August 24, 2020: Cardinal Dolan delivers the opening prayer for the 2020 Republican National Convention. GETTY IMAGES
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, delivered an opening prayer on the first night of the 2020 Republican Convention on Monday, August 24. By so doing he made clear his preference for the GOP and mixed his religion with politics
Unlike Dolan, John F. Kennedy drew a line in the sand when running for president in 1960.
There were widespread charges that Kennedy would take orders from the Vatican, a hardline anti-Catholic trope. As the first Irish Catholic President, he was under a religious microscope from the very start.
Kennedy responded by making his respect for the separation of church and state evident when he said, “I do not speak for the church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me.”
Someone should have read JFK’s message to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, as he cheered for Trump’s presidential campaign by opening the Republican National Convention with a prayer on Monday, August 24.
Church and state, Dolan and Trump, were joined in an unholy alliance that must have made Pope Francis visibly wilt.
The sight of one of his renowned cardinals signing up for duty with the likes of Donald Trump, who stands for pretty much everything the pope opposes, must have shocked the pontiff.ADVERTISING
In an opinion piece for CNN, former Augustinian Catholic priest Brian Frawley wrote: “.. Dolan should understand the power of his presence at the convention and be mindful that this gesture will be seen by many as an affirmation of the President.”
Besides, the mortal battle for the soul of America was not evident in 2012. In 2020, Trump has deliberately set Americans against one another, utilizing racist dog whistles and outright racism.
With so much on the line, not least Trump’s hinting that he might not readily accept the result on November 3rd, Dolan was stepping into a highly charged stand-off and taking sides.
The clear undertone was to vote for Trump, an extraordinary position for a cardinal charged with caring for all his flock, not just those who vote Republican. One wonders what Joe Biden, a committed Catholic, made of the thumb on the scale placed by Dolan.
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In terms of Catholic doctrine, it was truly startling to see Dolan shill so shamelessly for Trump, the three-times-married, accused sexual predator, flim-flam business operator with multiple bankruptcies, and jailer of innocent little children at the Texas and Arizona border.
It was incredible to see Dolan standing there under the Statue of Liberty defending the most anti-immigrant president in recent history.
Dolan also snubbed the African American community, his very presence legitimizing the president who excused the neo-Nazis who marched and killed a woman in Charlottesville three years ago, which afterward, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”
I wonder would Dolan agrees with that sentiment, certainly, he seems to have excused it which makes him just as culpable.
Dolan has stated his presence did not constitute an endorsement of President Trump which would match any of the porkies Trump has told. Dolan has done his own reputation enormous damage, a cardinal who chooses a man who prefers conflict to one who seeks to bring people together. He has chosen the exact opposite of the Christian message. Perhaps it is time he retired.
Brian Feeney, Irish News. Belfast. Wednesday, August 26, 2020
Michelle O’Neill was indisputably correct when she responded to Boris Johnson’s absurd boosterism about celebrating the centenary of the north as part of “the most successful political union in the world”.
She said there’s nothing to celebrate. The evidence is overwhelming that The North has been, and is, a failed political entity. It’s undeniable. Despite repeated attempts to shore it up with various ingenious devices its institutions lurch from crisis to crisis and stand-off to stand-off: the present executive is dysfunctional.
However, the emphasis on the continuous political mess means not enough attention is paid to The North’s abject failure as an economic region, disastrous for all its people. There’s an interview on YouTube between the economist David McWilliams and the writer Martina Devlin on West Belfast’s virtual Féile on August 6. It should be compulsory viewing for Unionists as McWilliams pulls apart all the false history and illusory assumptions Unionists still believe. Why would they not believe? Their leaders never tell them the truth.
You can see why the millionaire industrialists who ran this place on cheap mass labor a century ago wanted to break away from the rest of the island. In 1920, 80 per cent of the wealth of the island was generated in Belfast and the three adjacent counties. Belfast was the biggest city on the island, a center of industrial technology and innovation. Now the situation is reversed. The North is an economic backwater, like East Germany compared to West Germany before 1989.
The “Union” [ with Britain] has crippled The North whereas independence has enriched the south, especially since 1998. Ironically the peace dividend went south because, as a sovereign state, it can manage its own economy and not depend on handouts from the EU (soon to end) and London. Being attached to an ever centralizing UK government has been profoundly damaging economically for The North just as for Scotland, Wales, and indeed the north of England.
In 1920 the north was twice as rich as the south. Now the north is twice as poor. Check it out. McWilliams pours out the figures, the painful facts. The southern economy is about €300 billion;
The North’s is about €50 billion. The North paid for itself until the 1940s, then after the war industrialism and manufacturing slowly collapsed. Now The North requires an annual £10 billion subsidy from London, the reality of which is disputed by many; that’s about 4 per cent of the Republic’s GDP. The Republic’s economy is four times bigger than The North’s, generated by a workforce only two and a half times bigger. The Republic’s industrial output is ten times larger and its exports 17 times larger. Average income per head in the south is €40,000 compared to €24,000 here. Unemployment benefit in the south starts at €185 a week; here it starts at £58.
In contrast to 1920, Dublin is now three times bigger than Belfast, with a cosmopolitan population of about 1.5 million and home to hundreds of international companies. TikTok is setting up its European HQ in the south in the next year or so. McWilliams has what he calls his ‘Trip Advisor test’ for prosperity and lifestyle. Armagh and Kilkenny, similar sizes, both have city status. Trip Advisor reviews 176 restaurants in Kilkenny but just 73 in Armagh. Coleraine has a mere 58, Antrim 43.
As McWilliams says, partition is like an economic laboratory experiment. You set up two jurisdictions, one independent, one dependent, and see how they fare. The results are in. After 100 years what passes for the economy in The North (and many would deny The North has an economy, so dependent is it) is profoundly worse than the Republic’s. The fact is that The North has everything to gain from economic unity.
Admittedly, not a word of this will convince anyone voting DUP. However, the number of people available to vote Unionist is declining rapidly, a decline which Brexit and demography will accelerate.
REP. JEFFRIES ON HOUSE FLOOR: DON’T MESS WITH USPS
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08) spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives in support of the “Delivering for America Act.” The legislation would prohibit the United States Postal Service (USPS) from implementing any changes to operations or the level of service it had in place in January. It would also provide $25 billion in critical funding to support the Postal Service.
Remarks as delivered:“The Post Office is as American as motherhood, baseball and apple pie. It is one of the only entities actually mentioned in the United States Constitution. It has been around for hundreds of years. The first Postmaster General was Dr. Ben Franklin. It is part of the heart and soul of this country. And the attacks on the Post Office by the Trump Administration are shameful. The American people deserve a Postal Service that delivers Social Security checks to senior citizens. Delivers medicine to disabled veterans. Delivers unemployment insurance checks to displaced Americans. And yes, delivers ballots to those who choose to vote by mail in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Because no American should ever have to choose between their health, safety and well-being on the one hand, and the constitutional right to vote on the other. That is why we need a fully functional Postal Service. Don’t Mess With USPS.”After his appointment by President Trump in May, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy pushed new operational changes that degraded service, delayed the mail and threatened to deny the ability of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming elections. In July, the Postal Service warned New York and 45 other states that voters may be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots. Earlier this week, Postmaster General DeJoy announced that he was suspending “longstanding operational initiatives” until after the November election due to fears about the Postal Service’s ability to deliver election mail. However, later that evening, USPS management instructed maintenance managers to not reconnect or reinstall the sorting machines that were taken off-line. On Monday, Rep. Jeffries and Rep. Ted Lieu sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting the FBI to investigate whether Postmaster General DeJoy committed any crimes while taking actions to delay the delivery of mail. Later in the week, Rep. Jeffries joined 90 of his colleagues in asking for the USPS Board of Governors to remove Postmaster General DeJoy.
The nearly 1,000-page report did not conclude that the campaign engaged in a coordinated conspiracy with the Russian government. But it found that a longtime associate of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was a Russian intelligence officer who might have been involved in efforts to steal and disseminate Democratic emails.
August 24, 2020: Cardinal Dolan delivers the opening prayer for the 2020 Republican National Convention. GETTY IMAGES