The Indo Daily Extra: Pope Leo XIV – A progressive papacy or a rollback to more traditional Catholic values?
The conclave was short - barely 36 hours. Which means one thing: Pope Leo had the votes.
But why him? Why now? And what does it mean that the next leader of 1.4 billion Catholics comes not from the Global South, where the faith is growing, but from the backyard of Donald Trump?
Today on this extra episode of the Indo Daily, Ellen Coyne is joined by Michael Kelly, director of public affairs for Aid to the Church in Need, who has covered two previous conclaves, to ask whether the election of 69-year-old Pope Leo XIV will be a continuation of Pope Francis' gentle revolution or a rollback to more traditional Catholic values.
The Indo Daily Extra: Pope Leo XIV – A progressive papacy or a rollback to more traditional Catholic values?
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Irish Post
a day ago
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Face to face with the Ulster warlord
I FIRST met Andy Tyrie, the leader of an armed loyalist group, who died last week, in 1986. A BBC religious affairs programme, Sunday Sequence on Radio Ulster, had started hiring me as a freelance reporter and interviewing Tyrie was one of my first jobs. He was of interest to a religious affairs programme because the producers thought he might have thoughts on how much loyalist violence against Catholics was religiously motivated. I had to travel to a part of Belfast I did not normally feel safe in, where the population was almost entirely Protestant and unionist. Esther who managed reception, pressed the buzzer to let me through the security gate and directed me up the stairs to Short Kesh. This was the joke name for Tyrie's office, a pun on Long Kesh, the site of the Maze prison which housed loyalist and republican convicts. I found Tyrie affable and witty. He was a stout and tawny man with dark hair and a thick moustache. I assumed that the loyalist sectarian marauders he governed had at least the good sense not to shoot a journalist, one who might air their case, if they had one. We spent a couple of hours talking and then I recorded the interview. We covered a lot of ground. His basic theory was that sectarian tension in Northern Ireland was about territory. Most working class Protestants lived in housing developments that were almost exclusively Protestant but the Catholic population was increasing and needed housing too. The Ulster Defence Association which he led was ostensibly about defending Northern Ireland, or Ulster as they called it, against the IRA. In reality it was more concerned to scare away Catholics who had moved into houses in what loyalists regarded as Protestant areas. We talked also about new ideas being developed at that time about loyalist culture. Tyrie said that loyalists had been surprised to see that republicans in the prisons were able to communicate using the Irish language. They realised that a coherent Irish culture reinforced the argument for Irish unity and the preservation of a singular Irish identity. To match that, loyalists had to explore their own identity. They were now taking an interest in Ulster Scots, a rural dialect that their forebears had brought from Scotland. Before I left Tyrie, one of his close colleagues came into the room. He remarked that I bore a strong resemblance to Jim Campbell, a former news editor of mine who had been shot and wounded by men of the UDA that Tyrie led, perhaps with Tyrie's approval. The new arrival said, 'Sometimes we drive past Campbell's house and wave to him just to scare the shite out of him.' This was closer to the raw humour of vicious people than the amicable chat I had been having with Tyrie. This man took from his pocket a large brass folding knife, opened it and held the blade up to my face. 'If we just cut off a bit of the beard here and another bit here, you'd look just like Jim Campbell,' he said. I edited the interview and it was broadcast at length. On the day after broadcast the production assistant called me and asked for Tyrie's address. The BBC, which paid interviewees back then, sent him a cheque for £83. A few weeks later, Terry Sharkie, my producer and I went to Moneymore to report on an Orange Ceili, one of those presentations of loyalist culture that Tyrie had spoken of. This was held in the ballroom of a hotel. Tyrie was there. I went over to talk to him and realised that the men around him were not happy with my presumption of familiarity. I said something light-hearted to Tyrie to evoke a similarly friendly response that would reassure these goons that I was no threat. Tyrie said nothing so I walked away. There was further embarrassment that night when I was called out to draw the raffle ticket for a clock made by a loyalist prisoner. This clock was built onto a brass map of Northern Ireland on a wooden plaque. I drew the ticket and to enormous embarrassment my producer Terry Sharkie had the winning ticket. There was stamping of feet and shouts of 'Fenian Fix! The Taigs have got the clock'. But Tyrie's people assured us we had won the clock fair and square and even invited us to stay on. I danced with one of the loyalist women in a cumbersome country waltz. 'We're not sectarian here,' she said. That clock sat on a filing cabinet in the BBC's religious affairs office for about three years and was then blown onto the floor by an IRA bomb in the street below us. In the year before my interview with Tyrie his organisation had shot and killed one Catholic. He was later usurped by more murderous younger members who raised that tally considerably after trying also, and failing, to kill Tyrie himself. Perhaps I had seen a hint of that emerging tension myself, between the cheery bloke that he was when we were alone together and the sterner figure he became when hard men were around. See More: Andy Tyrie, IRA, Ulster
RTÉ News
a day ago
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Protests as Muslim community marks Eid al-Adha in Dublin
Over 300 members of the Muslim community have gathered in Dublin to celebrate Eid al-Adha. The feast of the sacrifice is regarded as the holiest festival in the Muslim calendar and is being celebrated indoors at Croke Park. A group protested outside the venue as attendees arrived. Imam Umar Al-Qadri went out and wished them a good morning. Inside, as the call to prayer began, a woman stood up holding a rosary beads and began to recite the Hail Mary. She was escorted from the venue by security shouting "shame". She said the grounds were for games and not prayers. Only Catholic prayers. There was no reaction from members of the Muslim Community who have gathered, which includes children. Addressing them, Umar al Quadri said the tactics were "not nice or respectable". He said the doors of mosques are open for Irish people to visit. He also noted that organisers of today's event include Christians.
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- RTÉ News
The political sorcery of 'harmless buffoon' Sir John Harington
Analysis: The poet, inventor and wannabe statesman played a secret role in controversial 1599 peace talks between Irish and English forces By Matt Ryan, Newcastle University For the first few weeks of October 1599, Queen Elizabeth I was furious. The target of her rage? Her godson, Sir John Harington. Poet, inventor and wannabe statesman, Harington had accompanied the Earl of Essex earlier that year on an ill-fated Irish campaign to subdue the forces of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. Humiliated on the battlefield, Essex and Harington retreated across the Irish Sea without the surrender they were after. But they didn't leave entirely empty-handed, and the document they carried back to England was the source of the queen's fury. On September 7th, Essex met with O'Neill on the banks of the river Glyde, at the border between Monaghan and Louth. It was here, without the permission of his monarch, that Essex signed a controversial peace treaty with the Earl of Tyrone. When word trickled back to Westminster, the queen was not amused, and the fallout would play a crucial part in sending Essex to the executioner's block two years later. Harington fared better and managed to wriggle himself back into his godmother's good graces. Yet, if she'd known about his actions at the meeting with O'Neill, he too might have lost his head. Harington spent much of his career presenting himself as a harmless buffoon, too fond of 'jestes… sportes and frolicks' to be taken seriously. Relegated to the footnotes of literary history, he is chiefly remembered as a minor figure who never made it as either poet or politician. But this is exactly what he wanted. A canny operator, Harington's bluff persona obscured a hidden life: he was connected to several prominent Catholic families, circulated dozens of banned books and wrote reams of politically explosive poems which never saw the light of day. These secret endeavours often led Harington into dangerous territory. On the morning of Essex's meeting with O'Neill, Harington risked his neck with a carefully coded message to an enemy. In a letter to John Carey, justice of the peace for Cambridge, he recounts how Sir William Warren and himself were despatched to begin negotiating the treaty with O'Neill. According to this version of events, Warren and O'Neill set about the discussing the truce, while Harington was assigned babysitting duties. Nudged out of the important business of the day, the queen's gregarious godson decided to take matters into his own hands and began to read from his translation of Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1591) to the Earl's sons. An epic poem full of sorcerers, fantastical voyages and a loveable flying horse, Harington's reading material must have seemed harmless enough. But his performance clearly caught the ear. In his letter to Carey, he reveals how O'Neill's attention was drawn toward the contents of his elaborately printed book. Before long, the Earl 'call'd to see it openly.' Here was Harington's chance: granted an audience with the most notorious man in Ireland, the opportunity had arrived for one of his trademark sleights of hand. The letter to Warren explains how Harington 'turn'd (as it had been by chance) to the beginning of the 45th canto' and launched into his oration. Canto 45 refers to Elizabeth's time as her sister Mary I's prisoner. Here, to supplement the action in the poem, he retells the story of how the young princess 'wrote in the window… with a diamond: much suspected by me, nothing proved can be.' Harington's choice of verse was dangerously double-edged. On the surface, it demonstrates his commitment to his godmother: she was wrongly imprisoned and overcame adversity. Delivered to a political radical on the banks of the Glyde, however, it carries with it a more explosive message: shifts of fortune can impact anyone, but things will turn eventually. Placed in context, this passage serves not only as a demonstration of public loyalty to the queen, but also as a dangerous message of hope to an exiled enemy. To his fellow Elizabethans, the 'hidden drift' of Harington's words seems to have gone unnoticed. O'Neill, however, got the hint, and 'solemnly swore his boys should read all the book over to him.' Harington was always aware of his audience and his cautious handling of words in person and on the page kept his secrets hidden The brilliance of this moment lies in Harington's carefully managed bait-and-switch. Apparently happy to sit on the sidelines with the kids, he must first have appeared a harmless fop to O'Neill. Feigning nonchalance, this seemingly idle-minded courtier is called to read, thumbs through Orlando and falls as if 'by chance' on what appeared to be a random verse. Then, as if from nowhere, he casually tosses into the Earl's lap a political hand grenade wrapped inside what is revealed to be a judiciously chosen, and carefully coded passage. A masterclass in conjuring, this moment sees Harrington suddenly transformed from children's entertainer into the political sorcerer he was. Even the letter to Carey is a savvy bit of gamesmanship. While he served in the Elizabethan court, Carey appears to have held Catholic sympathies and was tied up with a network of anti-Elizabethan courtiers. Harington wrote a relentless stream of letters home from Ireland, but never mentioned this episode to any of his other courtly contacts. Harington was always aware of his audience, and his cautious handling of words in person and on the page kept his secrets hidden. On that September morning in 1599, this verbal dexterity likely saved him from his godmother's axeman.
