For almost twenty years, Fr Peter McVerry has written a monthly column for the Redemptorist magazine Reality. In it, the well-known Jesuit champion of the homeless and deprived has held up to the light the plight of the poor and oppressed in contemporary Irish society. Our national leaders often seem to prefer that people like these who live on the margins – the homeless, victims of our drug-culture, the long-term unemployed, those who have fallen through the cracks of our educational and care systems – would stay quiet.
Fr McVerry has been their tireless advocate. He admits that he is often angry, but his anger is not the anger of the social crusader, it is the righteous anger of the prophet that spills over from a compassionate heart and a hopeful vision of a society that can be transformed.
Fr McVerry has compiled a book from thirty of the more than two hundred articles he has written for Reality. The book was launched in the Monastery of St Alphonsus on 10 December by another well-known priest champion of the marginalized, Fr Sean Cassin OFM, founder of the Merchants’ Quay project for victims of drug abuse and who is today actively involved in work against human trafficking in Vietnam. It was noted that this was a truly ecumenical project – written by a Jesuit, published by the Redemptorists, launched by a Franciscan in a monastery of contemplative sisters! Titled, A Dose of Reality, this thought-provoking, highly readable yet challenging book offers a glimpse into many of the hidden recesses of contemporary Irish society.
For more details go to www.redcoms.org
