Choose your words carefully - By Fr Pat O'Shea, Lower Hutt

Making connections and finding patterns seems to be something that humans, or some of them at least, do naturally. Even when a photo and an unrelated story are placed side by side on a newspaper page people can assume a connection.  So, it was not a surprise that I saw a common thread in 2 separate articles on the website of the Association of Irish Priests.

Thomas O’Loughlin’s article entitled Synodality Virtues: avoid confusing language calls for more precision and care in our use of language. Given a world in which there is so much misinformation, alternative facts and outright lies he highlights the need to avoid adding to the confusion through a “sloppy” use of language. He says that “if you have ever been on the receiving end of prejudice – for your gender, race, nationality, body-shape, disability, or sexual orientation – then you are glad when such mis- use of language stops’.

In his article Misogyny is embedded in Ireland’s History, Brendan Hoban says that a “problem for an engagement between the sexes that is based on mutual respect is the ever-growing coarseness of Irish society, in the words we use, the attitudes we adopt, the incivility, boorishness and crassness of the macho culture that is embedded in the world of the Irish male.”

His article is written in the context of the murder of Aisling Murphy, a young schoolteacher. She was attacked and killed in the early afternoon as she went for a run after school.  I followed the news of her death closely on the “Morning Ireland” program on RTE radio. I cannot recall a death that received such intense coverage and seemed to touch such a deep cord in Ireland and beyond. Her death focused attention again on male violence against women and the need for a deep transformation of male attitudes and behaviour.

The feminist movement of the 60’s and 70’s drew attention to the exclusion of women from so many spheres of public and church life. It provided space and permission for women to articulate their own experience in their own way and no longer be defined in male terms.  A key element in this process was a focus on the power of language to define reality. There was an attempt in the church to use “inclusive” language. We seem to have lost that focus and these 2 articles suggest that we have may have gone backwards. Certainly, when it comes to violence against women, we still have a long way to go.

In his article Brendan Hoban makes connections with the book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venusto suggest that “the challenge is to visit the other planet, not as a tourist might visit Lanzarote but as a committed Christian might visit the Holy Land. In other words, it isn’t for the purpose of a fleeting view of an interesting place but for a serious engagement that’s based on knowing, understanding, accepting and above all respecting a way of being alive that helps us to function better as human beings – for everyone’s sake.”

 Fr Pat O'Shea, Columban Mission, Lower Hutt

Choose your words carefully - By Fr Pat O'Shea, Lower Hutt

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