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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 23, 2018 8:09:48 GMT
This Phoenix takes fantasy to new heights : predicting Diarmuid Martin will be the first Irish pope. It is far from certain he'll get the red hat. I think not.
But I thought there was a lot of fake news, or rather fake history, in the profile.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 25, 2018 19:01:08 GMT
The style is not quite so over-the-top as usual in their religion coverage (except for the papal prediction at the end). The Mary McAleese as a cardinal prediction was much more absurd. It is likely that there won't be an Irish cardinal again for some time. Certainly not before Cardinal Brady turns 80 in a year's time; quite possibly considerably longer given Pope Francis's break with the tradition that certain sees get the red hat as of right and his appointments of cardinals from dioceses which have never had one.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 20, 2018 15:57:53 GMT
Right now we might remember the man behind Goldvulture in our prayers :John Mulcahy died last week. And Paddy Prendeville's tribute shows how the Phoenix is what it is. Including the quirky religious affairs, but this blind spot fails to see the hypocrisy of Catholic liberalism. One little footnote got me: The Phoenix solicitor was Robert Dore. He also was briefed by the ACPI to represent the Irish missionary whose name I forget who was defamed by RTÉ. I suspect this more than a coincidence, though in this case Dore and the ACPI were right.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 22, 2018 21:16:39 GMT
Indeed - I have looked at issues of Basil Clancy's 1960s HIBERNIA and it struck me as being an example of liberal Catholicism at the time the two terms were not incompatible. It would be interesting to go back over its coverage of church affairs systematically. BTW John Mulcahy at that time ran the business section, and his career might be see as exemplifying the point that those who can handle the business side of things usually end up running the show. I'm not saying that to criticise Mr Mulcahy but as a fact of life which we crusaders too often overlook. BTW BAsil Clancy participated in the campaign to pass the Pro-Life Amendment and I heard that he afterwards discussed founding a new magazine, but nothing came of it. The account of Mr Mulcahy's long marriage and relationship with his children was very moving and a reminder that we should not demonise someone even if we disagree with them and dislike them. Prayers for his soul are in order.
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Post by annie on Sept 23, 2018 21:06:40 GMT
Fr Egan (RIP), who was the parish priest for Abbeylara, brought a libel action once against John Mulcahy (RIP) and Hibernia. They had reported that Fr Egan was in court for drunk driving while the charge was actually for breaking a speed limit.
John Mulcahy went down to Co. Longford to meet with Fr Egan and see if he would drop the libel action. Fr Egan gave him a good dinner and then produced some whiskey to treat his guest. The upshot was that Mr Mulcahy was soon deemed to be unfit to drive home, Fr Egan extended his hospitality and gave Mr Mulcahy a bed for the night, his breakfast in the morning and wished him God Speed on his way.
The libel case went ahead. I think around £8,000 was the sum awarded to Fr Egan. He used the money to build a fine house for his housekeeper to live in after his day. The Hibernia magazine folded at that point as it had run out of funds. Some time later Mr Mucahy brought out a much smaller magazine and called it The Phoenix
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 21, 2018 20:03:28 GMT
There is a very revealing little detail in the current PHOENIX. They have a piece on DUP activists criticising Arlene Foster for being too soft on the taigs. Now DUP activists are not the most charming of people, but the PHOENIX, to emphasise their alleged freakishness, highlights for its readers that they actually begin meetings with prayer and scripture reading - the readers being expected to find this as bizarre as if they dined on roast Fenian. An interesting example of how deeply secularist assumptions have permeated our chattering classes.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Nov 15, 2018 9:14:46 GMT
Boilerplate Goldvulture in the Clerical Errors column of this year's Phoenix Annual which is out today. Still cheerleading Diarmuid Martin after a disastrous papal visit. Still imagining Mary McAleese is some sort of force in Catholicism. How a magazine which is so hardheaded in business and politics but so much into fantasy in religion is a mystery to me
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 15, 2018 22:12:43 GMT
One change in their religious column is that Pope Francis is no longer being hailed as the Messiah but is starting to take on some of the lineaments of the Villain in the Vatican for his (mis)handling of clerical abuse. Another indicative detail is on the cover of the PHOENIX ANNUAL, where the abortion referendum is represented by a bunch of celebrating,YES-placard wielding Bright Young Things banishing a solitary NO voter, represented as an elderly priest in clerical dress. The column on Sinn Fein (for whom Goldvulture is usually a cheerleader) discusses the possibility that the party may have peaked and describes the treatment of Peadar Toibin over the abortion issue as a blunder (presumably because he is talented, since they don't mention Carol Nolan's defection at all).
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 28, 2019 23:09:10 GMT
The current PHOENIX cites in its "Hot Air Brigade" column one RTE personality praising another RTE personality praising another for his "courage". The said "courage" consists of the fact that the personality in question is not afraid to proclaim on his radio show that the Catholic Church has banjaxed the country. This suffulation is included in the column because the reader is expected to be aware that at the present day such a pronouncement requires no courage at all. 'Tis true; and pity 'tis tis true.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Feb 7, 2019 11:30:06 GMT
The Phoenix profiled Éamon Martin as the coming man in the Irish Church and they are a lot more sympathetic to him than heretofore. They seem grudging to admit that the other Archbishop Martin, for whom they predicted a stellar career that never materialised, has had his day.
The same piece says Cardinal Cupitch crossed swords with Mary McAleese on homosexuality. I missed that, Cupitch getting something right. Overall, they are less in awe of Francis I than they once were.
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 8, 2019 23:26:32 GMT
There's also a very revealing little aside in their piece criticising Jacob Rees-Mogg for attending a DUP fundraiser also attended by people with links to loyalism, "English nationalists" and "anti-abortionists". In other words, Goldvulture regards opposition to abortion as being as disreputable as having links to loyalist paramilitaries and quasi-fascists.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 9, 2019 19:55:46 GMT
The current PHOENIX "Clerical errors" page, besides gloating over the posthumous exposure of Bishop Casey in a way which I quite frankly find disgusting (there's a long rant about his predecessor Bishop Browne's moral conservatism which seems to have no purpose except guilt by association) is devoted to jeering at the Iona Institute.
I might add that the same issue is gloating over the disintegration of the SDLP and jeers at the idea of negotiating with unionists (rather than bulldozing them) as being equivalent to belief in unicorns. Funny how we used to be told secularisation would encourage pluralism...
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 5, 2019 8:48:26 GMT
Goldvulture still hasn't given up on Diarmuid Martin getting the red hat, despite being on the verge of retirement. He says he is the most respected Irish prepares, which prompts the question by whom and why. Michael Kelly had a piece in the past Irish Catholic describing how he has behaved more like an observer than an office holder in the 15 years he has been Archbishop of Dublin. The concession made is his handling of the sexual abuse crisis, but it can be countered that he came after the worst of the problems and when most of the machinery for dealing with it was put in place. Aside from that, his tenure was more of a PR man and/or diplomat.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Nov 14, 2019 11:06:20 GMT
Once again The Phoenix, which can be so accurate, gets it very wrong about Diarmuid Martin and seriously overstates the significance of Mary McAleese ( and Marie Collins) in the Clerical Errors column of this year's Annual out today.
It does get the analysis of UCD, and the Government's flip over Newman's canonisation right (between this column and their item on the same a fortnight ago.
But on religious matters, they just talk to the wrong people.
With regard to Goldvulture's version of Newman's toast, why would anyone bother toasting Diarmuid Martin?
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 20, 2019 23:20:01 GMT
Marie Collins I thought made some reasonable points (though so did Cardinal Turkson when he said the Irish Church needs to do more than just apologising for past crimes). Goldvulture's gloating over the legalisation of abortion in the North and jeering at Nuala O'Loan and "Holy Joes writing letters to the newspapers" is very revealing. The same Goldvulture BTW complains about too much attention being given to "British and Unionist perspectives" rather than to "Irish people north and south" - does Goldvulture think unionists are not Irish? Also revealing, in a different way, is the claim that Varadkar dismissively refers to Micheal Martin as "the Priest" and that Martin's about-turn on abortion reflects the views of a female adviser called Gillane or Dillane (I forget which). The statement that as a younger woman, an ex-trade unionist and a nurse she is a natural pro-choicer suggests generational change, because there were several nurses in the pro-life group of which I was a member when I campaigned for the Amendment in 1981-83.
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