Mary Lou’s lack of respect a bad omen?

Watching the news coverage last week, the atmosphere in Leinster House as the 33rd Dáil got under way was largely cheerful and celebratory – especially as we saw the newly elected TDs arrive in style or not, often with their proud families.

However, on last Thursday night’s Nine News (RTÉ1) we saw things getting nasty as every party leader failed to get a majority. Particularly objectionable was Mary Lou McDonald’s profanity as she lit into the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties. There was a lot of talk about respect and kindness last week, but Mary Lou wasn’t extending much respect to Christians.

Predictably this attention grabbing clip got replayed several times, e.g. on the Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk) last Friday. Pat was not amused – “I didn’t like the sound of that,” he said.

The left wing parties are chomping at the bit to get into power, but can’t seem to get the numbers. I reflected on left wing politics when I watched Historic Catholic Converts on EWTN on Tuesday. The focus was on Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. She was quite a left wing activist when young but even when she became Catholic her passion for social justice never waned. We learned from presenter Fr Charles Connor that she was thought too left wing by some conservative Catholics, and accused of promoting “clerical fascism” by the extreme left!

Journey

The story of her journey to Catholicism was fascinating – there was huge influence from dedicated Catholics that she mixed with – they were powerful role models, and gradually she edged her way towards the Church.

She was also influenced by several Catholic writers – primarily philosopher and co-worker Peter Maurin. She wasn’t blind to the problems of the Church, and I was struck by the quote Fr Connor used from another writer who influenced her, the theologian Romano Guardini: “One must live in a state of permanent dissatisfaction with the Church!”

We were reminded that the cause for her canonisation is in train, and that the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York was a great supporter of that cause. He didn’t see the fact that she had an abortion when young as an obstacle as he reckoned that her regret helped steer her towards the Church. The fact that she was once part of a group that attacked the Church was another advantage, in terms of her insight, though he saw obstacles too, e.g. her stance of absolute pacifism and her perfectionism.

The programme wasn’t presented very imaginatively – basically just a filmed sermon, with minimal use of visuals. I realise that often EWTN shows are designed to be radio friendly, but TV is a visual medium – RTÉ’s award winning Life and Soul shows how a show can work on radio and still be visually striking.

Inspired

However, the show did make me want to read more about Dorothy Day and hopefully many others will be similarly inspired. Her ability to get along with people who disagreed with her provides an important example for our fractious and polarised times.

Though Dorothy Day was very aware of social justice issues, I doubt if she was ever called ‘woke’. As we learned on The Big Questions (BBC1, Sunday) it was originally used to describe social awareness during the struggle for civil rights for the African-American community in the USA, but, according to Andrew Doyle, author of Woke: A Guide to Social Justice, was co-opted by ‘an intolerant regressive brand of the social justice movement’. The ‘big question’ was: ‘Is wokeness a new religion?’ and Doyle certainly saw echoes of religion – zealotry, purity of doctrine, seeking out offence and heresy.

He saw wokeness as legitimising bullying and infecting the arts, the media HR departments and the law. He instanced 120,000 police investigations into “non-crime” hate incidents, as if the police had solved all the actual crimes! Catholic chaplain Mia Fox from Newcastle University thought the framing of the question did a disservice to religion. James Porter from the UK’s Students for Life instanced attempts to shut down pro-life meetings at his college.

Other contributors didn’t see it as that big a problem, and saw young people having to put up with being called ‘snowflakes’ and experiencing ‘woke sneering’.

The debate was generally insightful, respectful and cheerful, with all views getting a hearing, a model for how one might wish it could be outside the studio.