A friend resorted to the Belgian songwriter Jacques
Brel this week in response to all the talk of “strange goings-on” at the
national seminary in Maynooth.
“Si j’étais Dieu en les voyant prier/ Je crois que je perdrais la foi.”
Or: “If I were God seeing them pray/I believe that I would lose my
faith.” It was not an untypical reaction.
More typical was the perplexed guy at a train station
on Thursday morning. “What’s he at?” he roared at me from a platform
across the tracks, referring to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, “Is he mad?
He sounds like a drunk in a pub: ‘I don’t like this place. . .the
atmosphere. . .I’m outta here!’.”