Susan:
accounts on her work at Hyde Park union church, degree at
the Divinity School, membership in the Society of the
Sacred Heart within a discussion of her relationship with
Protestants and Protestantism
"you don't know what you missed until after you've missed
it."
the traditions are not the same
Fr. Barnard:
"At the end of the day it's a personal relationship
between myself and God ... if that's not right we are
wasting our time, about social, about sociology, about
theology. So what if Hans Kung's idea pf infallibility is
right. It doesn't interfere with my personal relationship
with God."
"It's the personal prayer life that is the basis of all
Gospel spirituality"
"The Gospel last week 'You are the light of the world'.
You have to be this first in your own personal life."
how her mother who never talked about religion influenced
many people by her own personal example. how she taught
him to pray by her example.
how the young priests want computers in the parish so they
can have all information at their finger tips and have
time for other things. "And I say what other things?
visiting ..." you don't need computers to do this, "it's
putting a wall between you and the people." You know
everything about them but you don't know anything at all
Susan:
how are the young people going to learn to pray?
Fr. B.:
they don't really. The young used to learn because there
was silence in church, how a priest would get in with the
children during a children's mass and direct them to pray
while the lating mass proceeded. We taught them out to
pray with the mass.
Susan:
our children learning prayers at St. Benildus; nice
atmosphere, pious without being overwhelming
Fr. B.:
how many teachers in Catholic school only want to teach as
a job, not a vocation.
Hervé:
How many parishes have you been in?
Fr. B.:
six, all over Dublin
1, for one year at Xxxxxxx
2, for three years at St. Luke's Hospital
3, in Crumlin, a huge place with 60,000 people, 11 priests
4, in North Wall
5, in Edenmore, for 13 years
first time with people in private housing rather than
council estates
Hervé:
How was it organized in Crumlin?
Fr. B.:
Things were not divided then; church in a tent because the
people came first in huge housing estates. There are not
6 churches there but it took a long time. And the priests
divided the parish among themselves
how the name of the roads and streets in the new estates
were chosen; his father was involved in that; mountains,
dioceses, of Ireland
Hervé:
decision about moving the council estates away from the
center?
Fr. B.:
going back 50 years, the idea was to mix, and they haven't
mixed. It takes 30 years for a parish to mix. In my last
parish (two private estates and one council estate) they
didn't mix until a tragedy happen. Three children were
killed.
The good idea was to house people in corporation estate
from the center of the city: three good (paid their rent
etc.), one bad (prison records and such) and so on. That
gave people a chance to improve themselves (take care of
their garden) or else opt out and go back to the city. it
brought the level pretty well, a lot of people took pride
in their new houses and 'joined the goods'.
That was the plan, but sometimes it collapses and places
get wrecked because it wasn't planned (as happened in
Crumlin).
Another problem: Darndale. A big bad area. Started in
1942 by a young planning officer. His boss said 'that
won't work' and they built Ballymun Flats. 30 years he
was chief architect and he built Darndale. At the time
these were good places.
It's like me waiting to be a parish priest.
Susan:
When can you expect to become parish priest?
Fr. B.:
Two or three years.
All my life I see what should be done. By the time I
become parish priest, things have changed. Yet we say
"now I'm parish priest, now I'll do this." but it's going
back twenty years and it's too late for it. The same
happened to the city and building. They are the brain
child of young enthusiastic civil servants with no power.
Later, when they get it, they say "now I'll do it."
Hervé:
That may be why what was done in Europe twenty years ago
now arrives in Ireland.
Fr. B.:
Correct. We are very bad learners you see. We adopt what
Americans dropped twenty years ago. We are doing it with
drinking and drugs. We know how bad it is but we have to
do it.
That Darndale place for example. I brought three women,
thirty children who had been evicted from private housing
because their husband had deserted them. We brought them
over there because they got free housing. So you had a
mix there of 80% women 20% husbands and heaps of kids.
When things were set up, 30 years ago, there was no such
thing as marriage breakup. So you have a complete
unbalance, unemployment, etc.
Susan:
How much leeway do you have to move in Ballinteer and
implement your ideas about how you want to be a priest to
these people. Can you do what you want?
Fr. B.:
Yes. It may depend on the parish priest but not much now.
The role has changed. When I was a young priest, it was
important to get a nice parish priest (some of them were
terrible).
Susan & Hervé ************************
Fr. B.:
now, when I get parish priest, my difficulty is to get one
normal curate. it all depends on the curate. I cannot do
anything without them.
Fr. Carey here is very lucky and he knows he is. He has
two pretty normal fellows who make sure that things get
done. Other parish priests have curates who do nothing
and they can't do anything about it.
In my days when you became parish priest you retired
gracefully. You said mass when it suited you. Fr. Carey
doesn't do baptisms and weddings. But the new ones, like
the one in St. Attracta's must do them.