Prayers for the North
ONE quote came to mind as I read Alan Day’s letter “Christ Will Save Us” in last week’s issue. His letter, by the way, was a defense of the use of the description of the Pope as the anti-Christ by an Northern Ireland official who was taken to task in a previous Irish Voice editorial.
The quote that came to mind was one which Christ spoke. And in deference to Mr. Day’s preference for the King James translation I quote from chapter 17, v. 21, St. John’s gospel Jesus prayed: “that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in Thee.”
That, I believe, is what the people of Northern Ireland are trying to do. It would seem then that bigoted speech does not promote that agenda and in light of Christ’s prayer would have to be classified as anti-Christ.
To further advance a legitimacy to this demeaning sobriquet, Mr. Day calls it a theological statement and assigns its origin to reformers such as John Knox and the preamble of the King James Bible. And finally, as a further slap at the Pope, he says, and I paraphrase, “Christ, not man, is king and it is He that saves us.” To which I say amen, but not with the intent he has in mind.
Let’s go now to the Preamble of the King James Bible and see if the Reformers might not be hoisted on their own petard of anti-Christ accusations.
In paragraph 3 we read of King James, “Your very name is precious among them (British people), their eye doth behold You with comfort and they bless You in their hearts as that sanctified person who under God is the immediate author of their happiness.”
What is the difference in that glorification of King James and what might be said about the Pope? Could a bigot not find ample rationalizations in those statements to justify calling the King the Anti-Christ?
The old bigotries die hard, and they will die harder if bigots don’t get out of their own way and see the historical enmities of internecine religious hatreds as hungry ghosts of the past who want to resurrect and devour the present.
Mr. Day says William Thompson spoke as the secretary of the Protestant Evangelical Society, which is independent of his day job as an aide to Northern minister Nigel Dodds. That, I assume, is being offered as some kind of justification for the remark. You can split yourself in two in the abstract, but in real life you are one.
I say that the people of Northern Ireland should keep Christ’s prayer “that they all may be one” ringing in their ears, and then they will be able to say, “Yes we can.”
John Rogers Voorhees, New Jersey
Blessed by Cormac
THE “short story” evolved from the oral tradition. Thus, it is no accident that many of the great short story authors have come from cultures steeped in the oral tradition – for example, Irish and Yiddish.
As a life-long student of literature, I was emphatically taught that the one unforgivable sin for a literary critic is “intentional blindness.” This shining principle should apply, regardless of whether one yearns for “the rare old times” or embraces the cultural colonialism of Madison Avenue.
From an objective perspective, one thing should be obvious — Cormac MacConnell is both a talented wordsmith and a gifted storyteller.
MacConnell takes every day experiences and makes them interesting, colorful and enjoyable. Both the Irish Voice and its readership are truly blessed.
John O’DonnellBrick, New Jersey
A Black President
ON a CNN debate last week Senator Hillary Clinton attempted to slyly suggest that Senator Barack Obama was unqualified to lead this country. As her ploy petered out the Texan crowd booed her. Obama stormed ahead and looked past Clinton, while she could hardly even look at him.
Clinton seems not to be liked by many women voters for some bizarre reason. At the debate she came across as robotic in her approach to answering questions and tackling sticky issues, as if she has a template prepared for each probe, a script trotted out for every permutation of journalistic prying.
Not so Obama. There seems to exude a pure charisma, atomic-like and passionate, from the relatively naive senator from Illinois.
But the electorate, for the moment at least, is lapping it up.
Could American voters be ready to elect a black president?
Has the American political landscape changed significantly to even consider a black president in the White House?
Is the ordinary U.S. citizen sufficiently saturated and nauseated by all the rhetoric that he or she will bet on the only non-white candidate in the presidential horse race?
Or could the electorate be sick and tired of the past 20 years of two dynastic political families – Bush/Clinton – controlling their country, wasting their tax dollars and generally making a rather large muck-up of the political system?
With Obama now mulling over his primary acquisition of Alaska, Alabama, Idaho and a plethora of other states in the south east and Midwest (recently Wisconsin), his campaign gurus must ask this question – what percentage of white males can Obama appeal to?
And can the Obama momentum sweep up the undecided democratic voters in next week’s primaries? Is he taking women’s votes away from Clinton?
The pollsters in states like Texas, Nebraska, Kentucky, Washington state and New Mexico must figure out how to get the message of change, political freshness and unity through their expensive campaign advertisements.
With a mammoth war chest close to $150 million, including $32 million raised last month alone, Obama can afford to bombard the airways with precise advertisement messages, particularly those that emphasize a new start, a campaign that appeals to the young voter, the next generation of political participants.
Obama has reenergized this presidential race and has managed to attract young voters. These current 18-year-olds didn’t have a chance to vote for any Bush or Clinton, and may see Obama as a real representative of their individual political perspective.
It is clearly these voters are strongly represented by Obama, and it is these voters who are sickened by the dynastic scenario we have had here in the U.S. for the past 20 years, where two families have dominated the political landscape for far too long.
It will be an Obama-McCain finale and ultimately a generational battle between the new and the old, the young energetic Obama, who symbolizes a fresh start versus the maturing and experienced POW.
America (and its internet savvy young voters) may well prove it is ready to vote its first black president into the Oval Office.
Obama will be the first black president in a very, very White House.
A.P. Ó MáilleNew York, New York
Stop Loving Hillary
AM I the only reader of the Irish Voice who is disturbed by the way my beloved Irish American newspaper has begun to resemble a Senator Hillary Clinton campaign brochure? Each week the senator is finding her way into multiple articles, getting more print than even Bono himself. (That’s really saying something!)
Is it because she is the senator of the state in which the paper is published? Because she’s actually less Irish than either of the other two remaining presidential candidates, and all three have similar immigration policies.
It’s naive to think that any of the three, with the Bush mess that they’re going to have to clean up all around the world, are going to be able to devote any time at all to Irish issues. The Voice’s loving embrace of Hillary over the other two candidates is unfounded and annoying.
Granted, I’m not looking for more coverage of the others. I read the Voice for the arts, sports and even the celebrity page, preferring traditional media for my politics. I would just like to see less fawning coverage of Senator Clinton.
Matt LordanLitchfield, New Hampshire