Two cheers for Father Twomey

Book Review

TWO CHEERS FOR FATHER TWOMEY

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

THE END OF IRISH CATHOLICISM?

By Fr Vincent Twomey SVD.  Veritas, Dublin, 2002. 220pp.  €12.95

MY friend, An tAthair Dáibhéad Ua hAnluain, will not mind me citing O'Hanlon's Law.  This states that no Irish Catholic cleric can abide the presence of anyone ideologically to his right.

For this reason, the Catholic Left do their utmost to cultivate the secular Left, who have as little time for former Céide readers as they do for those who read this Review.  The conservative Catholics try to attract liberal Catholics by excluding traditionalists, though the liberals make no distinction between the two.  (It will be interesting to see how the Irish Catholic develops under its new editor.)  And Father Vincent Twomey writes a new book.

I have a certain regard for Rev Dr Vincent Twomey.  For many years, he has been one of the few orthodox paragons in the Pontifical University, Maynooth's theology faculty.  It could not have been so comfortable to work in a moral theology department in which both Rev Enda McDonagh and Rev Patrick Hannon were professors.

For the gossip of many ill-informed (usually lay) theology undergraduates, one might think that Fr Twomey is an arch-conservative reactionary occupying a position of the politico-religious spectrum only slightly to the left of Mère Angelique Arnaud.  And to confirm their analysis, they invariably remind us of the professor under whom he studied at Münster and Regensburg: Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

Contrast with Bavaria

For these reasons, I read Fr Twomey's book with interest.  At first I had much to agree with in the opening pages.  Like Fr Twomey, I first realised how devastating the effects of the penal laws were on Ireland while in Catholic Germany.  So many aspects of what Bavarians take for granted are missing from Irish Catholic life: gilded roccoco churches; mediaeval wayside shrines; images of Christ and the Madonna on public display from private houses; observance of Advent; crucifixes hanging in civil service offices; and public holidays on holydays of obligation.

Fr Twomey is particularly interested in this last point.  He contrasts Bavaria, where Ascension Thursday and Corpus Christi are holidays, with Ireland, where the bishops apologetically moved the observance of these feasts to the following Sunday.  This move was intended to woo the lapsed.  As with similar gestures, it did not bring anybody back, but infuriated the faithful.  It occasioned the greatest intake of protest letters that David Quinn received during his editorship of the Irish Catholic.

The comparison is there.  Bavaria (whose relationship with Protestant Prussia resembles our own with Protestant England) has a much more self-confident public Catholicism than Ireland.  And despite the stereotype of the German, Bavaria has more in common with Mediterranean Catholicism than Ireland has.  (I have a thesis that Ireland, Bavaria, Quebec, the southern Netherlands and possibly Lithuania have the common experience of strong regional Catholic identity in the face of persecution by Protestant or Orthodox power.)

Folk festivals

Fr Twomey also points to the folk festivals in Southern Europe on Church holidays.  It should be noted that post-Penal Law Ireland retains one distinctive folk festival - Hallowe'en.  But the Eve of All Hallows has lost  its intimate connexion with the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls.  In Ireland, there seems to be a Calvinist-like obsession with purifying Catholicism of allegedly pagan elements.

Fr Twomey then analyses the present state of the Irish Church in the light of recent historic events.  If I were to caricature this assessment, it would run like this: the Irish Church never took theology seriously and therefore misunderstood the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and implemented it improperly, causing major problems.  And now, the administrators of the Irish Church are shocked into a state of inertia and are unsure of what to do next.

He may have a point, but he should first look at those countries that did take theology seriously.  I am reminded of the Rhine-basin countries referred to in The Rhine Flows into the Tiber.  All these took theology very seriously indeed and all have deeper problems than the Irish Church.

Developments ignored

One of the most positive moves by an episcopal conference I can recall is the Lithuanian bishops' decision to educate all their seminarists in Lithuania, only sending select priests for further study in Rome.  This is not an option for any Irish bishop, unless he has the courage to do as Cardinal Pell has done in Australia, or as Mgr Bruskewitz has done in the United States. (That is, to take personal charge of seminary education and stand no nonsense from dissenting professors.)

But the conservative and traditional lay movements in continental Europe, and moves by the likes of Cardinal Pell and the Lithuanian bishops, and the many positive developments in North American frequently discussed in this Review are not factors in Fr Twomey's thesis.

What Fr Twomey does propose is a radical re-drawing of ecclesiastical boundaries, reducing the number of dioceses and parishes.  This, he argues, will free many priests from administrative duties for pastoral endeavours.

This may well be true, but the scheme is problematic.  The constitution of the Irish dioceses was effected mainly in the 12th Century.  The prelates who oversaw this were saints and scholars under the leadership of St Malachy of Armagh.  It is difficult to see a committee drawn from Ireland's current clergy and bishops (or religious and laity) coming up with something better, should they indulge in a moment of neo-Josephism.

It is true that Irish dioceses are very small and the current vocations crisis will result in a shortage of worthy candidates for the episcopacy in the future (some might say this has already happened).  Prevailing factors may bring about this redrawing of ecclesiastical maps anyway, but I am not without hope that the situation will turn around.  In the circumstances, I disagree with Fr Twomey's prescription for the present.

Weak on catechetics

On the whole, I find Fr Twomey's presentation full of good intentions.  The trouble is that he is unwilling to contaminate himself with the religious Right, preferring (futile) conciliation with the Left.  So the Brandsma Review is unmentioned in the book, in spite of the fact that our readers have a natural sympathy for Fr Twomey.

It is a tragedy that he seems to have missed Éanna Johnson's dissection of the Alive-O series.  Fr Twomey is aware of concern about primary catechesis, but he is reluctant to probe the area.  This reluctance seems like a fudge.

He is vaguely more positive about secondary catechesis, but this affirms the effectiveness of the Maynooth BATh programme he teaches.  In my experience, not only is secondary catechesis negligible, but most informed laypeople under 40 became so by setting aside a lot of their spare time for personal homework.

On political matters, he proffers a pathetic excuse about clergy and laity who knew "in their heart of hearts" that the liberal agenda was wrong, but did not feel competent to enter the debate.  Does this mean that divorce, among other things, was legalised because a considerable number of Irish Catholics were afraid of their own shadows.

I note that Mgr Francis Cremin is conspicuous by his absence.  But the article in the Irish Catholic that described the launch of Humanae Vitae - in which Mgr Cremin played a leading role - as a public relations disaster is reprinted in the book as an appendix.  I wonder if Fr Twomey is hoping to woo those who take this line.  If so, he will fail.
Confidence unjustified
Another disappointment is that Fr Twomey doesn't reflect his former teacher's support for the traditional movement.  Cardinal Ratzinger has been very supportive of new orders such as the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter and lay movements like Una Voce International.  Nor does Fr Twomey note the vitality of Eastern Catholicism - even with the presence of a very active new Byzantine Catholic parish in Dublin.

He prefers to confine his praise to groups which are conservative on faith and morals, but liberal on liturgy, spirituality and general approach.  I would contend that experience of this grotesque age simply does not justify the confidence in modernity displayed by the non-traditionalist neo-conservative movements.

One certainly sympathises with Fr Twomey's endeavours.  It was very brave of an individual priest to produce a work like this in the current ecclesiastical climate.  But one could wish he could bring himself one step closer to the Right.

The Left wrote him off a long time ago.  And those of us on his right really aren't all that odious.  I wonder does O'Hanlon's Law apply outside Ireland.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 69, November-December 2003