Irish Examiner view: Great significance in Pope's choice of 'Hope' as the title of his book
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In our ‘snapshot of a town’ series, based on information from the CSO, it is striking how many people continue to claim allegiance to the Catholic Church.
In Mitchelstown (population 3,744), 77% declare themselves as Catholic. In Killarney (pop 14,412), it is 66%. Bantry (pop 2,929) is 65%, while Kenmare (2,566) also returns 65%.
Just 14% across these four communities claim to have no religion whatsoever.
Many more people, apparently, have faith in a higher power than they do in democracy with our general election turnout falling to 59.7%.
With this potential audience, it seems an appropriate moment for Pope Francis to publish the first memoir from a sitting pontiff when his book, hits the shelves in 80 countries on Tuesday, January 14. It will, say his publicists, cover “crucial moments of his papacy and some of the most controversial questions of our present times”.
It was originally planned to publish after the death of Pope Francis, who is 88. But the 2025 Jubilee, dedicated to forgiveness, spiritual renewal, and celebration of the church, was thought to be a good moment in a year when 30m of the faithful are expected to visit Rome.
In addition, Francis and his co-writer — the Italian publisher Carlo Musso — felt it was relevant to “the needs of our times”.
The work will cover the Italian roots of Pope Francis in his ancestors’ emigration to Latin America, and recount his journey to the present day which he describes as “a long, intense, adventure”.
The Pope’s previous books include , his reflections written during the pandemic lockdown, and , which was a series of interviews about historic events in the 20th century.
The Jubilee year was officially opened on Christmas Eve when Francis was pushed in a wheelchair to an ornate bronze door in St Peter’s Basilica and knocked on it to demand entry.
Over the next 12 months, pilgrims will pass through the door — which is normally bricked up — and receive the traditional benefit of a plenary indulgence, a form of forgiveness for their sins.
Rome is one of those locations where there is a rising anxiety about the impact of overseas visitors on local services and infrastructure. Questions have been raised about how the Eternal City will cope with demand from millions of extra people.
Rome has been given a facelift with monuments such as the Trevi Fountain and the Ponte Sant’Angelo spruced up. Roads have been redesigned. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said it had taken a “little civil miracle” to get a new road tunnel finished in time.
Critics and supporters will be waiting to see if his book does address the controversies of the 21st century. Last summer, he became the first pontiff to participate in the G7 summit, stressing the threats to humanity implicit in the Ukraine and Gaza wars; the risks to employment posed by AI, and changes in reproductive practices. Then in September he called for higher taxes on billionaires and the establishment of a universal basic income.
We will need a plentiful supply of hope in 2025, and the choice of this word as his autobiographical title by Pope Francis is a prescient reminder of that fact. Faith and charity are other qualities that will be required for the year ahead.
Bitter experience tells us that it can be the work of a few minutes to create a great injustice. And that putting matters straight again can take many years.
This time, in 2024, many of us had watched, and been horrified by, a dramatised TV account of what became known as the Horizon IT scandal — where hundreds of sub-postmasters across the UK, including dozens in the North, were wrongly prosecuted for fraud.
Faulty computer software calculated that money was missing from branches and the managers of the Post Office — a separate organisation to the Royal Mail — preferred to believe the Fujitsu system in which they had invested heavily rather than the word of hundreds of long-serving servants and contractors.
In what was described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history, some people went to prison; many others were financially ruined. Some fell ill and died. Others killed themselves.
The ramifications and reverberations continue into 2025. But students of modern life may not be surprised to know that many of the victims still haven’t received the compensation they are owed. Those campaigners, led by Alan Bates, who had to fight so long to clear their names are now contemplating more legal action, to establish a deadline for recompense.
While British prime minister Keir Starmer took more than a month to respond, there are significant issues of accountability and management culpability to consider as this case moves forward. Who of the various chairs, chief executives, board members, shareholder directors, regulators, departmental sponsors, or ministers should carry the can?
However, this should not delay payments to victims. That old Greek saying that “the wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine” is apposite. But it is predicated on the wheels starting to move in the first place.
It is not only over-optimistic business owners, technical managers, and accountants who place too much faith in technology and its potential benefits to society. We could all do with raising our levels of scepticism throughout 2025 and beyond.
At the start of last month, the Irish Examiner carried a startling report that gardaí were preparing a file for the DPP over a woman suspected of unlawfully accessing thousands of customer payment accounts while working for Electric Ireland.
The woman was a sub-contractor and was suspected of supplying credit card details to her boyfriend, who was associated with a transnational criminal gang specialising in fraud.
The investigation highlighted an increased risk of fraud resulting from people working from home whereby they can access confidential information on customers — both financial and personal — without the normal protections and scrutiny of an office.
Such breaches of security are highly damaging, but other penetrations and assaults upon our reliance on systems and networks may be at best frightening, and have the potential to be fatal.
This week, the aviation advisory body OpsGroup, which represents 450 airlines and industry specialists, warned that hacking attempts on carriers’ global positioning systems increased by 400% in the 10 months to November 2024.
On some days up to 1,350 flights were targeted.
Meanwhile, Microsoft’s annual digital defence report said it had witnessed a doubling in the number of ransomware attacks in the past year. It also recorded around 100,000 scam attempts daily in 2024.
The rapid growth in malicious cyber activity, said the company, was attributable to the ongoing rise of generative AI.
Examples are legion. In Birmingham on New Year’s Eve, thousands of people gathered in the central Centenary Square despite a police warning that the announcement of a “spectacular” fireworks display was false. The information was disseminated by a marketing agency which said it was set up during 2011 riots “to dispel myth and rumour in the city.”
Also in England, tens of thousands of drivers have had bailiffs turn up at their doors after National Highways sent out enforcement notices over unpaid £2.50 (€3) Dartford Bridge tolls. The problem was caused by a botched IT upgrade.
In its annual review, Wired magazine itemises breaches by hostile governments including China, North Korea, and Russia, as: Digital extortion; penetration of systems operated by major corporations; loss of personal data including health and financial records, and theft of crypto currency.
The magazine warns: “2025 will be a complicated — and potentially explosive — year in cyberspace.”
Meanwhile, the EU is creating the world’s largest hoard of biometric data to monitor people going about their daily business of travelling.
New entry rules will require non-citizens to register their fingerprints before entering the Schengen area.
Other industry leaders, Elon Musk among them, are outspoken advocates of the widespread deployment of facial recognition technology.
What could possibly go wrong with this mass harvesting of personal and physical details?
And what is the risk of havoc when it does?