this small town was my world

 

Father Niall began his sermon.

He mentioned the recently deceased leftist commentator Hans Kung.

I groaned inwardly.

I was thinking: unless he calls Hans Kung a euthanasist bollix I'm unlikely to enjoy this sermon.

It was a good sermon, a rich and nuanced thing which made me squirm constantly.

At times it took on the contours of a short story.

He described Hans Kung living out his teenage years in Switzerland during World War Two while the young Josef Ratzinger was living his teenage years in Nazi Germany. There was of course an innocent mention of Josef's time in the Hitler Youth. Not a sideswipe at the Pope, just by way of information one presumes.

As Father Niall tells the story the two became academics in adult life in the 1950s with Hans Kung recommending the young Ratzinger for a job at the university of Tubingen where Kung already worked. If you were to believe this version, Josef owed Hans everything.

Both were Catholic priests.

Both were supposedly friends.

Both became familiar sights around the university city of Tubingen, Josef Ratzinger a modest man soberly dressed bicycling to and fro in the ancient precincts of the city, Hans Kung with more of a playboy image, very good looking, with a dashing mop of hair, often to be seen blazing a trail through the city centre in a souped up sports car.

Hans became a theologian, a theologian being in this sense a formally recognised philosopher in whom the Catholic Church vests a certain credibility with regard to their intellectual explorations.

Josef Ratzinger was promoted to Bishop and then to Cardinal.

Father Niall's sermon struck a nice ironic note as Hans Kung became subject to censure by the Church and had his faculties as a theologian withdrawn. Josef Ratzinger went from Cardinal to Pope.

Removing faculties gentle reader meant only that the formal authorities of the church declared that Hans Kung did not have the endorsement of the church for his ideas.

But in this sermon it all seemed a bit small minded. And you could believe it was small minded as long as you didn't dwell on the details of what Hans Kung was actually advocating while pretending to be a Catholic priest and theologian, ie his denial of Jesus as God, his denial of the truth of the gospel, his promotion of euthanasia, his promotion of so called Liberation Theology whereby Marxists sought to make the church subservient to Soviet backed dictatorship, etc etc.

It's a long way down from Mount Olympus.

I was nicely fulminating when Father Niall who had mentioned none of Hans Kung's actual views, finished his sermon with the classic line: "Let the search for truth continue."

Outside I ran into one of the other priests, Padre Baines.

"Did you hear the sermon?" he asked.

"I did," said I.

"What did you think of it?" he wondered.

"It must have been good," said I, "because it nearly drove me spdoodlums."

"I once had dinner with Hans Kung's sister," said Padre Baines.

This was a novel twist and I would have liked to hear more but Padre Baines continued in a different direction.

"Was Hans Kung involved in Liberation Theology?" he said.

"Yes he was," I answered.

"Liberation Theology was all about concern for the poor, wasn't it?" he mused.

"I'd say it was more about using Christianity as a tool for the enslavement of humanity to Marxian communism," I replied.

"Why would he get involved with that?" said Padre Baines.

"Oh come on Martin," I said warmly, "you know the Catholic Church accepts all comers. We have all sorts as priests. Even in Ireland there are some priests who are a little bit more favourably disposed to the IRA than might strictly speaking be healthy."

His manner seemed to freeze up a tad.

"You're not one of them!" I exclaimed.

"Well my cousin was Sean MacDiarmada," quoth he.

"The guy who signed the 1916 Proclamation?" sez I.

"The very one," sez he.

"Bloody hell," sez I.

Seeing my discomfiture Padre Baines tried to steer the conversation onto safer waters.

"Did you see what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians today?" he asked. "It's terrible, isn't it."

I wasn't au fait with the morning news cycle (I found out later that Muslims had bombed Israel again and were acting surprised at the Israeli reaction) so my answer was cautious.

"I haven't heard today's news," I told him. "But I would tell you first and foremost that I believe the Jews are in the Holy Land because  God wants them there. Anyone who goes to war with them is not going to have a good time."

There was a shout from across the yard.

Father Niall himself approached.

Padre Baines immediately informed him vis a vis Niall's sermon that he had once had dinner with Hans Kung's sister on a river boat in Lucerne.

I took this as a sign for me to make an exit.

I intended to do a good natured walk off in the style of the television curmudgeon Larry David, singing lustily an odd song that my fourth class teacher Maurice O'Mahoney had taught us in the dim and distant days of youth, not the one about lollipops, the one about walking around Switzerland, and while singing that to stride majestically to my car.

"From Lucerne to Wegis blue

Fol dir i dia fol dir i da

You can go without a shoe

Fol dir i dia fol dir i day..."

My voice came out cracked and awful. The two Padres looked surprised and then aghast. Plus it took me about ten minutes to get to the car instead of two minutes because I'm walking with a limp at the moment due to, er, gout, and I had to keep singing the whole time.

Not the gregarious comic masterpiece I had envisioned.

The whole thing was gauche in the extreme.

It was like I was trying to offend the priests.

Still I kept going.

In for a penny in for a pound as we do say in Mafia wars.

",,,Weggis starts on the highest hill

Fol dir i dia fol dir i da

Boys and girls climb with a will

Fol dir i dia fold dir i da

Follllll dirrrr eeeee dia

Fol dir i dia fol dir i da

Across the water you may go

Fol dir i dia fol dir i da

See the fish in the lake below

Fol dir i dia fol dir i da..."

The ghost of Hans Kung appeared beside me.

"Now who's ze bollix?" he whispered congenially.

As the car door closed I began to suspect not for the first time, that Larry David is trying to kill me.

I should have sung the one about the lollypops.

"Me and my lolly lolly lolly lolly lolly lolly lolly lolly lollipop tree..."

That's nine lollies but you can put in as many as you like if it's not going well or if your exit is delayed by gout.