His appeal to the young at the huge Jubilee rally recently in Rome no doubt brought comfort and reassurance to many and indeed great pride to Ireland as we watched a young Irishwoman read the first Lesson. The law and language of equal opportunities has promoted an inclusive, meritocratic culture widening opportunities for many historically excluded groups like women, the disabled. Catholics in Northern Ireland and many more. Authority structures have become flatter. Multidirectional communication, upward evaluation and appraisal have reshaped all sorts of power-based relationships.
Automatic deference is out.
Hidebound, arcane, institutional structures of all sorts and the attitudes which supported them have loosened. For many it was change or perish. Yet in changing many found to their surprise that they released huge new reservoirs of creative energies which had been untapped and hidden by the poverty of their old imaginations. We only have to think of the Peace Process or the Social Partnership here in Ireland to see the extent and the potential of those new energies. The attitudes and expectations now driven by these new energies are crafting the future, economically, politically, socially and spiritually.