Séamus Ahearne: Brazil and America:
Jair Bolsonaro (former President) was convicted by a Supreme Court majority of plotting a Coup to remain in power, after his 2022 defeat. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison. What is remarkable about this case, is how it parallels the behaviour of Donald Trump in America. However Donald is not in jail but rather is the President of the USA. Some of us can’t even begin to understand how anyone could have voted Trump into power. His values, or lack of them, were very obvious. His lack of self-awareness wasn’t hidden, but has been clear for years and to anyone. His naming of his Social Media Platform as Truth Social, does at least show that he has a sense of humour. His irascibility when anyone raises a contrary view is amusing but sad. His bullying tactics on the stage of the Oval Office with any ‘visitor’ when he is surrounded by those sycophants (his team), is rather pathetic. (I haven’t mentioned Epstein, Mandelson, Doonbeg and Irish Open, or the UK State Visit).
Charlie Kirk and Trumpian ideas:
How could and how can anyone trust the Donald? He is like a neurotic grasshopper. However, people voted him in. And then we have heard that many young people voted for him. A new name (to some of us) appeared during the week. Charlie Kirk had motivated and galvanised many young people in the US to follow Trump. How did he do it? Should the rest of us, (antiques), begin head-hunting some ‘young one’ who might do something for Church among us? I don’t know. How could young people who supposedly are sensible and intelligent be won over to the Trumpian way? Charlie did it. Charlie was ‘full of God’ as he did it. What kind of God, he displayed does appear to be unlike the God I believe in. But then Trump uses and misuses God too, for his own benefit. However, many immersed in Religion follow him and them. I don’t understand.
Charlie was shot dead. The gun culture of America did it again. Trump was angry at the violent political rhetoric that caused this death. It was the lunatic left that did it. He said. Donald was angry. He is rather stupid in most ways but he is an expert in the crudity of extravagant language! When will someone get sense in that once great country? I don’t understand at all how Trump was elected by anyone. (Repeat myself) I don’t understand why someone young like Charlie Kirk could sway so many of the younger generation. I don’t understand either why we now so often see many young ones in the Church (young priests) be so conservative and caught up in the formalities of the past. I find it unGodly. But then, what do I know? Has the ‘liberal way’ failed utterly?
I have aged unbeknownst to myself:
I was sitting at the desk this morning at 7. An email arrived from Rome to wish me well on the 52nd anniversary of my ordination. I hadn’t remembered. How have I got so old? I was thinking. It is 61 years since I joined the Augustinians. My mind rambled over those years this morning. The people I have met. The places I have been. The wonders of ministry. The hospitality into the inner lives of people. The welcome to the homes of people’s lives. The challenge every day to catch and share glimpses of God. The inspiration of the many saints in my life. The kindness, care, affection, fun and playfulness of the sharing by many in the everyday. The openness of all. How together we cope with the chaos and tragedy in the daily. The acceptance of ourselves as ministers, into the special moments of sickness, of dying, of death, despite the general absence of any practising faith among most people.
The Routine:
The endlessness of each day – with phone calls, door bells, emails, home calls, follow-up calls, preparation and letters for court, banter with the people of ‘community’ or ‘village.’ Is it possible ever to have a role in life that is so varied and so enriching, and so humbling? I have been blessed in Limerick, Drogheda, Dundee, Edinburgh, Carlisle, in Korea, in Japan, in Brazil, in Italy and then wandering throughout the UK. But the last 28 years have been such a blessing in Finglas, Ireland. It is where I work. It is the people I work with. It is the homes. It is the grace of place and people. It is the stretching of the imagination, to let God roam about. It is the challenge of every moment. I am very grateful for the energy I still have. But above all for the people who let me in and somehow tease me, provoke me, inspire me and show me the God, who is dancing among us. They let me see a revealing God; a Word made Flesh every day. Exciting. Exhilarating. Exhausting.
Why is the News always so negative?
Our world today is worrying. The ordinary and simple values of the past, appear to be evaporating. The meitheal notion, has to have the griasach stirred up in our lives to catch fire. The News is dull. It is full of negativity. Everyone is complaining. Politics always search for the bad and towards blaming everyone, for everything. Every day someone is accusing the rest for the state of the country. It is the hospitals. It is the Social Services. It is the uncared for children. It is the screaming for more money by every sector. It is drugs. It is criminality. It is the Flags shouting that the country is only for the Irish. Rather strange then to visit a Nursing Home or Hospital – where do the staff come from? Or any Hospitality outlet?
Even in Church life, the News is often attack and angry and aggressive. Poor old Leo (Pope Bob) is not doing anything. He is humouring the ‘outsiders.’ There is no coherent philosophy or theology appearing from him. After just about 100 days? Have sense. The message of faith. The message of Christ. The notion of ‘The Good News’ needs to be the outlandish language of the everyday. If some of us are ministers of Christ and of the Gospel – we should become counter-cultural by being positive; by talking of the good news of life; by telling a good story; by smiling lots; by being models of delight and fun and hope and love and real faith; by never being moans or whingers on the non-practice but rather marketing the positive and the beautiful. How about that? The naysayers need to be banned as dangerous. We have a wonderful story to tell and to tell and to live.
Seamus Ahearne osa 12th September 2025.
The absence of any respect in this article for a young father of two children and a husband who was shot dead is extremely sad.
I would expect it from a media outlet or maybe a political opportunistic but from a Catholic priest who has, I have no doubt, accompanied many grief-filled families is absolutely a moment when I realise how much this website can display some extremely poor taste at times.
Oh dear Pat. You surely must be a contortionist, that your mind could twist that piece, to reach the conclusion you have. But as my friend Augustine has said – if you agree with me; tell me. If you don’t, point out where you think, I have gone wrong. If there is some way, we can begin to understand each other better; that is good.
For a start – I think you have totally distorted what I had said in that article. However, if that is how you see it; fine. If I have put things badly; it does need correcting. In the old way of saying things: Conclusio non vult! (Your conclusion). Methinks. Let your thoughts ramble where they will. I haven’t a problem with anyone thinking differently to me. But please don’t jump to serious conclusions as you did. S.
Charlie Kirk would have mellowed. Though uneducated, he had the courage to debate with the lions of Oxford and Cambridge. But now Charlie Kirk has beome a “legehd” (Trump’s word), like Horst Wessel, the Nazi icon (nothing to do with the real life figure of that name). Just as criticism of the Horst Wessel cult was very dangerous in Germany, so Stephen Miller and the rest of the Trump gang have made any lack of respect for St Charlie very dangerous in America.
Caoga dó Bhliain ag fás, a Shéamais. As you continue to reveal ” the God who is dancing among us.”
Ad multos multos annos
Cardinal Dolan calls the late Charlie Kirk ‘a modern day St. Paul.’ I’m not making this up.
Also, Bishop Barron has stated that Charlie Kirk is a Christlike figure!!
As the author of the Cardinal Dolan story said above, I am not making this up.
All from the NCR.
Evangelicals are very vocal about Kirk as “an American martyr” and the Democrats in Congress are agreeing to honour him.
This is the Horst Wessel strategy which was imposed on Hitler’s Germany. Churches sang the Horst Wessel Lied.
Trump’s Garden of Heroes, with its 250 statues, will surely include a statue of Kirk.
Idolatry was on transparent display among the five clerics who saluted Trump at his inauguration, including Archbishop Dolan.
Erika Kirk may have caused a deviation in Trump’s Goebbels strategy. Instead of being a martyr for Trumpism, Charlie is now a martyr for Jesus, for love and forgiveness and for a religious revival; all the tropes of Resurrection are deployed; J. D. Vance has eagerly jumped on this bandwagon with a view to 2028. Trump distanced himself from Erika’s message, and Stephen Miller stuck to the essential Goebbels script. But others piled on the religious rhetoric, with quotes from Kierkegaard.