characters
June 29 was the Feast of Ss Peter and Paul and a Holy Day of Obligation; Peter and Paul are, besides being saints, two of the most fascinating characters in the New Testament.
It is sometimes said that Peter is the Catholic saint – the simple fisherman, sometimes weak and flawed, and yet the first Pope, who was martyred for his faith, and became the rock on which the Church was built.
While Paul is the Protestant saint – the inspirational preacher (he coined the phrase “the wages of sin is death”), the man of the Word who contributed some of the most dazzling passages to Scripture. Latterly, Paul has been blamed for misogyny – since he thought women should obey their husbands and cover their heads in church – but he was a Hellenised Jew drawing on the classical world, and the context of his culture has to be understood.
Peter is a lovable, human character who is the foundation: that mosaic inscription in the Vatican which reads – “Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram Aedificabo Ecclesiam Meum” (“You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church”)is deeply moving. But Paul evangelised brilliantly, underlining Christianity’s universality, open to all. And any writer must admire the way Paul crafted words: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal….”
When I read Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, this, I know, is the divine in prose.
