January 2013 - Gerry Lynch: Priest, Writer, Photographer

The Silence of Lost Worlds and the Fate of the Middle East’s Christians

15 April 202630 January 2013 by Gerry Lynch

Monasteries are very quiet places indeed. Garrulous as I am beyond the normal Irish capacity for such things, I am not someone obviously identifiable as a great lover of silence. At the Community of the Resurrection, even here in the heart of West Yorkshire’s network of densely populated post-industrial valleys, the daytime silence between the offices can be intense. The stillness is broken only by the occasional fall of well-shod feet along the corridor or the distant call of an ambulance siren carried on the breeze.

My mind fills often fills the void with sounds of its own imagining. Often these are pieces of classical music which I have loved but not listened to for a few years – the pounding drum and sinister, relentlessly advancing, cellos of the opening of Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem or the bizarre intermingling of funeral march and chaotically joyful klezmer band that is the feierlich und gemessen movement of Mahler’s First Symphony.

Jewish klezmer bands were a familiar feature of the Bohemia of Mahler’s youth. In the week after Holocaust Memorial Day, there is no need for explanation why they are no longer a feature of life in the 21^st Century Czech Republic.

A First Commandment Issue?

9 October 202029 January 2013 by Gerry Lynch

Crossposted at 8aNoWay.com…

During a recent social media discussion on homosexuality ensuing from Steve Chalke’s recent – and potentially game-changing – announcement of his support for marriage equality, I was confronted by one conservative member of the Presbyterian Church telling me that same-sex relationships are a “first commandment issue”.

The first commandment is the prohibition against idolatry, against worshipping strange gods. At first I was rather bemused by this – in what way are two people who love one another indulging in idolatry? People can, of course, love one another in such a narcissistic and selfish way that it amounts to worship of something other than the creator. I can’t for the life of me see how the danger is any greater for same-sex couples than it is for opposite-sex couples.

A Return to Force Majeure as a Criterion on Parading?

9 October 202022 January 2013 by Gerry Lynch

Cross-posted at Slugger O’Toole…

The current parades-related legislation is cumbersome and deeply irritating to many in Northern Ireland. Every procession with the sole exception of the Salvation Army must go through the process of filling out an 11/1 form and seeking an adjudication from the Parades Commission. That means not only Republican and Loyalist marches, but entirely non-contentious GAA and British Legion parades, gay pride parades and, yes, even the Boy Scouts.

Doubtless, the process could do with a significant degree of streamlining. OFMdFM’s attempt to produce something acceptable to both the DUP and Sinn Féin produced something even more bureaucratic and deeply restrictive, which outraged civil society. The proposals were rapidly ‘unagreed’ by the DUP when the Loyal Orders came out against.

Nobody likes the current arrangement, but the alternative is that we return to the mid-1990s scenario of the police making decisions on whether or not a parade should proceed based solely on public order grounds. That, as we all remember, politicised the police against their will, and led to a situation where the party to any dispute who could summon the greatest degree of disruption or violence won. It must obvious to all that any return to the status quo ante is a disaster for everyone, and in particular a disaster for anyone who believes that ensuring the police are impartial and seen to be impartial is a necessary criterion for peace and order in Northern Ireland.

Leadership That’s Working?

9 October 202012 January 2013 by Gerry Lynch

Crossposted at Slugger O’Toole…

48, 48, and 48 – those are the nightmare numbers for Unionism. Not necessarily for the Union, but for Unionism the political ideology as we have understood it for the past century or so. In the 2011 Assembly election, only 48% of the population voted for Unionist candidates, interpreting that term as generously as possible. In the 2011 Census, only 48% of the population were classifiable as ‘Protestant’ by community background, even given the statisticians’ remit of allocating the non-religious to their community of origin by any means possible. And in the same census, just 48% of the population identified itself as British in any way, even when given the opportunity to mix their Britishness with either or both of Irish and Northern Irish identities.

All three of those figures are set to decrease in the years to come. To put it as bluntly as possible, the Protestant population tends to be older and the Catholic and non-classifiable populations tend to be younger. Short of convincing the Unionist population to ‘breed for victory’, committing ethnic cleansing on a Rwandan scale or convincing Catholics and liberal Protestants to vote Unionist for the first time, there isn’t much Unionism can do about this. Option 1 is unlikely to prove popular, Option 2 is (I hope) off the cards and as for Option 3 – how credible, if they are being honest with themselves, do Unionists think Peter Robinson’s ‘hug a Catholic’ Party Conference speech looks in the cold light of six weeks of flag riots?

The politics of The Karate Kid…

9 October 202010 January 2013 by Gerry Lynch

The Karate Kid is an evil pinko Hollywood propaganda film (and I mean that in a good way). Daniel, son of a Noo Joisey single-mum transplanted to blue-collar Reseda, falls in love with a rich girl whose family sneers at him and is beaten up by rich kids from the ultra-expensive – and ultra-EVIL – … Read more