Magic Statistics

Correspondence recently liberated from the office of Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern reveals that the Church of Scientology got into a snit because they weren’t invited to official church-state talks last year.  The Irish PM invited Catholic, Anglican, Jewish, and Muslim leaders to an inter-faith dialogue.

According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, its [Church of Scientology’s] Irish representative Gerard Ryan, wrote a letter of protest to Mr Ahern asking whether this had been a "pointed snub".

"Perhaps this was simply an error of omission, and if so, I apologise for any inference I may have inadvertently made.

"However, if our church was deliberately not invited I would greatly appreciate if you would tell me why," he wrote.

A spokesman for Mr Ahern wrote back in March last year to say that the letter would be brought to his attention — but there was no further communication with the church.

No word on whether Methodists or Baptists sent letters reminding Mr Ahern of their existence.

h/t: Religion News Blog

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Nurses and midwives in Ireland have begun the third week of a work-to-rule campaign in a pay dispute with the government.  Escalation of job action now appears likely.

Two unions representing more than 40,000 nurses have been refusing since April 2 to conduct bureaucratic duties, such as answering phones and typing records of patient care into computers. They have threatened an all-out strike unless the government concedes to their demand for a 10.6-percent pay raise and a reduction in the work week from 39 hours to 35.

The government, which faces a likely general election in June, has ruled out meeting the nurses' demands. It warns that could trigger a domino effect of similar claims from other state-controlled parts of the work force — at a time when economists agree that Ireland is growing increasingly uncompetitive because of soaring costs.

As the next step in their campaign, nurses at six medical facilities were set to stop work for one hour today, with more stoppages planned for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, nurses in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are debating job action to protest what they regard as an “insulting” pay offer.  An independent review board recommended that the nurses receive a 2.5% pay raise, but the government then offered the equivalent of 1.9%—even though nurses in Scotland have already been given 2.5%.

The head of the RCN [Royal College of Nursing] has accused the government of "blackmailing" nurses over their next steps in the light of the below-inflation rise.

Dr Peter Carter said he believed an "all-out strike" was unlikely because nurses would not take action that harmed patient care. But he said the mood was that nurses wanted "something done" to get their message across.

Given that the latest inflation rate for the UK is 3.1%, I’d say even 2.5% is miserly.

By a vote of 95%, the nurses today asked their union to consider what form(s) of job action could be implemented.

Other health workers, including ambulance drivers, porters, and cleaners, have also voted by a wide margin to reject a similar pay offer and consider industrial action.

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The Irish opposition Labour Party hits the roof after a high-ranking Justice Department official says that the “vast majority of asylum seekers” are “lying” about their circumstances.

Given that over 88% of applications for asylum in Ireland since 1992 have been rejected, the official seems to have a point.

via Colby Cosh.

Monsignor Denis Faul, outspoken critic of violence and human rights abuses in Northern Ireland for over 30 years, died on Wednesday at age 75.  He first came to prominence in the 1960s and early 1970s speaking out against judicial anti-Catholic prejudice, excesses by the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary, and ill-treatment of prisoners.  Later, he denounced, often with even greater vehemence, IRA brutality that created an atmosphere of fear in Catholic ghettos.

In 1977, he provoked intense anger among republicans when he stated that the IRA’s campaign was “directly contrary to Catholic teaching on the sacredness of human life”.  At a republican funeral in 1982, he urged mourners against joining paramilitary organisations.

For much of his life, Msgr Faul was a schoolteacher and headmaster of St Patrick’s Academy for Boys in Dungannon.  He taught his students to beware the temptations of the republican paramilitaries.

Faul knew his charges and frequently told those teenagers who seemed seduced by the lure of violent republicanism: “If you’re lucky, you’ll spend 20 years in jail. And if you’re not lucky, your mother will be handed a folded tricolour at your graveside.”

But the kicker was to come: “And if you go to jail or die,” Faul often would tell them, “it will sooner or later emerge that your commanding officer was a tout, and that his commanding officer was a tout too. And whilst you’re rotting away, they will be getting off scot-free.” If only more imams in Britain today spoke like that to young Muslims tempted by jihad.

Faul’s warning was only mildly hyperbolic. He was vindicated when it emerged that two leading Provisionals, Denis Donaldson and Freddie Scappaticci, had been on the British payroll — the tip of an iceberg. And he would have been unsurprised by allegations that Martin McGuinness was a British agent: he had claimed as much to me more than five years ago.

Msgr Faul was troubled by the 1994 ceasefire because he perceived that the Blair government had sold out ordinary Catholics to appease the Provisionals.  Among Britain’s concessions to Sinn Fein, he particularly objected to the closure of Northern Ireland’s grammar schools.  He said there should be statutes erected in honour of R.A. Butler, author of the 1944 Education Act, because he had done far more good for ordinary Catholic children than all the republican martyrs combined.

Full obituaries can be read here and here.

In honour of St Patrick's Day, here is the prayer attributed to him, "St Patrick's Breastplate". It was translated from the Gaelic by Cecil F. Alexander in 1889 and set to music by Charles V. Stanford in 1902.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Source of St Patrick icon: Byzantines.net