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Irish Times
17-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Irish hares are unique but the law of the land is against them
The floorboards in the house hadn't been touched for more than 50 years, so when we finally lifted some at the start of this year it wasn't surprising to uncover a collection of random items tucked between the creaky old joists. Among them were cardboard milk cartons from Hughes Bros Ltd in Rathfarnham, set up by three brothers who established Ireland's first pasteurisation plant in 1924. One discovery stood out above the rest: an old cupronickel threepence coin, or '3d', featuring an Irish hare – the design work of the English artist Percy Metcalfe, who was commissioned to create the first coinage for the Irish Free State , which began circulating in the winter of 1928. The hare was part of a broader set of coins, divided into two themes: the pig, hen, bull and ram, symbolising farm life and produce; and the wolfhound, woodcock, hare, salmon and horse, reflecting the world of hunting. Roughly the size of a coat button, Metcalfe's Irish hare appears in profile, facing left and alert, as if poised to leap into motion. Its head is lifted, ears laid back flat along the curve of its arched back, while its muscular and powerful legs are drawn in close beneath the body, braced and ready to jump. By pure chance, just a few days after we had cleared out the room, Joe Duffy was on RTÉ's Liveline talking with his callers about their interactions with the Irish hare. Sheila phoned to share her story about a tiny hare that her dog brought into the house years earlier. She fed it warm, sugared milk from a baby's bottle, which it gulped down. The hare, she told Duffy, was 'absolutely fabulous' – tame as anything with her family, but wild, wary and skittish with anyone else. READ MORE The Irish hare has long been tied to fairies and the spirit world. Another Joe, from Cork, told listeners a story from 50 years back. He was driving late one wet November night when a hare began running in front of his car, matching his speed at 45 miles an hour before vanishing into a field. He knew it was bad luck to harm a hare, but later his father told him he shouldn't have followed it – hares, his father said, were from another world. Another caller, Patsy, chimed in with his memories of a priest he knew who travelled by pony and cart. If the priest ever spotted a hare on the road, he would stop, get out, and walk around the cart three times, just to keep bad luck at bay. Technically, it's a type of mountain hare, but it carries distinct genes that set it apart The Irish hare and humans go back a long way. It's been here since before the last ice age, evolving in isolation for thousands of years. Unlike the European rabbit and the brown hare, which arrived only in the past few hundred years, the Irish hare is unique and found nowhere else in the world. Technically, it's a type of mountain hare, but it carries distinct genes that set it apart, shaping its size and the colour of its coat. Unlike the mountain hare, the Irish hare doesn't turn white in winter. We're not the only ones to connect with these mystical creatures. Raising Hare, English author Chloe Dalton's bestselling debut, tells how she found a newborn hare one February morning during the Covid years, and how the bond she formed with the little female transformed her life. Hares are the only game species in England and Wales that can be shot year-round – a grim fact, given that their population has plummeted by more than 80 per cent in the past century. Last month Dalton launched a petition urging the UK government to introduce a legally binding closed season for hares, protecting them from January to September. Despite its unique status, the Irish hare is poorly studied. And while its population is believed to be stable, it faces real threats from habitat loss and a warming climate. It doesn't enjoy full protection under Irish law either. Between September and February, the Irish hare can legally be shot or hunted with packs of beagles and harriers. Ireland, Spain and Portugal are the last remaining countries in Europe where hares can be legally chased by dogs, either in open hunts or in so-called 'closed' coursing fields, where hares are first captured and then released for the chase. Each year, some 6,000 wild hares are taken under licence. They're given a 75 metre head start in the coursing field before two muzzled greyhounds are set loose; the winner is the first dog to force the hare to turn. After spending about two months in captivity, the hares are then released. A few years ago, in research funded by the National Parks & Wildlife Service, researchers from Queen's University Belfast set out to track the fate of hares released after coursing . They fitted 40 hares with GPS-radio collars and monitored them over six months. Half of the hares had been previously captured and coursed. The results showed no significant difference between the coursed and uncoursed hares: they didn't experience higher mortality rates, nor did their movements differ meaningfully. [ Anti-blood sport campaigners criticise finding that hares do not experience greater risk of death after coursing Opens in new window ] This research is unlikely to sway those determined to see hare coursing banned. In 2019, the same year Irish politicians in the Dáil declared a national biodiversity crisis, a Red C poll, commissioned by the Irish Council Against Blood Sports , found 77 per cent of Irish people supported ending live hare coursing. Wicklow TD Jennifer Whitmore introduced the Protection of Hares Bill, which has garnered cross-party backing. The Bill is short and to the point: it seeks to ban the practice, stating that 'it shall not be lawful to engage in live hare coursing' under the Wildlife Act. The Irish hare's ability to rely on its speed and agility to escape predators is why it's used in hare coursing. As awareness grows and the debate surrounding coursing intensifies, it remains to be seen whether future generations will choose to protect this unique species or allow the practice to persist.
Irish Times
09-05-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Book reviews in brief: Moral Formations, A Fool's Kabbalah, Motherland
Moral Formations: Discipline and Religion in the Irish Army, 1922-32 by Daniel Ayiotis (Eastwood Books, €20) Replacing the Irish Republican Army that had fought the War of Independence with a 'National Army' that would defend the nascent Irish Free State encumbered the first government as it confronted the threat and then the reality of the Civil War. Ayiotis, who is director of the Military Archives, draws extensively from the archives, and other sources, to show how the Department of Defence and Army GHQ created a command structure and codes of discipline, while Catholic chaplains demanded chapels in every barracks for Masses, retreats and sodalities, and the Medical Corps sought to ensure sanitation and hygiene while fighting 'the twin vices of drink and venereal disease'. Ray Burke A Fool's Kabbalah by Steve Stern (Melville House, £16.99) A Fool's Kabbalah unfolds as a dual narrative set against the wreckage of postwar Europe, where wit becomes not only a refuge but a form of resistance. With precision and dark lyricism, Stern crafts a meditation on survival, grief, memory, and the strange absurdity of history. Gershom Scholem, a renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism, sets out to salvage Jewish texts destroyed by the Nazis, while Menke, a shtetl trickster, faces a very different fate. The novel moves between biting irony and aching sorrow, its language crackling with echoes of Kafka and Beckett. Stern's prose is elegant and richly imaginative, balancing pathos with philosophical insight. He doesn't offer easy solace – only a raw, unflinching reckoning with history's weight. A beautifully crafted novel of intelligence, compassion, and surprising moral grace. Adam Wyeth READ MORE Motherland: A Journey through 500,000 Years of African Culture and Identity by Luke Pepera (W&N, £22) Pepera has set himself an ambitious task in journeying through the history of a people that 'extend[s] all the way back to the beginning of our species'. 'Journey' is the appropriate word, as the author focuses on sharing the essence rather than penning a comprehensive history which, he muses, would take several lifetimes given the 'continent's vastness and the sheer immensity of varied peoples who have lived there'. In order to do so, Pepera reaches beyond the lens of colonialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade - which occupy a culturally important but rather brief part of the continent's history - focusing rather on topics ranging from ancestral veneration to matriarchal societies, oral storytelling and its influence on modern-day rap music, and how the dead live on in African societies. An informative, enlightening read. Brigid O'Dea
The 42
30-04-2025
- Sport
- The 42
Death In The Afternoon: How a young soldier met his fate on the pitch 100 years ago today
WHEN YOU PIECE it all together, the story of Hugh O'Doherty pulls in all the threads that bound together the aspects of rebellion, the War of Independence, the formation of the Irish Free State and a National Army, and the fledging GAA as a cultural and sporting body. Just over a century ago, O'Doherty was three days short of his 23rd birthday and despite his relative youth had lived through much already. In this latest guise of his life, he was a soldier of the Irish Army, based in Finner camp outside Ballyshannon, Co Donegal. 'Young Doherty came to Finner camp with the first detachment of the National Army immediately after mobilisation,' noted a Ballyshannon correspondent in the Omagh-based newspaper, 'The Ulster Herald.' 'With his comrades, as well as the people of Ballyshannon and Bundoran – indeed all over Tír Chonaill, where he was known as a clean and gentlemanly footballer – he was extremely popular,' the account continued. 'Of a cheery disposition he always saw the bright side of things. A true sportsman, a win or defeat on the football pitch was all the same – he accepted either in the proper sporting spirit. He was looked upon as one of the best footballers in Co Donegal.' Playing for Ballyshannon against Dunfanaghy was a typical afternoon for him. But the later evidence to an inquest at the Sheil Hospital of Sergeant James Campbell, of An Garda Siochana Ballyshannon, who attended the match as a spectator, showed how the day soon turned catastrophic. After 20 minutes the ball was kicked towards the Dunfanaghy goals. Doherty, playing for Ballyshannon, positioned himself under the ball at the same time as the Dunfanaghy goalkeeper, Hugh McGinley. In the evidence, McGinley was said to have jumped higher and while both men were in the air, the goalkeeper's knee caught O'Doherty in the stomach. He fell on his back, his head striking the ground. After some time spent collecting himself, he walked off the pitch unassisted. Some time after, Patrick Kennedy from Ballyshannon walked past O'Doherty who was kneeling on his knees behind the goal and asked him was he badly hurt. - 'I'm done,' came the wounded response. Kennedy suggested he was merely winded and offered some first aid. O'Doherty asked if he could get a drink and with the help of another boy, Kennedy brought him across the railway line in search of a tap. Halfway there, O'Doherty collapsed, remarking he could go no further. Advertisement A newspaper report of the match in which Hugh O'Doherty lost his life. He was lifted and brought to the railway platform and access to a water tap. They then conveyed O'Doherty into a Mr Cowley's motor that brought him to the home of a Dr J D Gordon. Dr Gordon's evidence was that the victim was at the time suffering from a great deal of abdominal pain. He administered one-eighth of a gram of morphia and sent him to the Shiel Hospital. Later that evening, Dr Gordon called at the hospital and O'Doherty was more stable. On Monday morning at 10am, Dr Kelly and Dr Donovan of Finner Camp consulted with O'Doherty and his condition appeared to be improving, but would soon deteriorate. At 5pm it was decided to operate. They discovered a large rupture on the upper part of his small intestine, while there was a good deal of intestinal contents in his abdominal cavity. Naturally, this was seriously alarming. Around 45 minutes into the operation, he died. Dr Kelly believed this to be due to shock and peritonitis, with a sudden blow capable of inflicting the damage, with Dr O'Donovan corroborating. Rev E O'Harte, Finner Camp, stated he refereed the game. He gave his sequence of events, and how a crowd had gathered around the stricken player on the turf, before being instructed to disperse. He told the coroner O'Doherty made no complaint about being struck by any other player. The jury returned a verdict that Hugh O'Doherty came to his death according to the medical evidence from shock and peritonitis due to the rupture of his bowels. The coroner, PJ O'Dolan of Dunfanaghy, Mr J Norton of Ballyshannon GAA, all expressed sympathy with the relatives of the deceased on his sad bereavement. After the inquest at 10pm on the Tuesday night, the remains were conveyed from Hospital to the Finner Camp with military honours. The coffin, mounted on a gun carriage and covered with a tricolour while a company of his comrades marched behind with arms reversed. An enormous crowd of Ballyshannon people turned out. Mass was on the Wednesday at camp. The remains were brought to Omagh, where they were met by a large crowd of people. The coffin, still shrouded with the tricolour, was borne on the shoulders of his acquaintances and brought to his parent's home in Kevlin Road, where Hugh O'Doherty senior and his wife Bella lived. On Thursday, Requim Mass took place in the Sacred Heart, celebrated by Fr Lagan. Members of the Free State army accompanied the remains and acted as pall-bearers. Wreaths were sent from a wide and varied collection of bodies such as the Irish National Forresters, St Eugene's Brass and Reed band, the committee and members of St Patrick's Hall, Omagh, Dunfanaghy and Aodh Ruadh Ballyshannon clubs, Ballyshannon United soccer club and the Omagh Motorman's Association, reflective of a man who spread himself across many diversions. However, trouble arrived prior to the funeral. On the Wednesday night, it was reported that two RUC men went to the house of Hugh O'Doherty senior and gave warning that the flag of the Irish tricolour would not be permitted to fly the following day. O'Doherty then pointed out that funeral arrangements would be the business of the Free State Army and brought two of the officers to the door, who had accompanied the remains. One of the policemen said, 'It is a scandal to carry that flag through the streets of Omagh.' A Free State officer asked if the Free State flag was not recognised in the six counties and received an answer, 'We know nothing about you fellows. Remember you are in the six counties now.' After some more discussion and rancour the RUC men left, vowing to remove by force any Irish tricolours should they appear on the day of the funeral. However, one of the policemen returned later that day and said that the flag could be displayed at the funeral. A little further digging into the story revealed that Hugh, along with his brother Jim, had to get out of Omagh some years earlier, owing to their subversive activities. After receiving a tip-off about an impending arrest, they made across the border. In 1941, his mother, Bella, was sent a medal in recognition for his contribution to the War of Independence. As he was deceased at the time, his name was engraved on the medal. Some years later, when Hugh Jnr's brother John passed away having lived in Cabra, Dublin, the Ulster Herald newspaper ran an obituary that contained some revealing details. 'The deceased gentleman was a member of an old and respected Catholic family, the members of which had taken an active part in the struggle for Irish Independence. Hugh O'Doherty's medal for his part in the War of Independence. 'The late Mr Doherty served the 2nd Northern Division IRA in the Omagh area until the British agents got to know of his activity when he was forced to go 'on his keeping.' At the same time, his brother Mr Hugh O'Doherty, also of the 2nd Northern Division had to go on the run…' Their escape was a long and arduous one, no doubt, on a horse and cart making their way across the border and into Pettigo in Donegal. When they reached that point, the border patrol stopped them and were attempting to relieve the company of their horse and cart. That was before one of the patrol – who himself came from Omagh – recognised Hugh O'Doherty and after renewing acquaintances, allowed them to continue on their way. His resting place is in Killyclogher graveyard today, his death marked as 100 years ago today. His medals came into the care of his father Hugh and was passed on to his brother Joseph when he passed away. They remained on top of a wardrobe while the children were growing up and are kept safe today, a reminder of a tumultuous time in Irish history. *** Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
Irish Times
26-04-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
After the death of popular Pope Francis, what now for Christianity?
True story: a Berlin priest gets a phone call one afternoon from a panicked parishioner. She's just discovered the church was left unlocked. The priest, nonplussed, asks: 'And, what happened?' 'Someone,' the parishioner says, catching her breath, 'lit a candle.' In Germany's licentious capital, where fewer than one in five belong to the main Christian denominations, this is a deeply subversive – and utterly human – act. READ MORE When Catholics say a final farewell to Pope Francis today, the Church he leaves behind has 10 per cent more members than 12 years ago, when he took over. Yet in Europe, after centuries of dominance, Christianity appears to be in retreat. In Germany and England, mainstream Christian church members now comprise minorities of just 45 and 46 per cent of their respective populations. In the Republic, 69 per cent in the 2022 census identified as Roman Catholic, down from 84 per cent a decade earlier. In the same period, the numbers ticking the 'no religion' box jumped by 187 per cent and make up 14 per cent of the population. Unthinkable a century ago for Irish Free State officials who prostrated themselves in Rome in 'grateful appreciation of the gracious consideration of his Holiness' Pope Pius XI. Yet the census mirrors the chilly welcome Ireland gave Pope Francis in 2018. After two decades of clerical sexual abuse revelations and cover-up, and months after Ireland introduced abortion, Francis heard from Ireland's first gay taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, how the Catholic Church had contributed to Ireland's 'legacy of pain and suffering' . In Germany and England, mainstream Christian church members now comprise minorities of just 45 and 46 per cent of their respective populations. Photograph:The papal visit concluded a great reset of church-state relations and Ireland's entry to the western European secular mainstream. But did Ireland arrive just as the wind was changing? Just two months after Pope Francis visited Ireland, a fellow Jesuit, Arturo Sosa, father general of the religious order, argued in a Vatican conference that secularism was not the end of history. Indifference towards religion and faith matters, he suggested, could eventually 'move into an investigation of the phenomenon of religion' where curious young people could approach faith communities 'to see what they can discover and learn'. Look around and there are signs that this investigation and re-evaluation is well under way. In Ireland, many of the generations educated out of religion – thanks, somewhat ironically, to free education in Catholic schools by teachers who were nuns and priests – maintained a pilot light of cultural Catholicism. Their children – many of whom last saw a church while wearing their first communion clothes − make up Ireland's smallest age cohort of Catholics. Raised in a secular Ireland of second cars, property bubbles and mental health crises, some of these are the people starting to reassess the position of faith in modern society. [ Pope Francis's death silences a voice for the voiceless Opens in new window ] On the fiction shelves, Marxist Sally Rooney has seeded her best-selling novels with religious observations, revelations and plot twists. First Things, a US religious and intellectual journal, predicted confidently that Rooney's 'future novels will contain more theology, more families, and more turning to Christ'. She is not alone. London-based writer Lamorna Ash spent two years interviewing believers for a new book, Don't Forget We're Here Forever, only to feel herself attracted, too, to the idea of belief. For the 31-year-old and her peers, reared between the poles of prosperity, diversity and insecurity, there is an 'increased tolerance and openness to religious frames of mind'. Ash sees another catalyst in social media's inherent contradiction of connection and isolation, leaving many younger people 'craving the kind of physical community we might have once gotten through the mosque, the synagogue, the temple, the church'. Of course a few writers don't make a religious revival. Many of their readers, raised far from the concept, may struggle with faith as a frame for their lives, let alone as a source of content or contentment. Recent years have seen other trends come and go: crystals; angels; mind-body-spirit; stoicism. Some will latch on to religious faith as a life hack, much like the trend towards abandoning smartphones. [ Bishops 'have got to be fired': The Maga Catholics trying to take back control of the church Opens in new window ] Yet two decades after atheist Richard Dawkins published his sceptic's bible, The God Delusion, many younger writers and thinkers appear to question traditional binary assumptions of faith-unfaith. Put in Irish terms: maybe attending/boycotting Mass is not the last word in spiritual self-discovery or self-denial. There is a world of Christian faith, thought and practice beyond what many Irish view as irredeemably flawed institutional Catholicism. As traditional parish life withers, spiritual offerings that are broader yet more specialist, appear to reflect new priorities, from traditional Catholic Tridentine (Latin) services to the Church of Ireland's Pioneer Ministry. Rev Rob Jones told The Irish Times late last year his services at the newly pew-free Holy Trinity church in Dublin's Rathmines were proving attractive to a generation 'more interested in spirituality as opposed to organised religion'. 'I think we're kind of in that time again, of tapping into the spirituality which is so important in the life of our island,' he said. Census figures from 2022 show that, in Northern Ireland, 45.7 per cent of people are either Catholic or from a Catholic background, compared to 43.5 per cent who are Protestant or from other Christian denominations. A 2017 Pew Research Centre survey of 15 western European states, including Ireland, showed the continent's largest groups of Christians were the cultural, non-practising kind. Of them, 51 per cent said they believed in another, non-specified higher power. Put another way: every second lapsed Catholic in Europe is open to – or longing for – something bigger than themselves but may lack the language to describe what they feel they are missing – or seeking. Leonard Cohen: The singer-songwriter's creative life centred on an exploration of faith and spirituality In some ways they are continuing the languid longing of the late Leonard Cohen , the singer-songwriter dubbed a 'secular saint' by this newspaper in 2012. His entire creative life was an exploration of his secular Jewish roots, the Catholic faith he picked up as a child from his Irish nanny in Montreal and further wisdom during a spell as a Zen Buddhist monk. After his death in 2016, the US Jesuit magazine America said that 'Cohen's problem was not a crisis of faith – he never ceased believing in God – but the scandal that God makes it so hard for us to live by our beliefs'. From Bono and Sinéad O'Connor to Nick Cave , modern music is filled with spiritual seekers. The latter wrote of his spiritual rediscovery, after his son's death a decade ago, a 'considerable surprise'. [ Londoners and tourists mourn Pope Francis amid Catholicism's unexpected renaissance in Britain Opens in new window ] 'I have found some of my truths,' he wrote, 'in that wholly fallible, often disappointing, deeply weird and thoroughly human institution of the [Anglican] Church.' Cave's spiritual return came just as German theologian Jörg Lauster began arguing that, despite rumours of its demise, the search for transcendence was alive and well in western Europe. In his best-selling 2014 short history of Christianity, Die Verzauberung der Welt (Enchanting the World), he argues that debates about church decline and the departure of some believers say little about those who remain – or return – to seek out thoughts, places and people they perceive as holy. 'Encountering the holy teaches us to be humble, to recognise that there is something that defies my comprehension,' he told Germany's Zeitzeichen magazine in December, 'which stands fundamentally opposed to the modern credos of 'you are master of your own life'.' As a professor of theology in Munich's Ludwig Maximilian University, the 59-year-old describes his challenge as 'demonstrating to people what they are actually losing when they submit uncritically to this modern hubris'. [ Freedom of religion an empty formula unless places to worship available Opens in new window ] Half a century ago the German constitutional court judge Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde reflected on this as a core dilemma of the modern, liberal secularised state. Unlike an absolute monarchy basing its legitimacy on the divine right of kings, for instance, the modern secular liberal state 'live[s] from prerequisites which it cannot itself guarantee'. 'It can endure only if the freedom it bestows on its citizens takes some regulation from the interior,' he wrote, 'both from a moral substance of the individuals and a certain homogeneity of society at large.' This so-called Böckenförde dictum has been hotly debated – and misunderstood – ever since. In 2010, the now retired judge clarified his remarks to argue that any liberal order, to survive in modern Europe, requires a unifying ethos drawing on a common culture. This, in turn, draws on sources 'such as Christianity, the Enlightenment and humanism. But not automatically any religion'. Tapping multiple sources of insight and tradition creates an overall equilibrium while failing to recognise all, he warned, set a society on a road to unrest, totalitarianism and a modern variant of confessional civil war. [ Every major religion agrees on this: we must live in harmony with the natural world Opens in new window ] English historian Tom Holland made similar arguments in his 2019 book Dominion, that even a secular Europe of empty churches and dusty pews 'remains firmly moored to its Christian past'. Core western values we may regard as universal and self-evident – love thy neighbour, protect the weak, even those omnipresent 'be kind' tattoos – are anything but. Our European air is permeated with invisible, omnipresent ethical-faith particles and principles, Prof Holland argues, 'so fine as to be invisible to the naked eye ... breathed in equally by everyone'. Europe's secular liberals may, in many cases, be standing on the shoulders of the very Christians they mock or even despise. The tensions only arise, he adds, when this historical fact is forgotten – or denied. Many builders of European modernity, in an admittedly very different world, had no worries about maintaining an equilibrium that included Judeo-Christian values and faith. For liberal philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill, Christianity offered 'the complete spirit of the ethics of utility'. Albert Einstein, raised by what he called 'entirely irreligious' Jewish parents in Munich, and his theories of space and time may have contributed to the blueprint for a secular modernity. But he embraced what he called the 'God of Spinoza', the Portuguese-Jewish philosopher. It would be very surprising if this religion had now revealed all its secrets — Oxford religion professor Diarmaid MacCulloch Religiosity was, for the Nobel prizewinner, about remaining open to a feeling that 'what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms'. That chimes with US philosopher Richard Dworkin in his final book, Religion Without God, from 2013. The roots that modern, secularist humanism share with mainstream theist religions are two-fold, he writes: the idea that our universe is a thing of sublime beauty and wonder and that human life has objective meaning, creating ethical and moral responsibilities for oneself and others. 'Not just if we happen to think this is important,' Dworkin adds, 'but because it is in itself important whether we think so or not.' For instance religious attitudes insist that its 'real and fundamental values' are 'as real as trees or pain', so that 'our felt conviction that cruelty is wrong is a conviction that cruelty is really wrong'. Like Böckenförde and Holland, Dworkin argues that liberal, secular societies are weak not when they admit their Judeo-Christian roots – but when they deny them. This encourages a spiritual illiteracy that leaves an opening for another group which hardcore liberal secularists despise even more than 'the Jesus people': the reactionary far-right. Over the last decade, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has presented itself as defending the country's 'Judeo-Christian cultural roots'. I have yet to meet an AfD politician who could explain to me what these roots actually are. In 2015, as the AfD began to grow, Angela Merkel was asked if she saw Islamisation as a threat to European identity. The former chancellor said she was less worried by that than Germany's cultural Christians – and defenders of its heritage – who couldn't even explain Pentecost. As the refugee crisis began to build, she added: 'I would like to see more people who have the courage to say 'I am a Christian believer' and more people who have the courage to enter into a dialogue.' Pope Francis meets US vice-president JD Vance. Photograph: Vatican Media/AQP A decade on, however, it seems that those most likely to come out as believers are those least interested in dialogue. The late Pope Francis's final state guest, hours before he died on Monday, was US vice-president JD Vance . Six years after becoming a Catholic, Vance has embraced his new faith with a convert's zeal. Last February he presented what looked like the first outline of an America First Christianity, telling Fox News: 'You love your family and then you love your neighbour and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens and your own country, and then after that you can focus and prioritise the rest of the world.' Vance said this thinking informed Trump administration migration policy and was in line with the teaching of ordo amoris – the order of love – of St Thomas Aquinas. Pope Francis delivered a swift reply days later, telling US bishops in a letter there was no Catholic impediment to policy that regulates orderly and legal migration. 'However, this development cannot come about through the privilege of some and the sacrifice of others,' he wrote. 'What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly.' It's unlikely the two reached an accord in their brief conversation on Easter Sunday. The photograph of their meeting – a grinning, poised Vance opposite an exhausted, sagging Francis – may well become historic: a collision of two very different understandings of Catholic Christianity's power and potential. From Hindu nationalism and political Islam to China's recent accord with the Holy See, religion and faith have always been key ingredients of power politics. It's just in western Europe, after decades in abeyance, that this is once again becoming more obvious. On matters of faith and power, Europe is facing into a new reality of Trump-branded bibles and neo-Catholic peddlers of theological half-truths. In their pitch to believers, self-interested faith and nationalism – not liberalism and co-operation – are guarantees for security and prosperity. The Trump camp's latest, unlikely poster boy in this struggle is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the anti-Nazi Lutheran Pastor and theologian, executed 80 years ago. The Trump camp's Project 2025 document flips Bonhoeffer's attacks on un-Christian fascist hypocrisy into an attack of 'open-borders activism' that promotes 'one's own virtue without risking any personal inconvenience'. Horrified descendants of the pastor have hit back in an open letter, warning that Trump activists 'who invoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer to justify anti-democratic, xenophobic aspirations are either misinformed or malicious'. As Europe struggles with the disintegrating postwar consensus on trade, security and the rules-based order, writer John Gray suggested the time has come to dust off Judeo-Christian teachings. Not just their tenets of justice, fairness and individual rights, but timely wisdom of 'how to live with insoluble dilemmas'. 'Unless the sense of reality preserved in these traditions can somehow be retrieved,' wrote Gray earlier this month in the New Statesman, 'the West is destined to stumble from one fantasy to another until, perhaps with relief, it surrenders to barbarism'. Not everyone's view is that bleak. Oxford religion professor Diarmaid MacCulloch sees European secularism, and an emerging post-secular age, as a chance. Like a single candle burning in an empty church, modern Europe has an opportunity to re-engage and 'remake religion for a society which has decided to do without it'. At the conclusion of his 1,200-page opus Christianity, Prof MacCulloch remarks: 'It would be very surprising if this religion had now revealed all its secrets.' Derek Scally's book, The Best Catholics in the World, is published by Penguin What kind of Pope will the Church pick next? Listen | 21:46
