Have neglected the blog. Life moving ahead here with everyone settling back into life at St Joseph’s. Cold weather has returned but no snow. Confirmation retreat this Saturday at Church of St Augustine. Had a lovely visit last weekend from my niece, her husband and their baby son. Will try to keep the blog updated more often in the coming weeks. AT
A happy new year to you, gentle reader! After Christmas went back to Bray for a visit. A few lovely family get togethers and a visit to the Lepordstown races. It was the day the fog came down and the racing was abandoned. Then the snow came and it came with style! The 6.10 p.m. Paris flight from Dublin finally got away three hours behind schedule and I got here in the early hours of Saturday morning. It was good to be back in time for the Christening I had promised to celebrate. Cold here but no snow. Please remember a prayer for me as the year gets under way. AT
Hope that all will have a great Christmas and that peace will be yours. I have been late sending out cards this year and there are some that I have not succeeded in sending out at all. Please accept my apologies but believe me that this does not indicate that you mean less to me. I hope that in some way I can make up for this by more regular contact in 2010. The older I get the more friendship means to me. All whom I know will be in Masses and prayers here in Paris this Christmas. AT
“Out of the Shadow - Responding to Suicide” (Veritas, Dublin 2009) was launched on 1 December in Belfast. At the launch, kindly done by Philip McTaggart, I spoke some words. Since then a few people have kindly expressed an interest in having these few words. Here they are:
‘Out of the Shadow’ is a little book about a big topic. My name is on the cover of the book but it is dedicated to you and many like you here this evening. It’s not my story but the story of many families who have walked out of the shadow of death when one you loved died. The pain doesn’t leave you because the loss is in your heart day and night. This is your book and I thank so many people who let me into your hearts and homes at an absolutely awful time in your life. It is a book that was born in the shadow of Holy Cross in this aea of North Belfast.
When Veritas Books suggested to me that the launch be here in Donegall Street, I was delighted because this where the story was born - in the shadow of Holy Cross. The shadow was not the first that I had seen and witnessed in this area. When I arrived in Summer 2001 the teachers and parents of Holy Cross Girls’ Promary School were under the shadow of a denial of the rights of their pupils and children to go to school without opposition. It was not acceptable to the wider community or to me that pupils and parents had not been able to walk to school by Ardoyne Road for the last two weeks of June 2001. It is my hope that the rights of the child, clouded by the shadow of blocking their path to school, will be vindicated in a judgement from a parent’s appeal to the Strasburgh court of justice.
When in September 2001 parents decided to bring their children to school by Ardoyne Road, there could only be one response from the school’s board of governors - yes, we will not live under the shadow of the denial of the rights of the child.
When a 17 year-old died in Holy Cross Monastery garden on 23rd April 2003, he too was a child and many others were to follow in the five years before my transfer to Paris. Even those of an older age who died by suicide are, in my eyes, chidren - children of God and His Kingdom. I will never forget being with families who were to bury a Mother, Father, a Grandparent - they too were children of God under a shadow of sadness and unbearable suffering.
All the time while you, the families and friends here and throughout Ireland, were battling to move out of the shadow of loss of young and old by suicide, there was another shadow involving children. It was the criminal activity of some priests and religious who were putting children under the shadow of abuse and a life-sentence of suffering. Through the collusion of some of their bishops, religious superiors and some State agencies, these criminal acts of priests and religious were covered up and hidden. Only through the bravey of some of God’s children did the story begin to emerge in the Ryan and Murphy reports published this year.
I offer this small book as a beacon of light form brave people bereaved by suicide, many here this evening, to others who may one day find the shadow of depression, suffering or loss come over them. If there is anything I can ever do, please contact me.
On a lighter note, it is great to be back, if only for 24 hours. Your welcome - thanks for it. Since my transfer to Paris many of you have kept up contact that means so much to me. Others have visited me in Paris. Some have simply rung the door bell at St Joseph’s and said ‘we are here to say hello’.
On an even LIGHTER note, rumours have been doing the rounds about my health - that I am sick because I have lost some weight. A little secret - I’m back jogging, walking and have lost 9 kilos in the past year. Another story is that I am mentally sick and even suicidal. This hurts, because of how unfair it is to families who know what these things are really like. Any of us - of course, me included - can become depressed or sick. I make you a promise this evening - should that happen to me, I will tell you the truth. But until you hear it from me, take such rumours with a pinch of salt!
Thanks to Veritas Publications for keeping a belief that one day I would finish this book and to Philip McTaggart for lauching the book this evening. AT
When the Titanic hit an iceberg there was panic. Action to save lives was all that mattered. Rearranging the deck chairs on the decks was not going to help but would reveal a shocking detachment from the seriousness of the situation.
The church in Dublin and in other places in Ireland has hit its own iceberg. This is not a brush with disaster. It is a disaster because the innocent have been attacked in the most brutal manner imaginable. There is a temptation here also to begin to rearrange the deck chairs and to ignore the enormity of what is daily unfolding before our eyes.
In a Sunday newspaper interview in August 2009, I described the Irish hierarchy’s response to clerical abuse as ‘window dressing’ rather than a radical response and real action. Accepting candidates for the priesthood ahead of the Murphy report, I suggested, showed a serious lack of awareness of the gravity of the situation. The candidates coming forward may well be the finest of people. My concern is that the church in Ireland has not yet excavated deeply into the the root causes of how formation of candidates in the past produced priests who are criminals shielded by bishops who failed to act as true shepherds of their flock.
The Catholic church as organised in Ireland is not any longer sustainable. The framework is rotten to the core as is shown by the crimal activity of priests and religious. It only adds to our shame and can never exonorate clergy to point out that lay people have also offended in the same way.
Seán Brady and Diarmuid Martin going to Rome to meet the Pope and heads of Vatican departments is not a response in any depth to the gravity of the situation. Following the publication of the Ryan Report in May 2009 the same two churchmen made the same journey. This is a perpetuation of a failed episcopal response. If Marie Collins,Christina Buckley, Andrew Madden and other people violated by the criminal activity of clergy and religious agreed to be part of this, there might be some credibility to the visit.
A group of churchmen getting together in the Vatican is as unacceptable as appointing a high-ranking Garda to investigate the collusion of police with church personnel in the cover up of clerical criminal activity over four decades. Going to Rome may be the diplomatic channel to follow as expected by the Nuncio and the Vatican, but it has little else to recommend it.
The purpose of this visit is said to be to convey “the anger and dismay among the people.” Surely the first people to speak on the travesty that is the church in Ireland today are not its bishops but those who were abused. Just as it took years for these people to be heard, it seems they are again not being invited to be heard where responsibility ultimately lies, at the Vatican.
By a highly secretative process our present bishops were appointed and are being kept in place by the Vatican. In nearly forty years as a priest, I have never once been asked my view as to who should be appointed a bishop. An open and transparent process in making appointments of bishops to dioceses and priests to parishes is long overdue.
Who knows what the outcome of these events will be for the church in Ireland. The witness and courage of those people who would not be silenced about their being abused is hugely impressive. They have shown how values of the Kingdom of God like truth and the thirst for justice will eventually overcome even the combined opposition of Church and State. At the beginning of this decade I did what I could to defend the rights of children when their right to education was being denied by a blockade of their school in Belfast. At the end of the decade I stand in genuine admiration of those who suffered but were not silenced or defeated. AT
“Out of the Shadow - Responding to Suicide” (Veritas, Dublin) written by Aidan Troy was launched last night in Belfast. It was a good event and well organised by Veritas. Philip McTaggart (PIPS) did the launch. Soon the book will be available at St Joseph’s, Avenue Hoche. It was lovely being back in Belfast if only for 24 hours. AT
With shame and shock I watched the RTE One press conference yesterday. I have started to read the report. The Ryan report dealt with the fact of child abuse by members of religious congregations. The Murphy report is revealing how successive Dublin Diocesan leaders let children and families down so terribly.
When after the Ryan Report I had publically suggested that the Pope had to answer to the victims, no episcopal reaction was forthcoming and only a few clerics contacted me. I also suggested that prior to the Dublin report being published it might be wise to defer accepting new candidates for the priesthood and religious life - not because of the candidates’ unsuitability but because of my doubts about the formation they would receive and also the message it can give to survivors of clerical and religious congration abuse. Within days of this, episcopal statements announced that 36 new candidates were entering seminaries. Normally, I would be thanking God for this news. But are these normal times in the church?
On Tuesday I will be in Belfast for the launch of my book, “Out of the Shadow - Responding to Suicide”. I will be back in Paris on Wednesday. It will be good to meet many families who over the five years that I ministered in Belfast were bereaved by suicide. Philip Mc Taggart (PIPS) is launching the book published by Veritas. AT
It was such an honour and privilege to deliver a lecture and engage in discussion with those present yesterday afternoon. Thanks to Cliona and also to Lesley who gave such a generous and full introduction. Thanks to Meg also for joining us for lunch and for the talk. It was ‘beyond the call of duty’ for those who attended to come along on a Saturday afternoon at 2.30 p.m.!
A good parish social last night.
Really impressed by the number of French parishioners who offered their profound disgust at what had happened at Stade de France on Wednesday evening as they left Masses this morning. I offered prayers for the French team as they prepare to go to South Africa!! AT
Sad to see that cheating in sport, such as was seen at Stade de France on Wed night, does pay - not great example to anyone. Still, maybe it is not over yet!
“Obituary for a dream - but hope won’t die” appeared on this blog on 29 June 2009. It concerned the decision being taken by the Passionists not to pursue creating a cross-community family centre on the interface between Ardoyne and Woodvale. Another step, in what I believe to be a retrograde decision, may occur when a vote will be taken by the passionist trust to sell more land at Holy Cross, Belfast. If this vote is carried, it will be difficult to create the envisaged shared space in this area. For reasons of duties here at St Joseph’s I cannot attend this meeting in Dublin. I await the outcome with interest but not much hope. AT
Well what about Handball becoming part of soccer? GAA can now look at a competition here in France. Now it is admitted that soccer can be played with hands (and not just by the goalkeeper) we have a laughable situation - if it were not so unfair. Last night at Stade de France, apart from the madness of the refereeing, was a night to remember. What a great moment when the Irish team came to the Irish fans and gave over ‘keepers gloves and shirts as a ‘thank you’. Paris was a bit scary in the early hours as the supporters of Algeria celebrated their country’s victory over Egypt. AT
