MAYNOOTH - 16 November 2007 - 610 words
Irish Bishops launch schools DVD on alcohol and drugs
Yesterday in Tallaght Community School
in Dublin, Cardinal-elect Archbishop Seán Brady, Archbishop
of Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Bishop Éamonn
Walsh of the Bishops' Drugs and Alcohol Initiative launched a
DVD for secondary schools Find the Balance, Dare to Dream
to 150 students, staff, public representatives and members
of the media. This DVD has been distributed to all
post-primary schools on the island.
Archbishop Brady said: "To the young people of Tallaght Community
School and elsewhere I want to say, first of all, that this DVD
is about you. You are all young, bright individuals whose
unique gifts are going to be of great benefit to yourselves and
to society at large. This DVD is about your right to dream.
To dream about the exciting, positive opportunities that lie ahead
for you and your friends. It is about your right to live
a happy and healthy life. Yes, a life full of fun and excitement
but also a life full of meaning and purpose. This is the
balance which protects your dreams and keeps you free from slavery
of addiction.
"I am aware of the Young Social Innovators Programme
in Tallaght Community School. I am told that it is very
successful. It has already set a new standard in helping
young people address the issue of drugs and other forms of substance
abuse. I congratulate you on that success.
"The core message of this DVD is that to be happy in life
- we need a balance in life. To be really happy we need self-control
as well as self- determination. Above all, you need self respect.
You need a sense of your own dignity and of your own worth. We
cannot believe in a God who loves, if we don't, first of all,
love ourselves. Every human being is a child of God
Jesus came to tell us that. This sense of our own dignity
of our own worth is one of our most precious possessions.
"Public representatives have the heavy responsibility of
dealing with the consequences of the abuse of alcohol in society
both at a constituency level and at a legislative level. I know
that each one of you share the concern of the Bishops and others
in society about this matter. I thank you for your support
here today and for the work that each of you has done to address
this issue in policy and legislation. I assure you that
the Church will continue to pastorally support those in need of
help with problems either directly or indirectly arising
from alcohol abuse. I believe that the best way to address this
issue is through people working together with public representatives,
church community leaders, Health Workers, Social Workers, teachers,
parents, families and young people.
"One of the great myths in our culture today is the belief
that you can only be happy when you can do what you want, when
you want, as you want. This is simply not true. The message
of this DVD, is also the message of Jesus and His Church.
"Could I respectfully suggest the following should become
priorities for us all:
Ø Building supportive caring communities.
Churches have a key role in helping to bring this about.
Supportive communities offer the best bulwark against social isolation
and many of the other problems which flow from, or contribute
to, the abuse of alcohol.
Ø Making heavy drinking, binge
drinking and drunkenness as anti-social as we have made many other
things which destroy our health and environment like smoking and
drink-driving. We need to invest similar amounts of money
and energy, and have the same types of advertising campaigns as
we had about the effects of smoking and the effects of not eating
properly, and the dangers of speeding and drink-driving.
Our culture of heavy drinking is the elephant in the room which
we need to confront with collective and concerted action.
The health and reputation of our country is at stake. Our
young people deserve nothing less.
Ø We need to break, once and for
all, the link between sport and advertising alcohol. We
need to do it with the same vigour and determination as the effort
to remove advertising for tobacco from sports. The stakes
are high. The quality of life of whole families and communities
is what is at risk.
Archbishop Martin said: "we have a national alcohol problem,
an alcohol problem deeply imbedded in parts of our Irish culture.
Alcohol abuse is not someone else's problem; it is a national
problem, a problem for us all.
"Dublin Diocesan Teen Counselling in their annual report
published earlier this year noted how, on the advice of young
people themselves, the service had to revise its questionnaire
about drink. In a question to teenagers "How
often have you felt drunk"? a range of answers from "never"
to "9-10 times" had to be revised two years ago to include
"11-15 times"; "16-20 times" and "more".
"They also had to add in questions for young teenagers asking
them if they had ever drunk so much that they 1, got sick; 2,
passed out and 3, had to be hospitalised. They were questioning
people from 13 years upwards.
"Their findings for last year included the following:
- 78% of those
who had taken drink reported having been drunk, some before leaving
national school; with the 13-15 years period the most significant
for starting to drink and get drunk.
- 29% of those
who said they had been drunk, were drunk more than 20 times.
- 21% had drunk
until they passed out.
- 8% were admitted
to hospital
These are not statistics of which we can be proud. Where are the
roots of our drinking problem? Why are we different from
other Europeans? I am not going to address that question
today. What is important today is to affirm together that
these statistics have to be overcome. We have to break
this cycle of destruction on our society. We have to become
clear on the fact that alcohol makes you happy for a deceptive,
very brief moment. The hangover of alcohol is not just yours,
it brings suffering and misery to many others. It is only
when we break this cycle of destruction on our society that we
will be a much happier society."
Bishop Éamonn Walsh noted that this was the first occasion
when a pastoral letter of the Catholic Bishops' Conference was
applied to an audio-visual format in the form of a DVD.
The pastoral letter Alcohol: The Challenge of Moderation
was published in February this year to coincide with Lent and
is available in English, Irish and Polish on www.catholiccommunications.ie.
Bishop Walsh thanked Tallaght Community School students and staff
for their support with today's media launch of the DVD, and especially
the school Principal, Mr Pat Coffey and Fr Paul Hampson.
Bishop Walsh also thanked Kairos for producing the DVD; The Radharc
Trust for its sponsorship and specifically board member Mr Peter
Dunn; the Irish Bishops' Drugs and Alcohol Initiative; Ms Maura
Hyland, Director of Veritas, for its support regarding the DVD's
publicity and distribution to schools throughout the country;
and, Mr Brendan O'Reilly, Director of the National Office for
Catechetics, for his work on the teachers' notes that accompany
the DVD.
For further information call: Martin Long
Director of Communications (086 172 7678) Kathy Tynan Communications
Officer (086 817 5674)
Source: Irish Catholic Media Office
© Independent Catholic
News 2007
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Catholic News tel/fax:
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