AN INSULAR LOOK AT IRISH CATHOLICISM
by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS
IRISH AND CATHOLIC? Towards an understanding of identity. Edited by Louise Fuller, John Littleton and Éamon Maher. The Columba Press, Dublin, 2006. 256pp
A CAMEL could be a horse designed by a committee. One would think that 16 academics might do better on the topic of Irish Catholic identity.
The phrase "Irish Catholic" rolls off the tongue easily, but neither word follows from the other. As the universal faith, Catholicism does not mix with any particular ethnicity. It is the very contrary of what Judaism is to the Jews or the Armenian Apostolic Church is to Armenians. Nevertheless, Catholicism has left its mark on a great many nations, regions and peoples globally - of which Ireland is one.
This is why I find this book puzzling. Why is France the only other model of a Catholic nation/culture with which Ireland is compared? It is probably true that most Irish Catholics, if asked to name a number of Catholic countries, would mention France, Spain, Portugal, Italy or Poland. Though Ireland has much in common with each of these, they are not the best comparisons. Four have long histories as sovereign Catholic states, whose Catholic communities have had to learn to live with major anti-Catholic influence since the 19th century. The fifth was so big that none of its occupiers tried to impose another faith upon it and its 45 years of communist persecution did not come near what its neighbours suffered.
Netherlands and Quebec
The better models are less obvious. For example, the Netherlands. The Dutch Church was a minority that withstood centuries of persecution, to be one of the most religious societies in Europe, producing more missionaries in absolute terms than any other country. The Dutch Church collapsed in the 1960s. Outside Europe, Quebec was a similar example - an oasis of Catholicism in North America until the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s. This saw Quebec go from being one of the most Catholic cultures on earth to being one of the most secular.
Where is the contrast? Irish Catholicism, like Dutch and Quebecois Catholicism, is a case of a persecuted people who collectively and successfully resist that persecution. But the resistance is based on a strong community effort - and when people collectively fail, that is it. It will be interesting, maybe terrifying, to see how Lithuania copes with western secularisation. Further removed are Bavaria and Slovakia, where Catholicism was a strong badge of regional identity in the face of oppression (Prussia and the Czech lands respectively), but this was not sustained for such a long time in either case.
That is personal opinion - the contributors don't deal in such analysis. So their response to the particular crisis in Irish Catholicism, or the relationship between Ireland or the Irish and Catholicism is made in isolation. Ireland is not even properly defined. It appears to me that most contributors use it to mean the territory of the independent Irish state, ignoring the Catholics in the North, for whom the identity as Irish Catholics is a lot more important than south of the border.
Mother and Child Scheme
In respect of the Catholics in the South, there are many question marks. I would ask the next commentator who refers to the Mother and Child Scheme two questions:
Similarly, the 1937 Bunreacht an hÉireann is presented as an unequivocally Catholic document. It is nothing of the sort. Essentially it is the application of Anglo-American constitutional tradition to Ireland. It does contain some very theological-sounding language in its human rights clauses. But there are secular schools of natural law which use similar language. The American Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, all of which had a huge influence on de Valera's republican movement, often used the same sort of language.
Landmark Supreme Court cases draw on American precedents in constitutional cases - not on Apostolic Signatura judgements. Right now, the United States Supreme Court, with its Catholic majority, probably takes more from Thomism and the Irish Supreme Court probably looks more to the Enlightenment. The Constitution in each country is what their respective Supreme Court says it is. I officer this as a criticism of the view that the constitution is ipso facto a Catholic document.
Example to other countries
The Constitution is a deocument in which we ought to take a great deal of pride. It is the oldest constitution in use in any state in which the human rights articles are part of the original document. In 1949, Adenauer looked to the Irish Constitution as one of the models for the German Federal Constitution. At roughly the same time, Nehru used it as an important model for the Constitution of India. Somehow, I think this needs to be pointed out.
If the contributors do not see the constitution in context, neither do they see other facets of Irish and/or Catholic life in context. More than a few contributors refer to the problems of sexual and physical abuse by priests and religious. I deny neither that this is a major problem nor that the response of dioceses and religious congregations has been inadequate to say the least.
However, if one were to do a vox pop on the streets of major Irish cities, I would bet that many people perceive paedophilia as exclusively a problem of Catholic clergy and religious. In fact the rate of offence is pretty consistent across all religious denominations, and offence by clergy (including rabbis, imams, bonzes, etc) is but a small percentage of the total. This is something opinion makers should point out.
I suppose the most fatuous remark in the book comes from Dr Colum Kenny:
There were two Opinion pieces in The Irish Times about the Drogheda Mass [ie. Mass on Easter Sunday 2006 in the Augustinian Church in Drogheda, where the principal celebrant, Rev Iggy O'Donovan OSA invited the local Anglican rector to concelebrate with him and his two confreres] by another contributor to this book, Patsy McGarry - one after the Mass itself and then again after the apology [Fathers Iggy O'Donovan, Noel Hession and Richard Good were required by the Augustinian provincial to apologise to Cardinal Brady, in whose diocese the Mass took place, for their public breach of canon law in doing so]. This sort of partisan approach is seen across the whole media. Views of people such as David Quinn are the exception which proves the rule. Mr McGarry's own contribution essentially makes the point that the Catholic Church was nice and liberal until the Famine, but that then it became overly prudish and controlling.
Political correctness
What academics do to appear sophisticated is too predictable. So when Eugene O'Brien deals with Father Ted and deconstuction, he seems to derive pleasure in repeating a four-letter word. The comedy was discussed in this Review by Joe McCarroll, who pointed out it is was little more than a rehash of the drunken Irishman and the idiotic Irishman, but that they put on clerical collars to make it more politically correct.
There is nothing new about satirising clergy. Even Dermot Morgan had an earlier clerical persona, Father Brian Trendy. Some of us remember the insufferable Leave it to Mrs O'Brien, in which the central character was a priest's housekeeper. The parish priest there was played by Pat Daly, who himself featured in Hall's Pictorial Weekly as Canon Romulus O'Dowd.
Long before the advent of electronic media, priests featured in jokes and folktales. Not all were complimentary and some even had teeth. But the extent to which these academics would rely on folklorists and/or anthropologists to demonstrate the evolution of Father Ted.... I would have thought deconstructionists would have an interest in this.
In relation to literary criticism, what the contributors are determined to see in a collection of second-rate writers, I am not sure. It is true that good points are made by three of the analysed writers - John Broderick is noted as having hated the new Mass; Brian Moore wrote a novel, Catholics, about a monastery off the south-west coast continuing to use the old Mass, but the novel is a vehicle to express the disappointment of Ireland's Massgoers at the liturgical changes. This would be a very interesting point to examine: in particular why, in spite of so much discontent, no formal traditional movement emerged in Ireland until much later.
Patsy McGarry makes a very fair point, which needs development, that the changes shook the older generations' faith. They continued to practice out of cultural habit, but the younger people detected a shock. I believe this was true, and I am waiting for some analysis of the monies spent on re-ordering of churches in the face of widespread objection - in spite of the fact that the Second Vatican Council provided no mandate for such changes. I think this, rather than Humanae Vitae, ate into religious practice. It is true that reaction to Humanae Vitae kicked in later, but not immediately.
This brings me to a third author in the survey - Dermot Bolger. There is no doubt that Dermot Bolger is a liberal who broadly accepts the sexual revolution as a good thing. But he also loves to shock. In his earlier writings, he attacked Catholic icons. Now, he uses religion to make his secular audiences uncomfortable. But he does raise questions about the present direction of Irish society. The only other contributor who raises this question is Father Patrick Claffey SVD. Father Claffey gives a reminiscence of his formative years in Co Roscommon prior to joining the Divine Word Missionaries and leaving Ireland, then his experience on return. Father Claffey gives no nostalgic account of the past, but does give a critical view of the present.
Missed opportunities
This book is filled with missed opportunities. It is easy, and even popular, to dismiss the past. It is a lot more important to criticise the present. The contributors fail to do this. They fail to address the question of Catholic identity in general and the world-wide crisis of identity among Latin-rite Catholics. This is because they approach Irish Catholicism in isolation.
Though it is true that the concept of Irish identity which was popular between independence and the outbreak of the Northern Ireland conflict was very narrow and even flawed, the contributors fail to criticise the absence of a common view of Irish identity ever since, or how patriotism devolved into following the triumph (or otherwise) of international sports contestants.
Northern Ireland need not exist for all the attention it gets in this volume. And if you thought the book was directed at an educated readership, Father John Littleton gives a translation of all the Latin terms he quotes in his article.
One of the contributors adapts a line from Frank McGuinness's play Innocence, about the artist Caravaggio: "I have looked on God and found him lacking". To paraphrase both, I read the book...and found it lacking.
The Brandsma Review, Issue 84, May-June 2006.
I have added notes in square brackets to explain the significance of the Drogheda Mass referred to above which was current when this article appeared.
Netherlands and Quebec
The better models are less obvious. For example, the Netherlands. The Dutch Church was a minority that withstood centuries of persecution, to be one of the most religious societies in Europe, producing more missionaries in absolute terms than any other country. The Dutch Church collapsed in the 1960s. Outside Europe, Quebec was a similar example - an oasis of Catholicism in North America until the "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s. This saw Quebec go from being one of the most Catholic cultures on earth to being one of the most secular.
Where is the contrast? Irish Catholicism, like Dutch and Quebecois Catholicism, is a case of a persecuted people who collectively and successfully resist that persecution. But the resistance is based on a strong community effort - and when people collectively fail, that is it. It will be interesting, maybe terrifying, to see how Lithuania copes with western secularisation. Further removed are Bavaria and Slovakia, where Catholicism was a strong badge of regional identity in the face of oppression (Prussia and the Czech lands respectively), but this was not sustained for such a long time in either case.
That is personal opinion - the contributors don't deal in such analysis. So their response to the particular crisis in Irish Catholicism, or the relationship between Ireland or the Irish and Catholicism is made in isolation. Ireland is not even properly defined. It appears to me that most contributors use it to mean the territory of the independent Irish state, ignoring the Catholics in the North, for whom the identity as Irish Catholics is a lot more important than south of the border.
Mother and Child Scheme
In respect of the Catholics in the South, there are many question marks. I would ask the next commentator who refers to the Mother and Child Scheme two questions:
- Why was this piece of legislation passed without substantial amendment in the administration immediately following the First Inter-party Government? (Yes, I mean the Fianna Fáil administration led by Éamon de Valera).
- Why do commentators, particularly liberal churchmen, never mention that Noel Browne had a theological advisor - Rev. Professor P. Francis Cremin?
Similarly, the 1937 Bunreacht an hÉireann is presented as an unequivocally Catholic document. It is nothing of the sort. Essentially it is the application of Anglo-American constitutional tradition to Ireland. It does contain some very theological-sounding language in its human rights clauses. But there are secular schools of natural law which use similar language. The American Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights, all of which had a huge influence on de Valera's republican movement, often used the same sort of language.
Landmark Supreme Court cases draw on American precedents in constitutional cases - not on Apostolic Signatura judgements. Right now, the United States Supreme Court, with its Catholic majority, probably takes more from Thomism and the Irish Supreme Court probably looks more to the Enlightenment. The Constitution in each country is what their respective Supreme Court says it is. I officer this as a criticism of the view that the constitution is ipso facto a Catholic document.
Example to other countries
The Constitution is a deocument in which we ought to take a great deal of pride. It is the oldest constitution in use in any state in which the human rights articles are part of the original document. In 1949, Adenauer looked to the Irish Constitution as one of the models for the German Federal Constitution. At roughly the same time, Nehru used it as an important model for the Constitution of India. Somehow, I think this needs to be pointed out.
If the contributors do not see the constitution in context, neither do they see other facets of Irish and/or Catholic life in context. More than a few contributors refer to the problems of sexual and physical abuse by priests and religious. I deny neither that this is a major problem nor that the response of dioceses and religious congregations has been inadequate to say the least.
However, if one were to do a vox pop on the streets of major Irish cities, I would bet that many people perceive paedophilia as exclusively a problem of Catholic clergy and religious. In fact the rate of offence is pretty consistent across all religious denominations, and offence by clergy (including rabbis, imams, bonzes, etc) is but a small percentage of the total. This is something opinion makers should point out.
I suppose the most fatuous remark in the book comes from Dr Colum Kenny:
I cannot accept this - though I would agree with Dr Kenny's thesis that the media cannot be primarily blamed for the current crisis in the Catholic Church in Ireland. When Mrs Margaret Heckler was stepping down as United States ambassador to Ireland in January 1989, she singled out the manner in which the Irish media dealt with the Church for special mention. Others have repeated this: Damien Kiberd, former editor of The Sunday Business Post; and Dr Desmond Fennell come to mind. Father Brian McKevitt OP has concerned himself with this problem for more than 20 years.It is my belief that there is little evidence that the media in general was ever hostile to the Catholic Church in Ireland. (p.98)
There were two Opinion pieces in The Irish Times about the Drogheda Mass [ie. Mass on Easter Sunday 2006 in the Augustinian Church in Drogheda, where the principal celebrant, Rev Iggy O'Donovan OSA invited the local Anglican rector to concelebrate with him and his two confreres] by another contributor to this book, Patsy McGarry - one after the Mass itself and then again after the apology [Fathers Iggy O'Donovan, Noel Hession and Richard Good were required by the Augustinian provincial to apologise to Cardinal Brady, in whose diocese the Mass took place, for their public breach of canon law in doing so]. This sort of partisan approach is seen across the whole media. Views of people such as David Quinn are the exception which proves the rule. Mr McGarry's own contribution essentially makes the point that the Catholic Church was nice and liberal until the Famine, but that then it became overly prudish and controlling.
Political correctness
What academics do to appear sophisticated is too predictable. So when Eugene O'Brien deals with Father Ted and deconstuction, he seems to derive pleasure in repeating a four-letter word. The comedy was discussed in this Review by Joe McCarroll, who pointed out it is was little more than a rehash of the drunken Irishman and the idiotic Irishman, but that they put on clerical collars to make it more politically correct.
There is nothing new about satirising clergy. Even Dermot Morgan had an earlier clerical persona, Father Brian Trendy. Some of us remember the insufferable Leave it to Mrs O'Brien, in which the central character was a priest's housekeeper. The parish priest there was played by Pat Daly, who himself featured in Hall's Pictorial Weekly as Canon Romulus O'Dowd.
Long before the advent of electronic media, priests featured in jokes and folktales. Not all were complimentary and some even had teeth. But the extent to which these academics would rely on folklorists and/or anthropologists to demonstrate the evolution of Father Ted.... I would have thought deconstructionists would have an interest in this.
In relation to literary criticism, what the contributors are determined to see in a collection of second-rate writers, I am not sure. It is true that good points are made by three of the analysed writers - John Broderick is noted as having hated the new Mass; Brian Moore wrote a novel, Catholics, about a monastery off the south-west coast continuing to use the old Mass, but the novel is a vehicle to express the disappointment of Ireland's Massgoers at the liturgical changes. This would be a very interesting point to examine: in particular why, in spite of so much discontent, no formal traditional movement emerged in Ireland until much later.
Patsy McGarry makes a very fair point, which needs development, that the changes shook the older generations' faith. They continued to practice out of cultural habit, but the younger people detected a shock. I believe this was true, and I am waiting for some analysis of the monies spent on re-ordering of churches in the face of widespread objection - in spite of the fact that the Second Vatican Council provided no mandate for such changes. I think this, rather than Humanae Vitae, ate into religious practice. It is true that reaction to Humanae Vitae kicked in later, but not immediately.
This brings me to a third author in the survey - Dermot Bolger. There is no doubt that Dermot Bolger is a liberal who broadly accepts the sexual revolution as a good thing. But he also loves to shock. In his earlier writings, he attacked Catholic icons. Now, he uses religion to make his secular audiences uncomfortable. But he does raise questions about the present direction of Irish society. The only other contributor who raises this question is Father Patrick Claffey SVD. Father Claffey gives a reminiscence of his formative years in Co Roscommon prior to joining the Divine Word Missionaries and leaving Ireland, then his experience on return. Father Claffey gives no nostalgic account of the past, but does give a critical view of the present.
Missed opportunities
This book is filled with missed opportunities. It is easy, and even popular, to dismiss the past. It is a lot more important to criticise the present. The contributors fail to do this. They fail to address the question of Catholic identity in general and the world-wide crisis of identity among Latin-rite Catholics. This is because they approach Irish Catholicism in isolation.
Though it is true that the concept of Irish identity which was popular between independence and the outbreak of the Northern Ireland conflict was very narrow and even flawed, the contributors fail to criticise the absence of a common view of Irish identity ever since, or how patriotism devolved into following the triumph (or otherwise) of international sports contestants.
Northern Ireland need not exist for all the attention it gets in this volume. And if you thought the book was directed at an educated readership, Father John Littleton gives a translation of all the Latin terms he quotes in his article.
One of the contributors adapts a line from Frank McGuinness's play Innocence, about the artist Caravaggio: "I have looked on God and found him lacking". To paraphrase both, I read the book...and found it lacking.
The Brandsma Review, Issue 84, May-June 2006.
I have added notes in square brackets to explain the significance of the Drogheda Mass referred to above which was current when this article appeared.
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