Traditions within societies often have profound continuities, which they conceal by changing form, almost like viruses endlessly mutating within their host. Take, for example, the Catholic tradition of mass rallies of the pious, often led by a popular, charismatic priest at a shrine or during a holy season. The unquestioning would gather in the thousands, bowing their heads in reverence towards their leader, whose position of power usually depended upon the reiteration of morally obvious pieties.
The bawled sanctimonies of these very Roman Catholic occasions would be greeted with ecstasy by the Irish Independent - which was just about the in-house newspaper for the credulously Catholic; would be reported with a polite but slightly republican restraint by the Irish Press; and would be referred to with a baffled scepticism and covert disdain in the augustly Protestant column-inches of this newspaper.
Heaving ranks
You might have thought that such rallies, with their heaving ranks of the faithful being bewitched by a powerful cleric, vanished from Irish life in the past decade and a half. Really? So what do you think happened at Slane for the past couple of weekends? Was that not a revival of a semi-religious gathering, of a community forming around music and a few homespun and easily understandable Ballinspittle pieties, with the ceremonials being performed by a secular priest, namely Bono, or Paul Hewson?
You know who he resembles? Father Michael Cleary, the Singing Priest. The similarities are several: a fairly banal populism; an invented accent, in Father Michael's case, bogus-proletarian, and in Father Paul's, phoney mid-Atlantic; lavish use of hair-dye to hide the advancing years; and cant.
Whether it was pluckily telephoning Sarajevo under siege in the course of a concert in Scandinavia, or bawling about the cancellation of Third World debt at a gig in London, or roundly denouncing French nuclear tests while in Paris, Father Paul The Preaching Singer was never as short of opinions as he was of vocal ability. Just like Father Michael.
Father Paul is simply an ancient continuity in a new and less obvious form, a sort of neo-Redemptorist priest with a confraternity bound by music and a few obvious religious dogmas. But instead of the Irish Independent, the in-house publication for the liberal, caring, huggy U2 community is this newspaper, lavishly expending vast numbers of column inches on the Bono cult in particular. But he knows how to court the headlines - and politicians; just like Father Michael.
Debt cancellation
Ah yes, Father Michael, the Singing Priest, the lad who preached sexual continence, and who, as we know now, wasn't in the least continent. In this regard at least - if in no other - the two men are leagues apart. Father Paul, the Preaching Singer, is famously faithful, and given the temptations which must come his way, only the churlish would not admire his fidelity and loyalty. That said, the admiration soon curls up and dies like a salted slug when faced with Father Paul's endless and insistent cries for the cancellation of all debts incurred by African governments.
For here, Father Paul's position is interesting. He is one of the richest people in Ireland, enjoying a tax-free status for a large part of his earnings. Yet despite being a beneficiary of tax exemption, he still feels free to urge governments which are sustained by people who pay their full whack of taxes to cancel their debts to the Third World. In other words, the taxpayers of those richer countries should subsidise the delinquencies of such splendid Third World countries as Zimbabwe and Angola. But not Father Paul, The Preaching Singer, naturally, because he is largely tax-exempt.
It surely takes cultic idiocy of high degree for genuine taxpayers to cheer such debt-cancellation cant from such a preaching singer as Father Paul. Yet just as Father Michael could rely on the witlessly baying approval of the mob when he so denounced sexual excess, Father Paul can depend on a comparable stupidity when he tells the rich of the world to be more generous to the less fortunate.
Fiscal rectitude
Does Father Paul pay those who work for him more than the strict going rate? If not, why not? In his own financial affairs, does he reject the sort of fiscal rectitude which creditor countries employ towards debtor states, erring instead on the side of profligate kindness? If not, why not? Does he donate to Concern or Tr≤caire the same percentage of his income which is paid in tax by those PAYE/PRSI cretins who cheered his demand for a cancellation of Third World debt? If not, why not?
Does he bank with an African bank? If not, why not? Does he lend money to needy African countries, without expecting repayment? If not, why not? Has he contributed towards the reconstruction of Sarajevo as religiously as he so conspicuously telephoned the city during the war? If not, why not? Did he give to the Omagh Fund as freely as at Slane he recited the names of those slaughtered there? If not, why not?
I refer to no other U2 members, nice men who do not preach, and who deserve no enquiries from anyone about what they do with their money. But Father Paul, now, is different. A sanctimonious bore, he shows what results when you mix cult with cant. Just like Father Michael.