Bishop Niall Coll: Nativity story overturns old ideas of power

Bishop Niall Coll says the Christmas story “overturned the way the world thought about power” and continues to shape Irish moral instincts - even in a society growing distant from formal religion.

In his Christmas message, Bishop Coll, who will take over as the Bishop of Raphoe in late January, says the season “reminds us that true worth is not found in dominance but in vulnerability.”

The St Johnston native reflects on attitudes in the ancient world, where, he says, “greatness was measured by strength, victory and the ability to dominate others. History revolved around emperors, generals and conquerors; the poor appeared only as background figures, if they appeared at all.”

Against that backdrop, he says the nativity introduces “a startling and quietly subversive claim: that God enters history not as a ruler enthroned in splendour, but as a newborn child, born to an ordinary family, in a place of no importance. No palace, no army, no display of force - only obscurity, fragility and dependence.”

He says that that Bethlehem signals that “true worth is not found in dominance but in vulnerability.”

“A baby cannot command armies, impose laws, or enforce obedience,” he says. “It can only cry, rely on others, and be protected - or ignored.” 

Yet, Bishop Coll notes, “this child becomes the centre of a moral vision in which the weak matter, suffering is taken seriously and cruelty loses its prestige.”

“Power is no longer the final measure of value,” he says, adding that attention turns “to those with the least ability to defend themselves, and the claim is made that their lives reveal something essential about what it means to be human.”

That vision, he says, reshaped civilisation “so deeply that its influence is now often invisible.” 

He says values such as “compassion for victims, concern for the poor and moral outrage at injustice feel natural, even self-evident,” but that we “forget how strange these reactions would have seemed in a world that admired conquest and success above all else.”

Next month, Bishop Coll - who is currently the Bishop of Ossory - will be formally installed as the next Bishop of Raphoe having been appointed by Pope Leo in November.

Bishop Coll describes Ireland as “a society forgetful of God, suspicious of institutional religion and distant from formal belief,” yet he says its instincts remain formed by Christianity.

He says: “Its moral language, cultural memory and reflexes remain deeply intertwined with Jesus. The instinctive concern for the marginalised, the sensitivity to historical suffering and the emphasis on human dignity owe far more to Bethlehem than to any modern theory.

“Christmas still speaks in Ireland, even when faith itself among many is muted.”

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He argues that contemporary reactions to global violence reflect the same heritage: “When Irish people, like others across the West, respond with horror to scenes of suffering - whether in Gaza or elsewhere - especially the pain o children and civilians, they are drawing, often unknowingly, on this moral inheritance.

“Christmas reminds us that human dignity does not depend on power nationality or success. It insists that the lives most easily ignored, those of the weak and the vulnerable, are, in fact, the ones which reveal what truly matters.”