Greetings from Synge Street, Dublin, Ireland! The chef on the right is your blog writer on his day off! In case you are wondering, yes, the turkey was a success after a long culinary battle. It took three people to pacify the bird and proclaim it truly cooked!

Christmas Eve has already begun as I write this. It began for me this morning while listening to BBC Radio 4's Something Understood broadcast at 6.00am. This is a weekly religious broadcast presented by Mark Tully (who lives interestingly in Delhi, India, and is known to the Brothers there) in which he explores a theme using literature, music and recorded interviews.

This morning's theme, appropriately, was: "Who is Jesus?". Tully ranged over a number of answers to this question, beginning with Diarmuid O Murchu's call for the liberation of the person and message of Jesus from dogmas and canonical scriptures and moved on to Marcus Borg. For balance he included an interview with James Alison, a Catholic theologian who resolutely defends the traditional view of the Incarnation and the relevance of dogma in defending the "criterion from elsewhere" that judges human affairs. All very interesting and stimulating stuff at that hour of the morning.

My suspicion is that Mark Tully himself tends toward the more spiritual and mystical interpretation of the Christ-event. I have always been struck by his choice of music, his love of Bach for instance, his featuring of Arvo Paart's hauntingly minimalist protest against soul-destructive atheism, and the beauty of John Tavener's musical exploration of mystical themes in Greek Orthodox spirituality.

It was with Tavener that he ended this morning's programme. Perhaps that is where any confrontation with the experience of Christmas finally arrives, at the mystery of Spirit's on-going presence in the daily incarnational events of our own lives.

One of the poem's cited by Tully this morning was from the English poet, U. A. Fanthorpe, the first female Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1929. The poem is called "This Was the Moment". It is a poem that goes to the heart of ordinariness of what happened in Bethlehem two thousand and six years ago (give or take a few years!).

This Was the Moment
From BC: AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future's
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazardly by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven

by U. A. Fanthorpe

Maybe it's the gloom of these days, maybe it's just the sheer overwhelming powerlessness one feels in the face of so much misery and suffering. Anyway this morning sitting here at the computer I feel disheartened. There is always the straw that breaks the camel's back. For me it was the comment by someone who genuinely thinks the hours in front of the computer are taking a toll. With which I agree. However, the straw was the thoughtless rider to the comment to the effect, "no one reads that stuff anyway and who cares about what is happening out there!" Actually, I've sanitised the comments; they were somewhat more vernacular in tone.

Most of the time no one really cares about "that stuff". The important thing, though, is that some people do care. Some one has to care. It is a moral imperative. Reading again the excellent Statement from the New Zealand Bishops on climate change and also the Living Simply pages from the CAFOD website, I believe strongly that more and more people do care.

I think of the young people up there in Belfast, on the other side of the world in Oamaru and Auckland, in Sydney, in Brisbane, in Cardinal Newman College in Buenos Aires, in Vancouver. Young people do care. And, increasingly, the Edmund Rice community around the world gathered in different contexts care deeply about what is happening to people, especially to young people in different parts of our world.

So, if anyone out there is listening, remember it matters that you care!

Happy Christmas to you all and, as Tiny Tim would say, God bless us everyone!

Yesterday, I had occasion to go to the Education Office in Clonkeen near Dublin. I took the LUAS tram and for my reading I had purchased the London Independent (a habit of mine, as keen readers of this blog will know!). Not for the first time the front-page graphic said it all. It is feature on this website on the Darfur Christmas page. That silhouetted armed figure against the flames of a burning village captures well the tragedy that is Darfur. It is a tragedy, as everyone keeps reminding us, is about to unfold into a human disaster of Tsunami proportions. Except this time, no Western tourists will be among the victims. Instead, it will be the usual roster of Africa's poor.

Earlier this week I was in a meeting with some Edmund Rice Centre colleagues at the offices of TROCAIRE, the Irish Church development aid NGO. During the meeting we touched on the theme of powerlessness. When faced with human rights abuses, with situations like Darfur, with the plight of children and young people in Lusaka, Wadeye, or Kokata, we feel absolutely powerless. Not even the most powerful and well-resourced NGOs can effect the kind of change that is needed. Change is slow and often invisible. But the experience of powerlessness, as we agreed at the meeting with TROCAIRE, is the first painful step towards compassion and genuine solidarity.

On reflection, it was not without significance that this insight arose in the offices of TROCAIRE, the name of the NGO is the Gaelic word for "compassion".

Compassion, solidarity and commitment: this is the journey we undertake each day in the work of advocacy and justice.

Happy Christmas!

I have encountered problems with the latest version of Internet Explorer. Those of you who have installed version 7 will have discovered that the navigation bar a the top of the screen pretty much falls apart. It is an issue over which I have currently no control. I am using a theme template from SeyDesign in the USA. The IE7 problem is known and has caused havoc with other websites that have been exclusively constructed using W3C standards.

It was hoped that IE7 would show greater compliance to W3C standards. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case. Unless you are committed to Internet Explorer, it would be highly recommended to switch to Firefox, Safari, Opera, or some other browser that is more standards compatible than Internet Explorer.

In the meantime, I will do my best to update the SeyDesign theme for IE7 once workarounds or updates become available. For the moment, all I can suggest is switching to Firefox.

If you have not yet downloaded IE7, resist the temptation for a while!

Brother Eddie Coupe, Father John Quigley OFM, and Brother John Ledwidge

I have just returned from a three-day visit to Geneva. I was there with John Ledwidge and Eddie Coupe from the European Leadership. For them, it was a fact-finding visit. For me, it was a series of meetings with Franciscans International. ERI hopes to complete a partnership agreement with FI in January, if all goes well and if the finer details can be clarified successfully. Sometimes, as the politicians keep on reminding us, the devil is in the detail!

We met with the Marist Brothers and had the opportunity of a meeting with Dominic Pujia who was up from Rome. We entertained the Geneva Marist Community to dinner at Antonio's, a cheap and friendly Italian restaurant on the rue Lausanne. It was a very convivial occasion, cementing close relationships with the Marist Brothers and expressing the hope of even closer collaboration in the years ahead. Like ERI, the Marist Brothers are committed to strong advocacy action on behalf of children and young people around the world.

I sat beside Brother Jean-Claude, a councillor from the Hermitage Province. He was great company. Several times he laughed and joked about the fact that he was practically the executioner of the Swiss Province, having closed all six houses. "I have all the keys in my pocket," he said. He seemed pleased that the new Geneva house was in some ways compensating for his blitzkrieg through Switzerland.

John Quigley was in very resilient form, despite having buried his mother at the beginning of the month in Canada. John is a remarkable man, whose influence on the ethos of FI in Geneva is considerable. The gentle, calm and inclusive ethos of the office is in no small measure due to him, and to Jean-Louis Brusset, the equally calm and generous administrator and guest-master. FI is a happy ship. We were fortunate to participate in their office party and catch the spirit at first-hand. Everyone is excited about the possibility of ERI becoming part of the FI Geneva operation. Let's pray that the New Year will mark a major step forward in that direction.

Just this morning the Good Business newsletter from the Australian Edmund Rice Business Ethics Initiative popped into my mailbox. This initiative began in 1991 and has prospered ever since. It is a singular and quite effective linking of the core Edmund Rice values of compassion, justice and solidarity with the promotion of corporate social responsibility.

When you think about it, of course, the initiative makes total sense. It is a retrieval of the historical legacy of Edmund Rice himself. He was the Dermod Desmod, the Mohammed Yunus and the Bill Gates of his age, albeit on a much smaller scale. Yet, his significance in the Irish context of his day was considerable.

For this reason, while we might at first be puzzled by an Edmund Rice community involvement with the world of mammon, we can see that it has clear historical antecedents. The promotion of corporate social responsibility is one of the key tasks in the promotion of social justice.

John Sweeney's article in the current issue of the Good Business Newsletter will provide a taster to the overall thrust of the initiatiive.

Usually the web offering from TCS sets my teeth on edge. I take their weekly newsletter to keep in touch with what the other side is saying. Written from an extremely liberal (as in economically liberal) and largely conservative US-centred point of view, the columns tend to promote markets and liberal democracy as the best, God-ordained, and irrefutable way to human flourishing. Their argument is almost always well-formed and well-researched, unlike some of the other rants one comes across so frequently. There are some dark places where even adults should not go!

This week, however, I found myself largely in agreement with what TCS are saying about some of the barriers to education and to career paths for young people. Do we over-credentialise education and thereby exclude young people from opportunities that might otherwise be available. Perhaps, in the West, this is the case. The author asks whether we really need four-year degree courses for people to get into auto-maintenance. Maybe for some, but for all?

Anyway, read the whole story here, and if you are brave enough and need to feel a little righteous anger now and again, subscribe to the TCS newsletter. You will survive the experience and you will not be expected to worship at the altars of either Friedmann or Kaplan. Go boldly!

What is this? A rave? A drug-fuelled nightclub orgy somewhere in Soho? No, this is the Cafe Vocation in Spain. Following on from the success of the CafeVocation.Com initiative at the World Youth Day in Cologne this year, the Spaniards opened a semi-permanent cafe for vocations in Valencia. I don't know what the response rate has been like. According to the Legionaries of Christ who sponsored the initiative, the response has been very encouraging. So, will Australia host a CafeVocation.Com for next years World Youth Day? Maybe!

My thanks to Michael Kavanagh cfc, Synge Street, Dublin, for bringing this to my attention (Yes, he does live with me or rather he has to put up with me!). Thank you, Michael!

One of the places I did not get to visit while I was in Australia during the year was Murgon, Queensland. Christian Brothers provide educational services up there in the northern part of the state to indigenous people. While I was in Australia the whole situation up in the Northern Territories, in Wadeye to be exact, erupted. It was a big media issue. I was lucky enough to have been in Perth at the time where Holy Spirit Province has invested heavily in raising awareness around the indigenous issue. I attended the Province Day on Indigenous issues in Fremantle at the Edmund Rice Centre. I was on a steep learning curve.

Today, I had an email from Martin Sanders, a Christian Brother, working in Murgon. He and I had met last year at the Kolkata Symposium. Working with indigenous people is ultimately about the rights of people to fulness of life, as the late Colm Keating used to say. It is a human rights issue and it is time that due recognition was given to that dimension of the question. Writing here in Ireland, I am only too well aware of how we in this country pretty much reject a rights-based approach to the question of the Irish Travellers. We all have a long road to travel together on these closely related questions of the Irish Travellers and Australia's First Peoples.

At long last, I completed the website update, the creation of the first ERI Newsletter, and the creation of the Advent prayer resource. I am very grateful to the many people around the world who are collaborating on the Advent initiative. My own coding skills have developed dramatically in the last few weeks. When I came back from my travels in Oceania and earlier in Geneva and the Philippines, I discovered that much of what I had learned in 2005 had evaporated through some window in my brain. I had to relearn much of the HTML and CSS coding. I am now resolved to write a little code each week in revising the website.

For those who are technically minded, I use Rapidweaver to construct the pages. I use TextWrangler (the poor person's BBEdit) to write the HTML. I have to admit that I am still on the search for a really good HTML editor for Mac OS, one that emulates the user-friendly features of Taco (which I also use, but I suspect that it is not XHTML compliant).

My real discovery is actually a journey back to the future: using a stripped down word processor called WriteRoom. It presents black writing on a green screen. It's intuition is that it is easier to write if there are no distracting menus or other stimuli on the screen. One can edit on the full screen, which on the Apple 20-inch, is a real joy, no more eye-strain.

So the workflow is: text in Write Room, converted to HTML in Text Wrangler, and inserted into an HTML box in the editing screen of Rapidweaver. Lots of work! But it is worth it. Now I am taking a day off (well sort of)!

Yesterday evening I made my way to the Royal Irish Academy on Dublin's Dawson Street, negotiating my way through the first of the Christmas shopping madness. I attended the first inaugural lecture in Professor Michael Kelly series.

Michael Kelly is a Jesuit from Zambia and has been for many years the Professor of Education at the University of Zambia. He has a very distinguished record in the service of education in Zambia. In recent years he has become a passionate advocate for people who are stigmatised because they have been infected with the HIV virus.

Also speaking yesterday evening was the UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS for Africa, Stephen Lewis, a Candadian with an equally distinguished record in the service of humanity.
Both speakers were passionate and both held the audience rapt for over two hours.

Fr. Michael Kelly spoke about the layers of prejudice that feeds the community rejection of people with AIDS. He described all forms of stigmatisation and discrimination as immoral. They involve a profound rejection of our common humanity. He recalled poignantly Nkosi Johnson's courageous battle with AIDS. Nkosi Johnson was a young South African boy who died at the age of 12, having survived twelve years longer than was expected. He had spoken powerfully at the AIDS Conference in Durban some years ago. Michael recalled Nkosi's words on that occasion: "Care for us and accept us. We are normal. We are all the same."

I was delighted that Professor Kelly referred to the work of the Brothers in Africa and, in particular, to the recent conferences sponsored by the Christian Brothers in East Africa. It is a clear indication of the integrity and authenticity of the Edmund Rice charism that Brothers and lay colleagues in Africa have committed themselves to undertake advocacy and social justice actions to combat prejudice and stigmatisation.

Today, December 1st, is World AIDS day. A special lecture is taking place this evening in the Royal Irish Academy, Kildare Street, Dublin, on the issue from an African perspective. The disease is a reality for many suffering people today. But it is in Africa that its impact is felt most keenly. HIV/AIDS is a reality for 9 per cent of Africa's populations. According to a recent Hastings Center Report, in eleven African countries in 2010 will, on average, have a life expectancy of about thirty years. As the Report points out, this health outcome has not been seen in Africa since the nineteenth century.

And yet, it need not be like this. We feel powerless about the issue. We know that AIDS in Africa and its escalating tragic consequences is linked to pre-natal transmission of the virus. The Hastings Center Report concurs with those who argue that AIDS in Africa is largely preventable. There are models of success found in Uganda and Senegal, where HIV incidence among pregnant women and infants has significantly declined. "Research in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia has shown that less expensive short-course antiretroviral regimens diminish perinatal transmission by one-third to one-half. A trial in Uganda of a single oral dose of nevirapine given to the mother and newborn had similar benefits."

Despite this research evidence,Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa, believes that HIV/AIDS in Africa involves institutionalized racism. It is a pandemic visited upon Africa by the West. He has resisted guaranteeing all pregnant women antiretroviral treatment; he made nevirapine available only at a number of limited pilot sites.

So what to do? A human rights organisation, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) took the South African Government to court to vindicate a human right to health for pregnant women and infants. The Court ruled that protecting the child against the transmission of HIV is essential; to prevent this or to obstruct this is to contravene the right to health and life of the child. The Constitutional Court of South Africa has ruled that mothers have a right to pre-natal clinical intervention, including access to the drug, nevirapine, a low-cost medicine. This has been a landmark decision, not only for Africa, but for the whole world.

Reference: Lawrence O. Gostin,
Aids in Africa among Women and Infants: A Human Rights Framework, Hastings Center, 2006.

Read More ...

When Brent Scrowcroft in 2002 advised President Bush that an invasion of Iraq would lead to an Armageddon, he could scarcely have realised how prescient his words were. Describing the descent into chaos in Iraq in terms of Armageddon or Apocalypse is a common-place among journalists today. The biblical references are implicit and compelling.

Today's Gospel (Lk 21:25-28,34-36) is about the Second Coming of Jesus the Messiah. Past, present, and future converge in this evocation of an ultimate, final disposition of creation, the universe and human history. Some see this being played out even as we speak. "When we go to war in Iraq we will do so to summon the Messiah", this is what some of the Christian Right proponents of the Iraq war believed in 2002. They still do today.

We humans are only too well capable of creating the Armageddons and Apocalypses of our direst imaginings. For many, especially the poor and the persecuted, this awful envisioning of hell is not merely the stuff of religious psychosis, it is an all too real, this-worldly present reality. Think of the recent histories of the DRD, Iraq and the Balkans. Think of the teacher disembowelled this very week in Afghanistan for daring to teach women in his school. Armageddon is our business, not God's.

So, what does today's Gospel have to bring us by way of "Good News".

It alerts us to the truth that what we most long for in life, love, happiness, justice, is not ultimately within our own power to achieve. We have immense power to destroy and to bring about minor Armageddons in our own lives or in the lives of those around us. Redemption, as fulfilled love, definitive happiness, absolute justice, is another matter. For that we can only live in expectation and hope.

In the meantime, we do our best to filter out the negativity within us, to live just and decent lives, as Paul would have it, and to somehow align ourselves with the abundant life within us that this year, as always, struggles to be born. Perhaps it is this life that is our Second Coming.