By Willie Kealy
Irish Independent
May 31, 2009
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/bertie-the-last-catholic-just-keeping-the-faith-1756556.html
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| Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern with Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to the Vatican in July 2007 |
BERTIE AHERN doesn't often find himself out of step with popular opinion. In fact, one of the main criticisms levelled at him over the years is that such is his devotion to the national pulse that he has too often tried to please all the people to the detriment of taking hard decisions.
But last weekend he appeared to slip -- and slip badly -- when asked about the burning question of the day: should the lop-sided deal with the religious orders be revisited? In essence, the former Taoiseach felt there was no point because he didn't believe the Church had much money. "I don't think they do. If somebody can find that they do have money, well good luck to them."
Bertie Ahern was speaking at the end of a week in which the response from the Church was one of either defiance -- in the case of the religious orders -- or silence, in the case of the Bishops. And that silence was largely echoed by a number of government ministers who chose to hide behind legalities. Safe ground you might have thought for the former Taoiseach who had after all been in charge when his then Minister for Education, Michael Woods with the involvement of Charlie McCreevey, did the deal.
But as public anger mounted the Church leaders cracked, one by one. Sean Brady's man, Tim Barrett, went on the BBC to say there ought to be a new look at the deal. Then Diarmuid Martin put pen to paper in similar vein for the Irish Times. Finally, the present Taoiseach Brian Cowen felt safe to take the high ground and his ministers followed. Eventually the religious orders gave way and made some sort of promise to come up with something extra.
He didn't take a hammering for it, but Bertie Ahern was definitely out on his own. He could have left it at that. Put it down to a canvassing cock-up, but no. Bertie wasn't finished. When all around had finally found the balls to take on the mighty Catholic Church, Bertie set his course in the opposite direction. He went on Newstalk with Karen Coleman and accused those who were now calling for a greater contribution from the religious of being "anti-Church", and that their analysis that there was plenty of money in Church coffers to be had was "simplistic".
"You hear politicians hopping on the anti-Catholic Church," he said. "I think that's sad. Most of them were educated by the Catholic Church and now here they are just jumping at it and running around wanting to sell Catholic schools and churches." So why did he do it?
The conventional answer is that he was defending what was essentially his own deal and he was also speaking just hours after Michael Woods had been placed on the rack on radio by RTE's Rachel English. Later in the Coleman interview he was certainly on the defensive about that deal. He said: "If I did not take the actions that I took, if I didn't follow it through, none of this would have come to light other than a few television programmes and a few articles written." Of course nobody can say that the ex-Taoiseach does not sincerely believe in the present poverty of the Church. But for one who has always been the most skillful, the most devious, the most cunning of them all, this seems too simple. Something else must have made him temporarily lose his certainty of touch.
Did he perhaps fall back on old certainties -- the Dubs, Fianna Fail, the pint of Bass and the Catholic Church? The last of these is not mentioned in connection with Bertie Ahern as frequently as the others (in fact you will find Manchester United in there more often). But think about the man for the moment. Whose splash of ash was the centre of attention in Ash Wednesday photographs year after year? Who was extremely upset when the anachronistic Cardinal Desmond Connell took issue with Celia Larkin accompanying the Taoiseach of the country to an official function? You might have expected a tough politician at the top of his game to have laughed it off. And who had gone through years of having his private life under the microscope as his marriage broke up and he went through a legal separation? His partner became gossip fodder, before and after they split so publicly, yet Bertie Ahern could never bring himself to divorce -- this simple step would have helped make it all go away, but it would have also been a big step outside the Catholic Church.
Bertie Ahern's biography, which cannot be called authorised but with which he co-operated, gives us a clue to the huge influence on the life of Bertie Ahern that was the Irish Catholic Church. Authors Ken Whelan and Eugene Masterson,wrote that "the family ethos prized education which was neither free nor easily accessed at the time, but which would have been routine for the Aherns considering their association with All Hallows seminary". Bertie's father was farm manager in the seminary, and the young Bertie grew up there. It was his playground and the place where he took summer jobs, where he learned about horticulture. In short, many of his early influences came from a strongly clerical environment.
The authors do not draw any connection between this background and any later closeness by Bertie to the Catholic Church, though in the case of Noel Ahern (known as "The Brudder") they say that as a TD he became "a spokesman for late century Catholic Ireland".
In his political life, however, the spell that All Hallows cast on Bertie Ahern was sometimes used as a weapon against him.
On one occasion he was even attacked by one of his own coalition partners, Liz O'Donnell of the PDs, over the Ferns report. She obviously struck a nerve when she demanded that "the cosy phone calls from All Hallows to Government Buildings must end. The deference is over". An Angry Bertie responded: "I am very proud of All Hallows. Yes, I do ring All Hallows. I will ring All Hallows. My father has worked in All Hallows, or did for half a century. My house is called All Hallows. It is on the lands of All Hallows, so I am going to make apologies to nobody, including Liz O'Donnell, for being in touch with All Hallows."
He could have mentioned that, in addition to his house being called All Hallows, his office is called St Luke's.
All Hallows is run by the Vincentians, one of the religious orders that go to make up the Conference of Religious Ireland, the organisation at the centre of the current scandal. The most prominent of those is, of course, the Christian Brothers. Bertie Ahern was educated at St Aidan's Christian Brothers secondary school.
On another occasion he told a friendly crowd: "As many of you will be aware, my connection with All Hallows in Dublin runs both very deep and personal... the story of All Hallows is one that has had a lasting legacy not only on the city of Dublin, but also on cities and communities worldwide. It is a story inspired by a mission to serve, to educate and to enrich people's lives through Christian teaching."
Bertie has been equally uncompromising in his admiration for the Catholic Church as a whole and has gone so far as to advocate the intrusion of the Church into public life.
In 2006 he gave an interview to the Irish Catholic newspaper in which he said that "religious belief and practice is not a purely private matter, with no place in public discourse. On the contrary, a truly democratic and inclusive society values its faith communities and respects the voice of those who offer spiritual insight and leadership". In the same interview he revealed that he had opened up a formal dialogue with the churches.
And on the religious orders he spoke of the "major contribution which religious men and women have made over many years in our society, not least in the fields of education, healthcare and social justice. So often they are doing the work that other people will not do".
So it has been perfectly clear for years that the Catholic Church was a big part of the small northside boy who grew up to become the Taoiseach. All Hallows is ingrained into his identity and goes a long way to defining the way he sees himself. And Catholicism is in his DNA. But as a wave of anger over anything clerical sweeps the land in the middle of local and European election campaigns, and with a by-election in Dublin Central looming, such pride in this connection could seem like political foolishness.
Certainly, in the case of Michael Woods it has become a big issue. Woods found himself under attack as the architect of the deal when he came into the Dail last week.
Eamon Gilmore was taking him to task for allegedly excluding the then Attorney General, Michael McDowell, from the negotiations with the orders. Dr Woods blew his top, accused Mr Gilmore of telling a lie and insisted that Mr McDowell was never, as he claimed, "out of the loop".
But by the following day Pat Rabbitte had done a bit more digging and he unearthed an interview Dr Woods had given to the Sunday Independent in October 2003. In this he admitted that "the legal people simply couldn't have attended -- it was a no go area for them -- they had fallen out with the religious".
The implication of this was obvious. Mr McDowell was playing hardball with the orders, the religious took offence, so Dr Woods excluded him and decided to deal with them himself. And why was Dr Woods so acceptable to the religious? "My religion was an asset," he said. "They knew me and they knew my work."
All of this was fine back in 2003, long before the Ryan Commission report was published. Now to portray oneself as exceptionally close to the religious at a time when the State was trying to do a fair and equitable deal with them -- and failing miserably -- is to suggest, at best, that maybe you were not the right man for the job after all.
Bertie Ahern's pronouncement last week, together with his obvious affinity with the Church, may not place him in the same position as Dr Woods. But it doesn't help.
Bertie may have found that his faith has sustained him through past travails and that there is comfort in his religion. This may be even more true now that he is in the twilight of his political career. But right now, ex-Taoiseach or not, broken ankle or not, the battle calls. Maurice Ahern (known as the "Udder Brudder") needs him. So does Brian Cowen and Fianna Fail. Keeping the faith is important. They understand that well in Fianna Fail.
More importantly his own basic human decency demands that he avoids becoming part of the conservative fight-back, which is already beginning.
That takes priority over any debt he may feel to what is fast becoming a bygone age; an age that was probably never as rosy as we imagined, and indeed, as we now know, had an element of rottenness at its very core.
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