Finnegan's Awake
by Megan FinneganRSS 
Recent Posts
- Dialed down St. Patrick's Day
- A first time for everything
- Talking religion in 2011
- The uncertainty of prayer
- Smithsonian should have kept "ant-covered Jesus"
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Dear readers, I've been sorely remiss in blog posts, but rest assured that Irish themes are never far from my brain and my life. I've started a full time job as a reporter in Manhattan, and last week my reporting duties took me to the American Irish Historical Society on 5th Avenue on the Upper East Side. The society is housed in a strikingly beautiful Beaux-Arts style townhouse, meticulously restored and grandly appointed with such trappings as 18th century Irish-crafted tables and treasures like the original flag that flew over the General Post Office during Easter Rising in 1916.
As I sat on an antique chair in front of a modernist styled maple coffee table chatting with the Executive Director, it occurred to me how easy it is to take Irish heritage for granted.
Around St. Patrick's Day, the best and the worst elements of American Irish culture come fully to light. Those who aren't Irish don ridiculous green hats and drink themselves idiotic in the name of a saint they wouldn't recognize if they tripped over his cardboard cutout; those who are either do the same or take a step back and marvel at the horror of it all. (Not that I have any room to judge, as evidenced by the accompanying photo of me, from two years ago, wearing what I called "Irish antennae"). We get the mayor making ill-timed jokes about Irish people being drunk all the time, followed by equally cringe-worthy self-righteous condemnations of such statements.
I've been a pretty observant Catholic for my whole life. Most of the expected, stereotypical Catholic things, I've done - been taught catechism by a nun, felt guilty when I've skipped mass, gone to church on Holy Days, worn ashes on my forehead all day, confessed my sins to a metal screen, etc. But one thing I haven't done, ever, is sat down for a serious, important chat about my faith with a priest.
The reason I bring this up is that Tim and I have an appointment with our local parish priest in a few weeks to discuss our upcoming wedding. This will essentially be the first time we've met this priest, and I am surprisingly terrified.
Thinking back on my very Catholic upbringing, I really can't believe that I've never done this. That doesn't mean that I haven't ever talked one-on-one with a priest, but it's been in different capacities. I've had friendly chats about vacation Bible school teaching or the parish soup kitchen with the pastor of my childhood church. I talked to my college chaplain about my father's death right after it happened, and had some interesting in-class debates during my Contemporary Roman Catholicism course. I've also met quite a few ministers and priests from other Christian religions and in general have no problem talking to men and women of the cloth.
The time for resolutions is upon us. After recovering from our hangovers (or in my case, the severe and ill-timed case of food poisoning that afflicted my fiance and I and relegated us to our couch watching
The time for resolutions is upon us. After recovering from our hangovers (or in my case, the severe and ill-timed case of food poisoning that afflicted my fiance and I and relegated us to our couch watching With that in mind, I'm going to do my best not to shy away from potentially prickly conversations just because they might be difficult. It is only through dialogue that we can learn, and that's all I can hope to do.
Over the past several weeks, I've been busy finishing graduate school and trying to hold my life together. When you're so stressed that you can barely finish a coherent sentence, let alone your laundry, you find yourself saying many throw-away prayers.
Over the past several weeks, I've been busy finishing graduate school and trying to hold my life together. When you're so stressed that you can barely finish a coherent sentence, let alone your laundry, you find yourself saying many throw-away prayers.
"Oh dear God let me make this deadline."
"Please Lord let there be jobs open at the end of this."
The National Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., recently opened a new exhibition called "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," featuring the work of many homosexual artists. It is billed as "the first major museum exhibition to focus on sexual differences in the making of modern American portraiture."
Not surprisingly, conservative groups are in an uproar. Aside from being generally miffed at the idea that gay people are Americans too, they have focused on a few elements of the exhibition that they deem offensive, the worst being an "ant-covered Jesus." CNS News, which laughably purports to be all balanced and unbiased, ran this headline:
As the recession has crushed the retail market in the past few years, stores have been pushing the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier in an attempt to stay in the black. (The term Black Friday is based on the fact that stores used to count on the day after Thanksgiving to get them out of the red for the year and into the black, making a profit.) In New York City, the 34th Street Macy's had its display windows decked out for Christmas before Halloween, and giant holiday ads have been up for weeks in Times Square.
Thanksgiving has almost been swallowed whole by the Christmas Money-Generating Machine, but it's more important than ever to take it back. As the country muddles through a difficult economic time, focusing on a holiday that transcends religious difference and is about being thankful can only be a good thing. Thanksgiving is about gratefulness for what we already have, whereas Christmas, as wonderful as it can be, has also become about anticipating what we will receive.
I've been thinking about how religion can inform political participation, beyond the seemingly obvious issues that religious organizations rally around (abortion, mostly).
Apparently the Irish are sensitive.
Irish Central writer James O’Brien reports that the Irish Car Bomb drink is more popular than ever in the United States, while it continues to receive vitriol from IRA victims’ groups and self-righteous people everywhere. The inventor of the tasty concoction, a bar owner in Connecticut, has even apologized for his insensitive christening and wishes he could take it back.
In quotations in the article and comments from readers, the Irish Car Bomb is compared to a hypothetically invented European cocktail like the “Al-Qaeda car bomb” or the “Twin Towers cocktail.”
That’s not to say it doesn’t matter or that it doesn’t come up. People comment on my last name constantly (“Finnegan! You’re not Irish, are you?”) and I think about my grandparents whenever I make tea or hear an English accent. But nothing, not even St. Patrick’s Day, has made me consider my cultural heritage more than planning a wedding.
Wedding magazines, books, websites and television shows are all in the business of telling you to have a unique wedding while selling you the same stuff they’re peddling to every single woman who tunes in. Advertising makes the world go round, and there are many thoughtful bloggers curate their sponsors carefully, as there are editors and producers and writers who genuinely care about presenting useful, fun, pertinent information. But it’s tough to escape the message: “You [meaning everyone] must be unique! Your wedding should say something about you as a couple!”
While this news is a few weeks old, it just came to my attention and roused up so many conflicting emotions in a matter of seconds that I had to share it.
My friend forwarded me
Following a four-day jaunt to England and Scotland, Pope Benedict is safely ensconced back in Vatican City, declaring that Catholic faith in Great Britain is alive and well. The Holy See rightly chose to defy would-be assassins who threatened his life and was rewarded with hundreds of thousands of adoring fans - sorry, worshipers. No...flock-members? We'll just say Catholics.
In this op-ed piece on Monday, "The Pope and the Crowds," columnist Ross Douthat spun the numbers of admirers (totaling, by his own account but not laid out by him this way, roughly 5 percent of the Catholics in Great Britain, and less than 1 percent of all Christians in Great Britain) to claim that hey, people love the Pope! Catholicism is making a comeback, people. Who knew?
Douthat claims that even in a time of crisis (and let's add gross systematic incompetence bordering on malevolent negligence), Catholics still support the Pope because he signifies that which does not change about the Church. Catholicism doesn't give in to silly fads, like those crazy Anglicans do, so they stay strong. They also believe in symbolism:
"But in turning out for their beleaguered pope, Britain’s Catholics acknowledged something essential about their faith that many of the Vatican’s critics, secular and religious alike, persistently fail to understand. They weren’t there to voice agreement with Benedict, necessarily. They were there to show their respect — for the pontiff, for his office, and for the role it has played in sustaining Catholicism for 2,000 years."First of all, I find it highly unlikely that Douthat, or anyone, can testify to the state of mind of the 260,000 or so Catholics who showed up to see the Pope. Secondly, I think that some radical change is needed for the Church to sustain itself, in first world countries at least, and that it's logical to hope that that change comes from the top down, i.e. the Pope, but not realistic. The Pope is undeniably a political figure, and every politician wants nothing more than to stay in power. A man who, in some sense or another, controls a billion people throughout the world, is not going to do a thing to loosen that power.
So this marks my third solid week of being a weekday pescetarian, which begs the immediate questions, what the hell is that, and is it contagious? A weekday pescetarian, as defined by me, probably the only person actually practicing this diet, is someone who doesn’t eat meat during the week, but who will eat seafood anytime. A vegetarian who will eat fish. But only Monday through Friday. Come the weekend, I’m all carnivore.
This is weird, I know. I’ve gotten a few odd looks, but mostly I try not to make it a big deal, because that would be pretentious and irritating. It’s an arbitrary rule I’m imposing on myself – though I broke it once for Chinese chicken and broccoli, and am prepared to break it if at another person’s home and am served meat, or if I’m offered pretty much any free food. I am eating far less meat than I was before, and even on the weekends, I don’t feel the need to go running for the nearest cheeseburger. But why does that matter?
An An article in this week's issue of Time magazine reports on how the Claremont School of Theology, formerly offering training for only Methodist seminarians, is transforming itself into an interfaith institution and will offer programs to train Jewish rabbis and Muslim imams alongside Christian ministers. The school made this leap because its enrollment was foundering, and two years into the experiment, enrollment has increased. While the ultimate success of the program will depend on how well its graduates are regarded and whether or not people continue to enroll, the fact that it has existed for two years tells us something - that understanding other religions does not have to dim the belief in one's own.
A family friend of mine once told her young daughter, when she asked if there were other religions in the world aside from Catholicism, that there were not. She was young enough to accept this answer, and thought for who knows how long that everyone in the world was Catholic. A few generations ago, this myth might have been believable. It was common for Americans, especially immigrants, to live, work, and play with others of the same religion. My father and his 8 Irish Catholic siblings grew up in a neighborhood full of other big Irish Catholic families. While communities like this still exist, it becomes increasingly unlikely for children to grow up without any interaction with other faiths, and so it becomes increasingly important that children (and adults) get the tools they need to develop respectful, thoughtful relationships with these people.
So what would happen, I wonder, if a Catholic seminary took a cue from the interfaith camp and invited other religions to study under the same roof? It might produce a greater understanding of how the world's religions fit together. It might only create confusion and water down the mission of a seminary, which is to train Catholic priests. It might be too much of an extreme step, but a step in that general direction doesn't sound like a bad idea.
This past week, our country has seen two separate victories, in policy and politics, for tolerance and the separation of church and state. This past week, our country has seen two separate victories, in policy and politics, for tolerance and the separation of church and state. California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage was overturned in federal court. The proposed mosque (which is really a cultural center with a space for prayers) at Ground Zero (which is really several blocks away) has avoided major roadblocks and garnered
The French Parliament has approved Nothing makes me simultaneously happier and more devastated, as a writer, than when people feel strongly enough about my columns and articles to post harshly worded comments about them. To all detractors and vitriol spewers, I say, thanks for reading and for expressing your opinions. This is, after all, an opinion column, and I may very well be wrong sometimes.
That said, I try not to respond directly to comments, learning the hard way that it’s useless, and also believing my columns that stand for themselves. But there is one interesting point raised in the comments on my previous column.
User GeorgeDillon writes: "Why are you such a hyprocrite? You just want a romantic Church wedding instead of some dingy registry office affair. But you're not a Catholic, so buzz off."
Dear readers, I've been away for awhile, as you may or may not have noticed. Through the ever-continuing Church scandals, statements from the Pope, Ireland's involvement in the volatile situation in Israel, and an apology from the British PM for Bloody Sunday, I've been silent. There are two very good reasons for this: I've been in grad school and I've been engaged.
Both are conditions which hijack a person's brain, allowing her to focus only on things related to Feature Writing class or wedding dresses. (I've even started a separate blog, The Bride and the Journalist, for those inclined to follow my analysis of, reporting on, and documentation of the wedding planning process.)
Which brings me to today's column. As I return to the rest of the world and ponder the state of the Catholic church, the thing weighing most on my mind is that I will be getting married in a Catholic church in about 18 months. Growing up, this fact was a foregone conclusion, but as a free-thinking adult, I realize that I can choose exactly where and how I will get married (although I would NOT mention that to my grandmother).
Just when you thought that St. Patrick's Day had ended, Brooklyn proves you wrong! I went to the Brooklyn parade in Park Slope today, which is smaller but just as serious an affair as the giant Manhattan parade. Many families were celebrating, and though there was drinking, it seemed relatively controlled. In other words, no green puke. Enjoy!
Just when you thought that St. Patrick's Day had ended, Brooklyn proves you wrong! I went to the Brooklyn parade in Park Slope today, which is smaller but just as serious an affair as the giant Manhattan parade. Many families were celebrating, and though there was drinking, it seemed relatively controlled. In other words, no green puke. Enjoy!
Are everyone's respective hangovers cured yet? Not to perpetuate the stereotype of St. Patrick's Day. But seriously.
Are everyone's respective hangovers cured yet? Not to perpetuate the stereotype of St. Patrick's Day. But seriously.
I spent most of the day doing journalism work myself, but managed to make it to a few bars and parties throughout the evening. Important note: plastic shot glasses dropped into plastic cups make lame car bombs. But all in all, the rousing good fun I expected.
Here's a video of some people who weren't able to celebrate in the way they wanted to - which is simply to be just like everyone else. I've heard the nasty comments ("Oh those gays always make a scene and ruin everything"), but does anything think that a scene would be made if they were allowed to just participate? Most gay people I know - and I know many - are normal folk who would have no interest in protesting if only they were allowed the same basic rights as the rest of us.
Hey there St. Patrick's Day revelers! If you're stuck at work, or not in New York, check out some photos of the parade, people dressed up for the parade, and people protesting the parade. I talked to people with Irish Queers, and there will be a video up later on Irish Central, so check back! For now, enjoy these shots.
Hey there St. Patrick's Day revelers! If you're stuck at work, or not in New York, check out some photos of the parade, people dressed up for the parade, and people protesting the parade. I talked to people with Irish Queers, and there will be a video up later on Irish Central, so check back! For now, enjoy these shots.
And in case anyone is wondering, I haven't imbibed a drop. Yet.
On the eve of St. Patrick's Day, as we all lay out green T-shirts for the morning and snuggle down in our beds, dreaming of Guinness, we might think about those who won't be included in tomorrow's festivities - gay Irish Americans who aren't allowed to march in the New York City parade.
The 249-year-old parade is a private event run by the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), which is a Roman Catholic religious organization. While they don't specifically disallow homosexuals to march with other organizations (a gay firefighter would presumably be allowed to march with the FDNY, strictly in a firefighter capacity), they don't let gay groups participate.
The LGBT community has mixed responses to this. A group called Irish Queers will be holding its annual protest on 57th Street and 5th Avenue starting at 11:00 a.m. They demand to be included in the celebration of Irish heritage that draws tens of thousands of spectators and has come to symbolize St. Patrick's Day in New York.
Every so often, the Pope makes a decree about some pop culture phenomenon, assuming that A) we can't already guess what the Pope would say and that B) it matters not just to Catholics but to the rest of the world. Personally, I am more interested in what the Pope thinks we should do to deter rampant sexual abuse than his opinion on Avatar, but since Every so often, the Pope makes a decree about some pop culture phenomenon, assuming that A) we can't already guess what the Pope would say and that B) it matters not just to Catholics but to the rest of the world. Personally, I am more interested in what the Pope thinks we should do to deter rampant sexual abuse than his opinion on Avatar, but since it's Oscar night, let's consider the Pontiff's latest media commentary relevant for the time being.
The Vatican's newspaper and radio station denounced Avatar because they say it elevates nature to the status of the divine. (A good account from the Huffington Post here.) While director James Cameron has latched onto the pro-environmental interpretation, he has also been able to sit back from the debate and watch gleefully as different theories over the film's thesis have driven his 3-D spectacle to the highest grossing movie of all time. Others have pointed out, as in this NY Times article, that the movie is just generic enough to appeal to widely diverse audiences who apply it to their own circumstances and political beliefs.
Essentially, Avatar is what you make of it, and I find it doubtful that any practicing Catholics have converted to animism as a direct result of watching it. If a fun night out at the movies makes people less likely to use paper plates or think twice about carpooling, how is that bad for Catholicism, God or the world at large?
The people have spoken. According to the majority votes, it looks like I will be spending my St. Patrick's Day by (drum roll, please)...
Engaging in
Well, I was going to write about Ash Wednesday, and how I forgot about it (bad Catholic!) until I noticed a friend at journalism school with the telltale black smudge on her forehead, and then asked her if she regularly goes to Mass, which she doesn't, and then thought how interesting it is that on the one day a year when being Catholic becomes publicly visible, so many non-practicing Catholics still walk around with the equivalent of a sign on their heads reading "I'm a follower of Jesus Christ" - but then a friend from college alerted me to this little gem from the Washington Post which I deemed much more important.
Michelle Boorstein writes:
"The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has ended its 80-year-old foster-care program in the District rather than license same-sex couples, the first fallout from a bitter debate over the city's move to legalize same-sex marriage."
Well folks, it's February, and St. Valentine's Day approaches, but I'd like to turn our attention to the next hallowed saint day, that of our own dear Patrick. I'll be ruminating on this Irish holiday leading up and following March 17, but I need a game plan for the day of, and that's where you come in. This is much too serious an event to leave up to fate or my bad time management skills.
I'll leave this poll up until March 15 or so, when I'll discuss the results. You'll hear from me between now and then, not to worry. Have at it, and feel free to spread this around and get others to vote. Cheers, readers!
"We fly out at 12:15 tomorrow."
"Oh wow, I wish I could go, I'd be there in a heartbeat," I type back on G-chat.
"Give me your passport info, I'll see if there are still seats on the plane."
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 12/5/2009 8:17 PM EST
A few days ago the New York State Senate finally voted on a marriage equality bill – and killed it. Any immediate hope for making gay marriage legal in the state was dashed by the 38 to 24 vote against the bill, which the State Assembly passed 89 to 52 back in May.
In response to the vote, the New York State Catholic Conference released the following statement, which can be found on their website:
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 10/25/2009 5:39 PM EDT
So many Catholic issues, so little time!
Though I don't have much to say (yet) in the way of commentary on these issues, I cannot help but point out the recent frenzy of media attention given to the Church as it introduces some radical new changes.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 10/21/2009 6:09 PM EDT
A fellow journalism student sent me the link to this article, published in the New York Times on October 13, “Orthodox Jews Rely More on Sex Abuse Prosecution,” knowing my interest in all things Catholic and knowing that for the next several generations at least, any type of child sexual abuse perpetrated by religious figures will be linked, deservedly or not, to the Catholic Church.
The article describes the recent and unusual spate of prosecutions by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office against members of the Hasidic Jewish community for varying offenses of sexual abuse of children. It is unusual because the Hasidic community rarely reaches beyond its own systems of law and authority to redress crimes.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 9/18/2009 11:38 AM ED
A few weeks ago, there was a media uproar in Italy. If you don't have the details, you can read the scintillating version from Gawker here or the straightforward version from the NY Times here. The basics:
The Roman Catholic newspaper of the Italian Bishop's Conference, Avvenire, ended its tradition of silent disapproval for Prime Minister Berlusconi's naughty behavior (he's BFF with many an 18-year-old hottie) and flagrant disregard for the Catholic principles that the Bishops, and many Italian citizens, hold dear. Editor Dino Boffo penned an piece calling out the PM for his unseemly actions and attitudes, which are well known but largely left alone by the Italian media.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 8/25/2009 1:21 PM EDT
This week, I started at City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism. As one professor put it, I am now a reporter going through a graduate program. "Student," while technically the correct term, feels too much like college and not serious enough. So I'm wearing a name tag and learning video editing software and journalistic ethics and how to stretch student loan dollars as far as possible. I'm no longer a part-time writer or freelancer; I'm a reporter in training. Today the thought occurred to me, what does it mean to be a Catholic journalist?
There is a certain category of writers who could be classified as "ex-Catholics" - those raised in the faith but who no longer practice it. Then there are writers who are Catholic first - those who write mainly religious books or for Catholic publications. My goal is to finagle myself somewhere between these two categories.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 8/9/2009 1:53 PM EDT
MY fellow blogger Father Tim receently posted a piece on whether we should consider Facebook the Satan of the Internet. The good Father's conclusion is a thoughtful "no" - in other words, don't blame the medium.
The Modern Love column in this Sunday's New York Times is about a woman tempted to invade her birthmother's world via Facebook when the face-to-face doors have shut. She ultimately decides that she can't be a part of her mother's cyberlife unless she is invited into her actual life.
Growing up Irish Catholic in New Jersey during the 90's did not make me stand out. I had lots of Protestant friends and one Jewish classmate, but just as many families in my neighborhood were Catholic. For St. Patrick's Day, my mom made me and my sister leprechaun shirts out of iron-ons and puffy paint, complete with buttons sewn in that played "When Irish Eyes are Smiling." At college, which was Lutheran by historical affiliation and Jewish by student population, I relished the 9PM Sunday Masses held in the dim Chapel, far away from the overly cheerful and bright Christian service in the afternoon. I, unlike my ancestors, could afford to be proud of my Irish Catholic heritage, and never felt like a minority.
Then I found myself living in London for a semester, and suddenly, I was in the minority. Don't get me wrong - southeast London is no bastion of old English Protestantism, though there were many Methodist churches in the area. There were also Egyptian and Ethiopian immigrants and their children, first generation British citizens, walking to mosque in the evenings. There was no Catholic church. This shocked me. Even on vacation in Disneyworld there had been a nearby Catholic church! I had assured my anxious father that I would find a church straight away and fit weekly Mass into my schedule. My dad's philosophy was that as long as he was paying my way in life, I was to attend Mass every week without fail. He didn't ask for a tally and had no way of knowing when I skipped at college, but being in another country, away from everything else familiar, made me determined to stick to his mandates.
I attended the student fair held in the Union at Goldsmiths College, where I was registered for the semester, and searched for a man in a collar, or at least a sweetly dorky group of students who constituted the Catholic Students' Association. Instead, I found a table marked "Religion" and asked the guy where I could find a Catholic Mass in these parts. He directed me to a regular street address and told me to be there at 5:15PM that Sunday.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 6/15/2009 12:23 PM EDT
Last Sunday, I heard a word uttered in the sanctuary of a Catholic church, a word that I would never have expected to hear spoken aloud during Mass, and that word was “transgender.”
To my further surprise, the word was not tossed out with disdain or incredulity, nor was it used as an example of the misguided or sinful. It was not put in quotation marks. It was not even a part of the homily. The lector merely included it during a prayer for intentions.
I've recently been spending my spare time as a minion of the Devil. Well, I've been portraying one during rehearsals for a play. When my boyfriend, currently a receptionist by trade and a writer and actor by passion and talent, said he wanted to put on a production of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, I jumped at the chance to play Mephistopheles, the agent of Lucifer who secures foolish Faustus's soul. He reworked the text, bringing it back to its probable original form while also lending his own pen to fill in some gaps. We decided that he would play Faustus and I would play Mephistopheles, if only so that we could rehearse our scenes all the time. (Nothing like waking up and spouting off some lines about hell to start one's day.)
Immersing myself in this Elizabethan text about eternal damnation puts the nature of hell on my mind more frequently than normal. The play's take on hell is that it's not so much a specific place as the restriction from being in God's presence. Faustus conjures up Mephistopheles but still refuses to acknowledge that hell is a reality, until his final hour. Before that, he has thousands of chances to repent and turn to God. The trick of the play is that Faustus signs his soul over to the devil and believes it to be a binding agreement, but Mephistopheles knows that God's forgiveness is greater than any contract - if Faustus simply asks forgiveness, he will be allowed into heaven. In turn, however, a person's free will still trumps all, and God all but appears to Faustus to plead with him to abandon his commitment to the devil and avoid eternal damnation, but Faustus is too arrogant and foolish to listen until it is literally too late.
As a cast, we volley back and forth about the nature of hell, in reality and in the world of the play - not because we're concerned about the afterlife, but in order to create the right blocking and build theatrical moments. When we leave, though, the haunting verses of Faustus's dying lines linger in the brain, and I can't help but think of the reality.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 5/25/2009 11:01 PM EDT
This is not a good time to be an Irish Catholic. A few weeks ago, warring factions barely restrained themselves from fighting to the death in the name of Our Lady, and forced President Obama to speak about abortion rights during a college commencement ceremony. People were outraged, people were arrested, and all eyes were turned to a symbolic act that did not do one damn thing to advance the debate on abortion rights and laws in this country. Father Tim writes an excellent editorial on the subject, which you should read here. It is by far the most compassionate and thoughtful response to the subject I have ever heard from a member of the clergy. Since I am 24 and have been a generally active Catholic my entire life, I don’t know if that fact is comforting or disturbing.
Even worse, the Ryan Report brought to light scandal and abuse of Dickensian proportions within Irish Catholic institutions that went on for decades. The best part: the deal that the Irish government struck with the Church to not reveal the names of individual abusers. Great move.
Much has been and will be said about Ron Howard’s second attempt to translate Dan Brown’s novels to film. Angels & Demons, starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon the symbologist and Ayelet Zurer as Hot Brunette with an Accent, necessary not at all to the plot but to make Tom Hanks’ stiff performance more palatable, is a disaster of a film, but not for the reasons one would think, or the reasons most critics have laid out.
This movie has garnered almost as much hype as its (much worse) predecessor, The DaVinci Code. As has been reported on this web site, the Catholic League has come out loudly against the film, making one inclined to ask, Don’t they realize that will just make more people want to see it? Ron Howard has been accused of anti-Catholicism, of course; Meghan Sweeney considers, in her recent article, whether the movie perpetuates societally dangerous myths and stereotypes. After seeing the movie myself, I might agree that some people could buy into the plot as factually based and come away with a scornful view of the Church, but honestly, that’s nothing new.
The Church has wisely downplayed their reactions to this installment of Brown’s blasphemy on the big screen. They so vehemently condemned The DaVinci Code that it convinced many people its theories might actually be true – why else would the Church freak out?
With Mother’s Day upon us, I thought I’d launch into a discussion on sèx.
Go with me here.
One could argue that the single most defining element of Catholicism is the belief in the Virgin Birth. You have to accept that Mary was a) without sin, b) impregnated by the Holy Spirit (however that works), and c) gave birth to the actual Son of God. The rest becomes moot if you don’t believe that. Motherhood, then, takes on a particularly holy appeal. And you can’t have mothers unless you have sèx.
Question: What makes Irish people mad?
A) The British
B) Stereotypes of drunkenness
Let’s book review, shall we?
I just finished reading Being Catholic Now: Prominent Americans Talk About Change in the Church and the Quest for Meaning (Crown Publishers 2008), which was compiled and edited by Kerry Kennedy, daughter of RFK. Kennedy interviewed 38 American Catholics (many of them of Irish heritage) – several priests and sisters, actors, activists, politicians, journalists, lay people, business people, and even Bill Maher – about their religion.
The idea is a vital one, pushing a concept that we should undertake more frequently: to question our religion. Each person was chosen, ostensibly, for his or her involvement with the Church; some are no longer practicing Catholics but have a history and an opinion about it. Written in the first person but obviously transcribed from interviews, the essays – for this is what they become when condensed onto the page without quotation marks – sometimes lack coherence and the specificity that comes from deliberately setting out to write something, rather than to aimlessly talk about it. Instead of reading the barely-differentiated details of each person’s Catholic upbringing, we could read the standout details that each person would discern as unique. Then again, people with important things to say aren’t always the best writers (and I better not get that statement turned around on me), and people can be freer with their thoughts when having a conversation.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 4/17/2009 5:49 PM EDT
Recently, President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates issued a statement that ending the unconstitutional “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military is not a priority for the administration right now. They are putting it on the back burner.
All Catholics, gay or straight, are familiar with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. In my family, it is unspoken policy that you can go about your heathen ways as long as you don’t tell Grandma. Family members actually instructed me to lie to my grandmother about the sleeping arrangements when my boyfriend and I moved to New York together. I chose to respect the head of our family by telling her the truth, but that’s just me.
So we all know that the Church stole Easter from the pagans, right? Well, not exactly. We just moved right in on celebrations of fertility and rebirth and said, Hey, let’s do the same thing but make it about Jesus!
Not that this is a bad thing necessarily, but it’s an important reminder that Christianity did not introduce the world to the concept of celebrating new life and rebirth. The older I get, the more I question if the details of that celebration matter. That is, after all, where the devil resides.
Catholic theology holds that even when people believe they are praying to Buddha, they are actually praying to Jesus. It’s like God has various channels set up to reach him, and eventually, they all bottleneck into a crowded one-way road to the Christian Lord, who in turn acts as the toll collector – negative 72 mortal sins, plus 93 good deeds, you have enough credit to get through. Bear left and then keep going and you’ll get to the Holy Father. He’s lit up like the Griswald’s house at Christmas; you can’t miss him. It’s an interesting perspective when viewed against the Church’s past tendencies towards overzealous conversion of heathens (Protestants included in that category). It’s also a very smug attitude, made more so by the fact that it can’t be disproven. All you Muslims might think you’re praying to Allah, but Jesus is sittingup there intercepting your prayers. Does that mean that a religious institution with a different prayer for literally everything thinks that in the end, the details don’t really matter?
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 3/28/2009 6:56 PM EDT
Let’s talk religion. When the powers that be at IrishCentral.com asked me to write about Catholicism on this blog, my first emotion was excitement, and my first question was, “Do I have to worry about offending people?”
I was raised as a good Irish Catholic, going to Mass every Sunday (even while on vacation), letting the gilt-edged pages of our family Bible rest undisturbed on the bottom shelf of the coffee table, ordering pizza every Friday during Lent and regarding the “CE” people (those who crowded our pews on Christmas and Easter only) with mild contempt and Jesus-sanctified superiority.
Is it too late to discuss St. Patrick’s Day 2009?
Never! (Especially considering that President Obama declared March 2009 Irish-American Heritage Month.)
Let me preface this by saying that this year, I was determined to have the most clichéd and drunken evening possible, because SPD 2008 was a sorry excuse for a holiday, spent in the upstairs room of a bar in Midtown drinking substitute Guinness (they had run out of the real stuff) from a plastic cup. I wasn’t wearing green and I was home by 11:00pm, still cringing at the memory of college kids from Pennsylvania with emerald glitter on their faces trying to line dance to a Dropkick Murphys song. Not the best time.
Posted by MeganFinnegan at 3/18/2009 2:58 PM EDT
Irish American. I get the American part. I was born here, I’m a citizen, I speak English and my passport is stamped with the U.S. seal. But what’s with the Irish part?
With a surname like Finnegan, I can’t help but be identified as a daughter of Eire. When the HR guy at my office gave me my computer password, I asked him why there’s an “IG” at the end.
