Sotto il Monte

In the foothills of the Alps lies the beautiful northern Italian town of Bergamo. One of its claims to fame is that Ryanair flies in there utilising it as a gateway to Milan. The upper part of the town is a medieval gem featuring the fifteenth century red brick basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.  Go just a few miles down the road and you encounter the less imposing but equally charming town of Sotto il Monte which is the birthplace of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli better known to us as Pope John XXIII.
This small mountain town radiates the spirit of that good man and it is as if the inhabitants expect his return at any moment.  John was a bringer of peace in the world, which lived in the shadow of the cold war. He was also a great pastor who made a landmark visit to Rome's central prison and slipped out from the Vatican at night, dressed as an ordinary priest, to visit the poor and the sick.  In fact his night time walks became so famous that he was nicknames "Johnny Walker". Pope John showed a rare gift for preserving what was best from the past and combining it with optimistic confidence in the future.  he gave people hope.
This wonderful spirit, which touched the hearts of so many people, is summed up beautifully in his last will and testament where he writes:
"My dear children love each other. Search more for that which unites than that which divides.  In the hour of farewell, or better still, of see you soon, I want to remind everyone of that which is worth more in life - Blessed Jesus Christ, his Gospel, his holy Church, truth and kindness. I remember everyone and for everyone I will pray.  See you soon".

Fr Peter O'Reilly (Newsletter Editorial 16th October 2011)

Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO)

About the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO)

The Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO) is currently the only organisation working on behalf of Irish prisoners overseas and their families.
ICPO’s purpose is to promote social justice and human dignity for Irish people in prison overseas and their families. This is carried out by offering information, support and advocacy to prisoners and their families. Casework, publications and policy/networking are key elements of the service provision to the core group.

 

History of the ICPO

ICPO was established by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference in 1985. At this time the Irish Chaplaincy in Britain were greatly concerned about the number of Irish women and men in prison in the UK. There were deeply held concerns regarding their trials and subsequent imprisonments. In recent years the ICPO has been able to offer a more comprehensive service to prisoners and to expand our existing services to prisoners’ families. This is due to an increased level of funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

 

ICPO Members

The ICPO is a subcommittee of the Council for Emigrants, chaired by:
Bishop Séamus Hegarty
The ICPO has two offices; one located in Maynooth, Co. Kildare and the other in London. The London office deals solely with Irish born prisoners held in the UK, while the Maynooth office assists Irish prisoners held all over the world.
Staff Maynooth: Joanna Joyce, Catherine Jackson, Sr Anne Sheehy
Volunteers Maynooth: Sr Agnes Hunt, Eileen Boyle, Joan O’Cléirigh, Sr Mary Whyte
Staff London: Liz Power, Joseph Cottrell-Boyce
Volunteers London: Sr Maureen McNally, Sr Cecelia Snape, Rev Stephen McKenna

 

Work of the ICPO

The ICPO works for all Irish prisoners wherever they are: it makes no distinction in terms of religious faith, the nature of the prison conviction, or of a prisoner’s status.
The objectives of the ICPO are to:
•Identify and respond to the needs of Irish prisoners abroad, and their families
•Research and provide relevant information to prisoners on issues such as deportation, repatriation and transfer
•Focus public attention on issues affecting Irish prisoners (ill-treatment, racist abuse, etc)
•Engage in practical work in aid of justice and human rights for Irish migrants, refugees and prisoners at an international level
•Visit Irish prisoners abroad when possible both in the UK and elsewhere

Contact:

Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO)
Columba Centre,
Maynooth,
Co Kildare
Ireland.
Tel.  00 353 1 5053156
Fax: 00 353 1 6016401
E Mail:  icpo@iecon.ie
Web:  www.catholicbishops.ie/prisoners-overseas

A Vision

Every idea needs someone to have a vision first, to imagine, to consider the possible.  Ideas must be thought into existence, then hope gives them wings.  Until I went to Malawi, I thought hope was a type of pious, academic, optimism, but now I realise that hope is a passion for the possible and without it people are indeed hopeless.

The vision was simple: that some of the poorest people should have clean, safe drinking water.

We envisaged using the simplest, low cost pump technology, producing a sustainable long lasting pump that could be repaired by the village women and made from local materials. This realised, with our pump factory in Mzuzu and the numbers of people with clean water increasing every day to well over 100,000, we are now on an expanded vision.

Wells for Zoe is a tiny organisation, but passionate about what we do, and so thankful to our villagers or volunteers, for having enabled so much to be achieved. To achieve, in Malawi, one needs to be inspiring every day.

“To be inspired means to move forward with purpose and enthusiasm. Purpose denotes a clarity of intention while enthusiasm is derived from the Greek en theos, a God or spirit within. Clarity of intention propelled by a spiritwithin is the most potent combination for achievement and creativity known to humankind.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ob3Vpilu_0  With our friends and volunteers, we bring hope to people in despair, not by cursing the darkness, but by lighting a light, and considering challenges as opportunities. All this happens as a result of your support and the energy of our amazing volunteers.

Our latest venture is to support self-help groups (SHG). SHG’s are village based groups of about 20 women. Members make small regular savings contributions over a few months until there is enough capital in the group to begin lending to members who submit proposals. SHGs have been shown to be a powerful means of developing leadership abilities, increasing school enrolments, and improving nutrition among villagers in many developing countries. The success of the 15 groups, I have met with, in the past 8 months has been phenomenal. (One group of very poor women now have a loan book of over €2,000, starting with savings of less than 20 cent per week each) All they need now is infrastructural support from us.

The first meeting I sat in on was held in a small enclosure for cows, where 20 women, came on time, as there was a fine for being late, sat on the ground, put out their 3 bowls, one for savings, one for loan payments and one for a social fund. These women started saving and doing little business ventrues in February 2011 and are now in full flow. I sat there quietly while 15,000 (€68) was counted out into the first bowl, 31750 (€144) of loan repayments was counted, with every note on clear view, into the second and 3100Kw (€14) went into the social fund. Loans were sought to the value of 51,000Kw (€232), so the woman seeking the largest loan, 25000 agreed to take what was left. They kept 785 in the kitty and this was the end of the financial dealing.

If one considers that the pay for one day may be 200Kw on a very very good day, the woman looking for a loan of 25000, was looking for 25 weeks wages up front. This was a huge amount of money and no one batted an eyelid. She was doing business and would have no bother paying it back within the eight weeks while paying the 20% interest before anything else.

When I first heard of this I thought it was the craziest idea ever, but now we are focusing our future on working with 50 groups of these remarkable women over the next three years. I have always read of the huge profitability of micro business, but in Asia, not Africa. Some go 100km to the lake, buying fish to sell locally, some buy second hand clothes and salt  in Tanzania 280km, while others make bricks. The 20% interest rate is fundamental and applies to any term of loan up to eight weeks, as it builds up funds quickly.

John Coyne. http://www.wellsforzoe.org/

The Ghost in the Machine

Lucan Newsletter Editorial by Fr Peter O'Reilly

People have reacted in different ways to the changes introduced in the Mass recently, one thing for certain is that they are far more than minor updates and it will take people quite a while to get used to them.

One change which comes up numerous times in the Litrugy is the response to the prayer "the Lord be with you" which now adds to the response "and also with you" the words "and with your spirit". The change brings the English translation into line with that in all other languages and with the original Latin. However, the change goes deeper than this and reminds us that we are much more than material beings and hidden inside is a whole world of the spiritual.  All this runs counter to a strong current in our world which denise the spiritual.

The 20th century British Philosppher Gilbert Ryle sums up this materialist view of the world when he refers to those who look for the spirit within as seeking after the ghost in the machine, a viewpoint whose greatest exponent  in recent times has been the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Yet try as the materialists might people's intuitive sense of the spiritual, of the ghost in the machine remains.

Everytime we encounter the mystery of love, glimpses of it shine out from the depths of our humanity.  So when we answer "and with your spirit" at Mass we are saying a lot more than meets the eye.

When I’m Gone

When I come to the end of my journey
And I travel my last weary mile
Just forget if you can, that I ever frowned
And remember only the smile

Forget unkind words I have spoken
Remember some good I have done
Forget that I ever had heartache
And remember I've had loads of fun

Forget that I've stumbled and blundered
And sometimes fell by the way
Remember I have fought some hard battles
And won, ere the close of the day

Then forget to grieve for my going
I would not have you sad for a day
But in September gather some flowers
And remember the place where I lay

And come in the shade of evening
When the sun paints the sky in the west
Stand for a few moments beside me
And remember only my best

    (Mrs Lyman Hancock)

St. Lawrence of Brindisi

At first glance perhaps the most remarkable quality of Lawrence of Brindisi is his outstanding gift of languages. In addition to a thorough knowledge of his native Italian, he had complete reading and speaking ability in Latin, Hebrew, Greek, German, Bohemian, Spanish and French.

He was born on July 22, 1559, and died exactly 60 years later on his birthday in 1619. His parents William and Elizabeth Russo gave him the name of Julius Caesar, Caesare in Italian. After the early death of his parents, he was educated by his uncle at the College of St. Mark in Venice.
When he was just 16 he entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order in Venice and received the name of Lawrence. He completed his studies of philosophy and theology at the University of Padua and was ordained a priest at 23.
With his facility for languages he was able to study the Bible in its original texts. At the request of Pope Clement VIII, he spent much time preaching to the Jews in Italy. So excellent was his knowledge of Hebrew, the rabbis felt sure he was a Jew who had become a Christian.
In 1956 the Capuchins completed a 15-volume edition of his writings. Eleven of these 15 contain his sermons, each of which relies chiefly on scriptural quotations to illustrate his teaching.
Lawrence’s sensitivity to the needs of people—a character trait perhaps unexpected in such a talented scholar—began to surface. He was elected major superior of the Capuchin Franciscan province of Tuscany at the age of 31. He had the combination of brilliance, human compassion and administrative skill needed to carry out his duties. In rapid succession he was promoted by his fellow Capuchins and was elected minister general of the Capuchins in 1602. In this position he was responsible for great growth and geographical expansion of the Order.
Lawrence was appointed papal emissary and peacemaker, a job which took him to a number of foreign countries. An effort to achieve peace in his native kingdom of Naples took him on a journey to Lisbon to visit the king of Spain. Serious illness in Lisbon took his life in 1619.

The Great Fire of Rome

Background

Though the infamous emperor Nero ruled Rome for less than two decades, his reign witnessed tremendous changes to the empire's capital city. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus -- more often known as Nero -- was a great-grandson of Caesar Augustus. When he was a child, he and his mother, Agrippina, were exiled by Agrippina's brother, emperor Gaius Caligula, to the tiny Pontian Islands. Two years later, however, the banishment was lifted when Agrippina's uncle, Claudius, took hold of the empire. Nero's mother soon convinced Claudius to marry her and make Nero his heir. In 54 A.D., Claudius was murdered, purportedly a victim of poisonous mushrooms given to him by Agrippina. Nero became the emperor of Rome at age 16. Several years later, Nero had his power-hungry mother moved to a separate residence; shortly thereafter, he allegedly had her killed. There was no end to Nero's ambition. One of his grandest plans was to tear down a third of Rome so that he could build an elaborate series of palaces that would be known as Neropolis. The senate, however, objected ardently to this proposal. Exactly what happened next has remained a mystery for nearly 2,000 years.

On the night of July 19, 64 A.D., a fire broke out among the shops lining the Circus Maximus, Rome's mammoth chariot stadium. In a city of two million, there was nothing unusual about such a fire -- the sweltering summer heat kindled conflagrations around Rome on a regular basis, particularly in the slums that covered much of the city. Knowing this, Nero himself was miles away in the cooler coastal resort of Antium. Yet this was no ordinary fire. The flames raged for six days before coming under control; then the fire reignited and burned for another three. When the smoke cleared, 10 of Rome's 14 districts were in ruin. The 800-year-old Temple of Jupiter Stator and the Atrium Vestae, the hearth of the Vestal Virgins, were gone. Two thirds of Rome had been destroyed.

History has blamed Nero for the disaster, implying that he started the fire so that he could bypass the senate and rebuild Rome to his liking. Much of what is known about the great fire of Rome comes from the aristocrat and historian Tacitus, who claimed that Nero watched Rome burn while merrily playing his fiddle. Gangs of thugs prevented citizens from fighting the fire with threats of torture, Tacitus wrote. There is some support for the theory that Nero leveled the city on purpose: the Domus Aurea, Nero's majestic series of villas and pavilions set upon a landscaped park and a man-made lake, was built in the wake of the fire.

"It would have been seen as very inappropriate on the part of the elite in Rome," says art historian Eric Varner. "They would have been happy if Nero had built the Domus Aurea out in the country, but to do it here in the city really was an extraordinary kind of statement."

Tacitus was a member of this Roman elite, and whether there is a bias in his writing is difficult to know. Indeed, Tacitus was still a boy at the time of the fire, and he would have been a young teenager in 68 A.D., when Nero died. Nero himself blamed the fire on an obscure new Jewish religious sect called the Christians, whom he indiscriminately and mercilessly crucified. During gladiator matches he would feed Christians to lions, and he often lit his garden parties with the burning carcasses of Christian human torches. Yet there is evidence that, in 64 A.D., many Roman Christians believed in prophecies predicting that Rome would soon be destroyed by fire. Perhaps the fire was set off by someone hoping to make the prediction come true.

Twenty centuries later, is there a way to establish who or what started one of antiquity's most destructive conflagrations? Is there any truth to Tacitus's insinuation? Or to Nero's? Archaeologists, historians, and contemporary fire investigators try to pinpoint the cause of this monumental tragedy of the ancient world.