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Irish Times
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
James Joyce: ‘For a boy of his age in a Dublin day school, he seems to have had considerable sexual experience'
Ah yes. James Joyce. No getting away from him today. The great artificer. Some smithy. Some soul! Joyce 'could have been persuaded to become a Jesuit but for one essential element in his personality which precluded this possibility,' the Benedictine priest said. And that essential element was 'his unusually precocious sexuality,' the speaker explained. So the 2012 Catholic Church's 50th Eucharistic Congress in Dublin was told. READ MORE You might think neither Joyce or sexuality would be your usual fare at a Eucharistic Congress. You would be right. But this was Bloomsday, June 16th, 2012, and the speaker was that most eclectic and erudite of men, and then abbot of Glenstal Abbey in Limerick, Mark Patrick Hederman. He said of Joyce that 'for a boy of his age in a Dublin day school, he seems to have had considerable sexual experience. His sexuality formed the warring partner in the struggle towards his ultimate destiny.' Joyce 'realised that the call to the priesthood meant the eradication of this vital aspect of himself. He saw the Catholic Church as a call to a certain kind of perfection which demanded emasculation and evisceration.' Ouch. But true. The good abbot believed that Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man described 'the bitter and lonely struggle between these two warring elements in an almost unbearably sensitive youth. The famous sermon on hell was the final blow to the possible vocation to the priesthood.' Hardly the first or only time an overwrought clerical imagination killed off the very thing it hoped to inspire. In what was a most enlightening lecture, Hederman proposed that, along with Homer's Odyssey, there was a parallel structure in Joyce's novel Ulysses – that of the Mass, which coincided with its beginning, middle and end. To underline this view, those familiar with the Latin Mass will immediately recognise Buck Mulligan's mock heroic opening words in Ulysses; 'Introibo ad altare Dei' (I will go to the altar of God). 'Joyce, I would hold, was a religious man. He wasn't an atheist. He believed that the humanity being presented, endorsed and canonised by the Church was a fake. He gave his life to defending the orthodoxy of humanity,' said Hederman who, many would suggest, has frequently found himself doing just that too. Precocious, from Latin praecox, for `maturing early.' inaword@
7NEWS
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- 7NEWS
Pope Leo XIV's close friend shares cheeky little-known story and praises his humility
Pope Leo XIV's best friend has described how the Catholic leade r ditched a lecture at a spirituality conference, choosing instead to have a friendly game of tennis. This week, Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, a little-known missionary from the American city of Chicago, was made leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. The pope appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on Thursday after white smoke billowed from a chimney atop the Sistine Chapel, signifying the 133 cardinal electors had chosen a new leader. Prevost becomes the 267th Catholic pope, following the death in April of Pope Francis, who was the first Latin American pope who led the Catholic church for 12 years. However, far from the pomp and ceremony of the age-old rituals, Father Tony Banks remembered how the pair first met and became best friends at a spiritual retreat in Chicago in 1981. 'We met at a spirituality conference in Chicago. Our first meeting was when we skipped part of the lectures to play tennis. He's a much better player than I am,' Father Banks told Weekend Sunrise on Saturday. Banks had nothing but praise for the religious leader as he was quizzed by Weekend Sunrise hosts David Woiwod and Sally Bowrey about what the pope was really like in person. Banks said he was a 'humble' man, filled with kind graces. '(At his first homily) he spoke about humility. He would be the personification of that if he walked into a room. You wouldn't pick him as the cardinal in the past, or as the pope in the present,' Banks said. 'He is a man who listens. 'He is courteous, polite. 'He's a conciliator. 'He brings people together.' Banks confirmed the pair didn't grow-up together. Banks spent his childhood in New Zealand, while the Pope grew-up in the United States. However, the pair became good friends in their 20s. 'We met as students when I was 23 or 24, and he was two years younger than me,' Banks said. 'The person I encountered was a very mature adult. 'Even at that age, and he had a great love for being a participant in the world. 'He was interested in all sorts of things, whether it be sport, whether it be politics, whether it be just simply the facts of the people who were immediately around him. 'He was always aware of the people who were there (around him) and had an appreciation for them. 'He's a very simply a man of the people.' Banks said he hasn't been able to speak to the pope since his election. However, he said the religious leader could visit Australia, for an upcoming religious meeting in Sydney. 'We have a Eucharistic Congress happening in Sydney in a couple of years' time, and I would think he, as pope, would want to be there for that,' Banks said. Prevost has attracted interest from his peers because of his quiet style and support for Francis, especially his commitment to social justice issues. Prevost served as a bishop in Chiclayo, in northwestern Peru, from 2015 to 2023. Woiwod asked if Leo would be political in his role. 'The way he will engage politically is in dialogue rather than in confrontation,' Banks said. 'He was very direct in dealing with (US Vice President) J.D. Vance, but it was more an assertion that J.D. Vance was proposing something that was incorrect in theology. 'It wasn't a critique immediately of his politics. 'I think he will be one who gets people to the table to actually talk, rather than being a man of conflict in politics. But that doesn't mean he'll be avoiding the politics.'
Budapest Times
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
Deputy PM: Day of Pope Francis's funeral will be a national day of mourning
The day of mourning will "express the nation's gratitude for the Holy Father and the nation's grief", the deputy prime minister said. Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén announced on Monday that the government intends to declare the day of Pope Francis's funeral a national day of mourning. The day of mourning will 'express the nation's gratitude for the Holy Father and the nation's grief', the deputy prime minister said. Deputy PM Semjén, who also leads the co-ruling Christian Democrats, said he was 'shocked to learn of the news of the Holy Father's death'. He said 'all Hungarians' were grateful to the pope, who called on Hungarians three times by visiting the 'national shrine of Csiksomlyo' during his visit to Transylvania before attending the Eucharistic Congress in Budapest and then making an apostolic visit to Hungary. Deputy PM Semjén said the Holy Father 'was rightly called a man of peace', adding that the pope supported peace 'in every way', arguing that diplomacy rather than weapons should take hold of events. The deputy PM also said the pope and the Hungarian people had a special relationship and 'a deep connection'. Having worked among Hungarian nuns in Argentina, whenever he met a Hungarian, the pontiff would always say 'God bless you!' in Hungarian, Semjén noted.
