Should Ireland leave the Euro?

After the heady patriotic stuff of yesterday's demo in Dublin's O'Connell Street, it is back to dealing with reality this morning. The Sunday Independent is forthrightly raising the possibility that the only option left to Ireland is to leave the Euro. The argument appears to be that even with the EU/IMF bailout the Irish economy does not have the capacity to generate the levels of growth to get us out of hock anywhere within the next ten years or so. Neither the economy nor the people could endure the levels of hardship and penury that on-going austerity may inflict. The conclusion drawn is that it is only by leaving the Euro and reverting to an IR£ Mark II that we can regain the kind of fiscal control needed. Severe devaluation of a new Irish punt would be the mechanism to build new growth. Apparently the emerging economies, like Brazil, are using this particular strategy to fuel indigenous growth.

The arguments against leaving the Euro are also powerful. As one commentator on politics.ie noted, leaving the Euro would leave us unprotected in the struggle with the markets. Foreign direct investment that saw our membership of the Eurozone as a decided commercial advantage would take flight. Indigenous industry could take a generation to catch up with places like Sweden or Denmark. Our economy would revert to the bipolar Anglo-Irish (the geographical kind) relationship.

And, of course, holidays on the Costa del Sol would be out of our financial reach. A step too far?

New Campaign against Inhuman Treatment of Children

A new global campaign to combat the cruel and inhuman treatment of children and minors within national juvenile justice systems is getting under way at the international level. To find out more about this campaign go to the CRIN (Child Rights Information Network) website.

And has it not always been thus ...

When I was a young boy in primary school in the Christian Brothers, Templemore, County Tipperary some fifty years ago, we always railed against the tragic and hapless plight of the Irish whenever we decided to make a bid for independence, or even maintain it. First, there was the lamentable performance of the various petty kings during the time of Diarmuid Mac Murrough of Leinster when faced with the prospect of a Norman invasion. Then, there was the inability of the Irish chieftains to band together in solidarity against the Tudors. Come 1798 and the multiple ill-fated French invasion attempts, compounded by a total lack of coordination among the United Irishmen, we once again displayed our predilection for local and selfish interests. Let us not speak of Parnell and all of that lamentable carry-on. And, lest we forget, 1916 wasn’t exactly a shining example of solidarity either. So it is with his background that I read with interest Justin O’Brien’s recent article in the November 24th Irish Times, commenting on the total failure of the Irish political elite, the chattering classes and the academic analysts to provide any kind of a united front either during the Celtic Tiger years or in the present sorry state in which we find ourselves.

O’Brien notes:

It is time for some hard thinking. It is time for a full and frank admission of abject political, corporate, regulatory, and academic failure. This centres not in the handling of the boom but in the increasingly pathetic attempts by each sector to advance solutions. These, in fact, serve only to enhance the self-interest of each specific community of experts rather than the collective good.

A new Ireland: is it possible?

While everyone yesterday was transfixed by the news coverage coming out of Ireland the accelerating political crisis there, a gentler and more collegial event was taking place on the Isle of Man. There, the British-Irish Inter-parliamentary Council was having one of its regular meetings. No doubt there was much commentary on events a few miles to the west across the Irish Sea. No doubt that the British decision to provide some goodwill bilateral aid to a "friend in need" (George Osborne in the Commons yesterday). However what made the news in today's Irish Times was some comments from an Icelandic politician, Mr Hjorvar, a member of the Icelandic Parliamentary Council.

Mr. Hjorvar said: “There are opportunities in crisis to reset your values, to rearrange how you organise things in your society, to do things better." He went on outline how Iceland is following through on the popular demand for a total re-imagining of Icelandic society. The Icelandic parliament is putting the finishing touches to a new Icelandic Constitution. The tax regime is being returned to its factory default following the catastrophic outcome from the recent adoption of the discredited 'free money' approach advocated by the gungho liberal soft regulation economists. There is a recognition that a departure from traditional social values and a commitment to societal solidarity established the kind of permissive ethos that allowed the irresponsible free-wheeling consumerist culture to flourish.

Hopefully, the Irish parliamentarians who were present at the meeting will have been taking notes.

Christianity and the Religions

We are living in an era of a rediscovery of the religions. Not just 'a religion' but the plurality of the religions. Here in Ireland we are now living in a culture which has become more diverse from a religious and cultural perspective. On my own street I pass each day Muslims, mostly young immigrant men from North Africa. Ten years ago the street presented a wholly monocultural and monofaith appearance. The engagement with Islam has been forced upon us. But it is also welcome challenge to our own somewhat sterile Christian faith.

The new encounter with the world religions, and Islam in particular, brings with it new questions. We grew up in an era when we believed that Christianity was THE religion, in fact, if one were a Catholic, one accepted as a defining doctrine of faith that Christianity is the singular and complete divine revelation to the world. It is difficult for us to get our heads around this.

That is why it is refreshing when one comes across a Christian writer and theologian who bring some light to bear on the question of where Christianity fits with the panoply of the world religions. Just this morning, for example, I read the following passage in Cynthia Bourgeault's in The Wisdom Jesus: "If you were to imagine the great world religions like the colors of a rainbow, each one witnessing in a particular way to some essential aspect of the divine fullness, Christianity would unquestionably hold down the corner of incarnation - by which I mean the vision of God in full solidarity with the created wolrd, fully at home within the conditions of finitude, so that form itself poses no impediment to divinity."

Ideology or Theology?

But the suggestion that Catholic theology is just another ideology roaming the marketplace of ideas ultimately only serves to diminish the transcendent truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is a quote from a comment on the NCR blog in an article on the recent election of Archbishop Dolan as the President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). John Allen, the respected analyst and commentator with the NCR, has pointed out that with Archbishop Dolan’s election the Bernardin era of the ‘seamless garment’ approach to moral teaching has ended. From now on the ethical and theological teaching of the US Bishops will be carefully aligned with the narrowed perspectives of Vatican views on abortion, same-sex relationships, civil partnerships, and liturgical matters. It is difficult not to see in this narrowed perspective the imposition of a Roman ‘ideology’ on Catholicism in the West. Equally, it is difficult to see how Benedict XVI’s justified critique of ‘aggressive secularisation’ can be carried through in any credible fashion without a broad vision of how the Church enters into dialogue with the secular world. Transcendence and one-dimensional thinking do not sit well together.

Could the European Union collapse because of Ireland?

This week the President of the European Union (yes, it does have a President!)m Herman van Rompoy did a ten-second summary of the current financial situation in which he linked Ireland’s financial difficulties, the fate of the Euro and the possible collapse of the European Union itself. The ultimate domino effect. Could it happen? Yes, it could. Only now are commentators (and ordinary citizens such as myself) beginning to wake up to the inconvenient truth that the real problem is the Euro itself. A single currency presupposes unitary and consolidated financial and economic control. We don’t have this in Europe. We have a very cumbersome and inflexible set of relationships among the member states overseen by the Council of Ministers and the European Central Bank. No wonder the Germans are worried.

Alister Heath, a UK economist and commentator, reminds of the extent of the problem when reflecting on the current crisis: “The EU’s treaties are not worth the paper they are written on, especially the nonsense about fiscal sustainability; the euro is a giant with feet of clay; monetary union will either lead to fiscal centralisation and destroy democracy in small countries or break up completely. Another absurdity: as part of the moves to force banks all over the world to hold more liquid assets, they have all been told to buy vast amounts of supposedly safe government bonds. This wasn’t exactly the cleverest strategy. What a mess.”

obama does it!

There is a God! Finally, after almost a hundred years of political effort the US House of Representatives has passed a universal health care bill guaranteeing some form of health coverage for all Americans, especially the poorest. What seems like a no-brainer for the rest of the developed world somehow proved to be a massively wide Rubicon for the United States of America. American conservatives, the inheritors of the freedom-loving frontiersman Davy Crockett mentality, perceived a universal health care plan for which the tax payer would have to foot the bill as an unwarranted intrusion by government in the lives of its citizens. Many still believe this and it looks likely that Obama’s health care plan will prove to be a rallying cry for Republican opposition at the US mid-term elections come November. But for the moment something unparalleled and extraordinary has been achieved. One member of Congress likened the achievement to walking on the moon!

And, as an interesting sidelight, one of the significant contributors to stiffening the resolve of Democrats especially to vote for the bill was the support from the 59, 000 Catholic nuns who came out publicly in its favour, thereby allaying the fears of some that the bill had not sufficiently accommodated the concerns of pro-life voters. Some had interpreted support for the bill as support for public monies paying for abortions. Even some of the US bishops saw it this way.

Anyway, one small step for Obama, one giant step for America’s poorest!

Papal Letter to Ireland

I read Pope Benedict's Letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland while on a weekend retreat (yes, I know I should have resisted the temptation to hit the web!). My first reaction was one of utter dismay. Yes, there was the acknowledgement of the serious sinful and criminal nature of what had occurred. Yes, the letter recognises the many failures of church authorities. And,yes, it was at least heartening to see some recognition of the need for "a new vision". But what alarmed me was the underlying assumption that the way forward involves a "restoration", a return to the Ireland that we once knew where traditional practices of piety routinely shaped our faith and spirituality. Equally, for the second time within the last few months Pope Benedict XVI informs us that it is our adoption of more secular ways is the root cause of what has gone wrong. How can this possible be true?

As a member of a religious congregation that has been prominently associated with the commission of some of the abuses, I can state without fear of contradiction that almost ALL of the abuse occurred in the period when traditional practices, traditional theology and ultra-montane clericalism were at their height. It was the pietistic assumptions of that period with it's all too facile designation of abuse as "weakness" and "sin", linked to the adoption of a religious culture of blind obedience, that permitted and legitimated the culture of secrecy and cover-up that we now rightly condemn. Prayer and penance have a role in our response. But, God forbid that we should assume that Vatican II or a culture of freedom in the Church have been to blame for the abuses of the past. What is needed is more freedom, greater transparency and stronger accountability, not less.

Bray to Greystones Cliff Walk

Yesterday the weather was clear with further confirmation that spring may finally have arrived in an Ireland that endured one of the coldest winters in over thirty years. Was it pathetic fallacy the literary device explained to us in school long ago that had weather events mirror emotional states? Well, this long and bitter winter certainly was not found wanting in giving full vent to the seething depression that has gripped this country as we mire further into this mother of all economic depressions.

Anyway, I awoke to clear skies and I vowed that today would be the day when I would undertake a major outdoor physical event, as in undertake a gentle hike! I placed the Bray to Greystones cliff walk on the agenda, phoned a friend so that I was publicly committed to doing it, searched the web for the DART timetable and packed my small rucksack.

Well, everything went well. The sun shone, the skies remained clear and only a gentle breeze stirred the sea. The views along the route where as stunning as I remember them. This walk is Ireland's answer to the Cinque Terre (which I walked in 2008), albeit a less indulgent one. No stops along the way, no picturesque villages tucked away in sheltered coves and no vineyards cheering you on. Still, it was worth it. Early spring heathers and the yellow gorse in bloom made up for the absence of vineyards.

And, then the glory of the descent into Greystones, the little bay spread out before me and the beckoning houses with the promise of comfort and rest. But wait, what happened those welcoming meadows by the railway that normally usher the walker to the outskirts of the town. Gone! Instead, the route is now diverted around a massive building site that purports to be the new super-marina and shopping complex that will from now stand at the town gates. You endure thirty minutes of hoardings, concrete plants, mud and scrawled re-direction signs. Absoltutely dispiriting.

But then, just as the spirits are about to flag totally, there is the sign for Poppy's coffee shop. A little extra effort brings you right to the snug warmth and chatter of this little nineteenth century gem. Inside, apple cinnamon cake and coffee in abundance awaits.

Life is wonderful after all!