Of Popes, pundits and politicians

From European elections to the Holy Land visit

I followed more of the election coverage than was healthy last week, and I enjoyed most of it, even if I wasn’t always happy about how certain candidates fared.

In the pre-election coverage a few things stand out. I thought the approach of Prime Time (RTÉ 1) to the European elections debates was highly questionable. A full edition was devoted to each constituency, fair enough, but in each episode the candidates were split into two panels – first off those who were sitting MEPs and those representing parties who had secured more than 10% in the last European elections, then a second panel of ‘the rest’.

This peculiar arrangement put the establishment people at a great advantage and the newcomers at a distinct disadvantage. This was pointed out with great passion on the first such programme by Senator Ronán Mullen (pictured), who lambasted RTÉ for this approach, earning him the applause of Deputy Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, a sight that on its own made the whole show worth watching.

Mullen suggested that fewer people would be watching by the time it got to the second panel, as people would be fed up with the boring consensus on the first one. He also criticised RTÉ for what he saw as an attempt to pigeonhole him as a social conservative.

Post-election coverage

At least the special editions of Tonight With Vincent Browne (TV3) featured all candidates on one comfortably seated panel, rather than the pompous podium approach of Prime Time. This gave each candidate a chance to challenge any other, though I thought Browne was too tough with people new to political debate, on TV probably for the first time. Fair enough, some of them could have had better answers, but I’m sure it ain’t easy being ‘Browned’ in that particular grill.

The post-election coverage followed a familiar enough pattern apart from some of the electoral surprises – you know the stuff, drubbing for Labour, rise of Sinn Féin, ‘Independents Day’ (for some of them), ‘health warnings’ on exit polls, questions on Labour leadership, cabinet reshuffle possibilities. You could have written much of the script in advance.

The elections pushed Pope Francis’ visit to the Middle East down the news priorities, which was to be expected, but last Sunday for example some news programmes ignored it, and any I heard gave greater priority to the stories of the shootings in California and Brussels, though Francis’ inviting Middle East leaders to prayer in the Vatican was moving and may have far reaching consequences. Seems like violence is more important than peace-making, at least in news terms. I relied on EWTN’s comprehensive live coverage to solve the problem.

You can sometimes identify a problem but not agree with the response some people offer? Last Sunday on BBC Radio 4’s Point of View programme writer Tom Shakespeare was critical of the trend towards people saying they are spiritual but not religious.

Individualism

Regular readers will know that I share that opinion, finding that it can be trendy, unchallenging and dismissive of the community of flawed believers. Shakespeare was prompted to his reflection by finding ‘SBNR’ (spiritual but not religious) as one of the options on a dating site.

Others have described the adherents as ‘nones’ or as practising ‘moralistic therapeutic deism’, characterised by a belief that God exists and that the purpose of life is to be happy. He saw this approach as vague, lacking in the rigour that comes from centuries of refinement and debate, not having much to say about charity and justice and smacking of individualism.

He quoted approvingly James Martin SJ – ‘spirituality without religion can become a self-centred complacency divorced from the wisdom of the community’.

So far, so good, problem identified, despite the tendency to generalise. My response would be to hope that people would be both spiritual and religious, but Shakespeare proposed that people would be religious but not spiritual, which to me sounds like a pretty dismal idea. You’d get the social and cultural advantages of religion (e.g. what he called the ‘wisdom tradition’) but belief in God would be ‘strictly optional’!

He reckoned that many Anglicans in the pews were following that particular path, and indeed it may be that ‘cultural Catholics’ in Ireland are doing likewise, which might explain the circus atmosphere at some First Communion, Confirmation and even wedding days.

Food for thought, and digestion may not be easy.