Embarrassed memories of college Mass

Charterhouse Chronicle by Brian Dooley NEVER go back, they say, but I did. Last week I visited my old university chaplaincy, which during the 1980s provided a haven for those poor souls who didn't seem to fit in socially anywhere else.
Unfortunately, little had changed. The atmosphere was still one of forced jollity. the meeting-room peopled by students who looked as though they were fresh from a productive morning's trainspotting. The ominous strains of a guitar drifted through the hall.
Why are chaplaincies often the most unappealing parts of a campus? Most of us, I seem to recall, were relieved to find an oasis of familiarity when we first arrived at the college. hut were soon put off by the contrived mateyness of the white-socked, brown-sandalled priest. We were embarrassed at having to join hands during the service, mortified when the sign of peace turned out to be a fullfrontal cuddle, near-apoplectic when the Communion queue began to sway to the music. Home was never like this.
Within the first few weeks, most of us deserted the cosy chaplaincy for the freezing city cathedral. The cathedral was a bus-ride away, and you had to wear a coat during Mass, but you were not expected to dance, or to shout out topics for prayer from your seat.
Confessions at the chaplaincy were even more traumatic. You entered the priest's office (identified by his first name on the door), and began to "discuss" your sins (it was in one of these sessions that the priest confided to me his dislike of ex-public schoolboys, as they were lazy and caused the female students various emotional problems).
Unfortunately, the chaplaincy is overlooked by a coffee bar, and I was horrified once to look up and see several students peering in through the skylight at the priest holding his hands over my head as I knelt on the floor.
Friends tell of similarly terrible experiences at their chaplaincies. Why are they so often seen as a refuge for the socially inept? Who decides which priests are suitable for such posts? Why do they try so hard to be young? Is there anyone who will speak up for their college chaplain'? Are army chaplains regarded with the same derision?
WHAT on earth are the Americans doing in Somalia? Of course the place needs rescuing. Thousands of people are dying because of the faction-fighting, but to send in the arch-bunglers to restore order (or "Hope" as their mission statement declares) is like asking Bill Wyman to sort out Prince Charles' marriage.
This is the US army, remember, which brought us the "friendly fire" debacles of the Gulf War, and a Keystone Kops invasion of Grenada. (When US officers landed in Grenada, they realised they had no appropriate
communications equipment, and huddled in local phone boxes on the streets of the capital, using their phone cards to call the Pentagon in Washington which in turn passed messages to the off-shore fleet).
The Somali gunmen might not prove to be as easy to intimidate as the Americans fancy. The going rate for Somali "protectors" was $100 a day in the weeks before the Americans invaded. Charities were shelling out such wages to teenagers with machine guns who offered their services as "security agents" to protect food supplies. Too often, the security agents would turn burglars at night, and steal the same food they had been protecting during the day. A sack of grain has been selling for $5. Lorry-loads have been worth thousands of dollars.
It is hard to see that the Somali gangs will accept American interference in their racket without a struggle, and once fighting begins the situation could even get worse.
The American public has never been the most resilient in the face of casualties, and if a few dozen American soldiers are killed in the conflict it will be hard for the government in Washington to sustain public support for the venture.
Moreover, if there is no fight, and Operation Restore Hope is a success, what then? Will they come home in March, only to return in October when the civil war breaks out again, or will they be tempted to install a government committed to protect human rights and, of course, stay loyal its American sponsors? If so, won't the Americans be tempted to repeat the exercise, and impose order in, for instance, Liberia (which historically has far stronger links with the US than does Somalia), or in South Africa, or in the north of Ireland?
WHAT might be even more dangerous than the American PR exercise in Somalia failing is that it actually succeeds. and that President Clinton will think of himself as a new Mr Tracey, head of a 1990s International Rescue, ready to give the "Thunderbirds Are Go!" order wherever there is trouble.
What is really repugnant, however, is the way the Pentagon has exploited the situation to make its soldiers appear guardians of human rights. The media has been manipulated to focus on the soldiers' problems rather those of the civilians.
"We're going to see children die," said one GI. "We have been ordered not to cry." Another, suffering badly from California-speak, confided that "the problem is dealing with our emotions when we can't render the help that as human beings we feel we need to give." Poor loves, how unfair of the Somali civilians to put the American soldiers through such trauma. They're not built for it.
One US colonel declared: "Our mission shouldn't be humanitarian. Our mission should be war fighting." He may not have to wait too long.