heelers defies the swastika

 

A gritty enough suburban church.

At the same time one of the most splendid buildings on earth of course.

I glance around.

There are quite a few people here. It's a lunchtime mass on a weekday and I've wandered in by chance while attending a Jobs Fair in the area.

But there is a crowd here.

Yes, quite a congregation.

People in every pew.

Don't get me wrong.

It's not about the numbers.

It never was.

It's about repent and believe.

It's about love God with all your heart and love your neighbour as much as you love yourself, this is all of the law and all of the Prophets, the whole Bible, the entire revealed truth of the universe.

It's about the reality of Jesus.

It's about this gospel will be preached to the ends of the earth and then the end will come.

Well so I've been told.

And the people are here.

After a fifty year culture war against Christianity in Ireland, the people are still here.

My mind dwells briefly on how throughout my lifetime Independent Newspapers, the Irish Times and the broadcaster RTE have been predicting the imminent demise of the ancient church.

And worse.

They've spent the last fifty years using slander to try and make it happen.

I wonder to myself wryly how many of the congregation here have bought an Irish Times or an Irish Independent lately.

My mind returns to the altar.

With a start I realise that I recognise the priest.

Why it's Father Brian McKevitt.

When I started secondary school in 1978, Father McKevitt taught me a subject styled Civics.

I remember the first class being about the concept of a good citizen which basically boiled down to: If you see something that needs doing, don't wait for someone else to do it, do it yourself or some such.

Back then I was a callow youth.

So was he for that matter.

Ah no the years oh, how the sick leaves reel down in throngs.

I am rather pleased at the synchonicity which has brought me here when he is celebrating the mass.

There is a serenity about him which is also pleasing.

In his youth he was a bit of a controversialist. His Civics class in 1978 quickly moved on from the notion of the good citizen to riper fare, to wit, the role of newspapers in society, and in a few short weeks taught me more about real journalism, specifically the ideological dispositions of newspapers and broadcasters, than the university course I later pursued on that subject.

He went on to edit a newspaper called Alive which was about the only real newspaper in Ireland at one stage.

As his Alive publication reached a circulation of a quarter of a million copies, Independent Newspapers and the Irish Times became so afraid of him at one point that they tried to label him a lunatic right winger in a series of vituperatively manipulative articles.

On foot of this, I humbly suggested that Independent Newspapers should rename themselves Inuendo Newspapers.

At the time I would have bet any money that in truth Independent Newspapers would have hired Brian McKevitt in a second if they could have persuaded him to take their shilling.

Because with no resources he was achieving higher readerships than they were achieving with billion dollar borrowings from idiot banks which they later defaulted on.

But I digress.

Presently the service ends, the church empties out and I am alone.

I kneel on the flagstones abandoning myself to the real presence.

During a soulful moment, I look down.

There is a yellow monographed government notice pasted to the flagstone beneath my knees. It is in the shape of an arrow and indicates what direction the government wants people to perambulate in church during the government induced corona virus panic which apparently isn't over yet. The sign also contains a reminder about staying two metres away from every one else in the church in case you'll catch the imaginary flu virus which they insist has been going around.

Well I'm not going to kneel to this.

I've been a bit shirty about what I regard as an inappropriate symbiosis between the Catholic church and government and health boards during the government and health boards' staged pandemic shenanigans which has allowed government and health boards to intrude into our holy places (and our lives) in this sovietesque way.

What would a good citizen do?

It is the work of a moment to peel the mongraphed arrow off the flag stone and pocket it. (The arrow not the flag stone.)

Then I stand up.

For the first time I realise that there are about a hundred similar arrows pasted to the floor throughout the church along with another twenty larger circular notices pasted at intermittent intervals in the same way blazoning more details of the neurotic procedures and behaviours our governments are seeking to foist on the citizenry using public health policy as a justification and the beautiful, ancient and true Catholic church as a cloak for their charades.

"Well, well, well," I breathe, "every melody begins with a single note."