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

St Fergal - Unconventional Apostle

SAINT FERGAL - UNCONVENTIONAL APOSTLE

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Nihil est opertum, quod non revelabitur;et occultum quod non scietur - St Matthw, 10, 26

One of the consolations of Pope Zachary's life...was the filial friendship of Saint Boniface...Among their correspondence..of especial interest...in the light of all the conjecture...over the past few years...of the possibility of "inhabited planets" other than our own...in answer to Saint Boniface's complaint that an Irish priest named Virgilius was disturbing men's minds by teaching that there was another world, other men on another planet beneath the earth, another sun, and another moon...[Pope Zachary] ordered Saint Boniface to reprimand Virgilius, and...to send him to Rome so that his doctrine might be examined...[I]t was not necessary...to condemn Virgilius, for the priest completely yielded to correction...of his Holy Father and went on...to sanctify himself.  He became Bishop of Salzburg, and lived such a life of holiness....that he was canonised by Pope Gregory IX.  (The above piece of papolatrous fantasy comes from Our Glorious Popes by "Sister" Catherine MICM of the Feeneyite Slaves of the Immaculate Heart, itself condemned by St Zachary's more recent successors)

I ONCE attended Mass in a German city on September 24, feast of Ss Rupert and Virgil, the patrons of Salzburg.  German-speakers principally know Salzburg at the birthplace of Mozart.  For most Anglophones, it is better known as the setting of The Sound of Music.  The city has ancient roots: its archbishop is the Primate of the Germans.  Salzburg was Bavarian until the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and rigid distinction between Germany and Austria only dates from 1945.

Ireland has an old association with Salzburg.  Some claim its first archbishop, St Rupert, Apostle of Bavaria and Austria, was an Irishman named Robartach, but more reliable sources say he was Frankish.  However, Irish monks largely provided his education and he brought many with him to Salzburg.  The pre-eminent had yet to come.  This was Rupert's successor, St Virgil or Fergal.
Abbot in Salzburg
Fergal was born in the south of Ireland around 700 and little is known of his early life.  He became a monk and was educated on the Aran Islands, returning to the mainland to succeed St Canice as Abbot of Aghaboe, Co Laois in the Ossory diocese.  In 739, he left Ireland for the Holy Land with two companions, Dobdagrecc and Sidonius.  At first, they worked under King Pepin in France.  In 745, Pepin commended them to his brother-in-law, Duke Odilo of Bavaria, who sent them to St Peter's Abbey in Salzburg.

 Fergal became Abbot of St Peter's.  He declined the episcopacy on the grounds of humility - Dobdagrecc, now Abbot of Chiemsee, was consecrated instead.  Actually, Fergal implemented an Irish hierarchical model where the bishop was subject to the abbot.  In Irish Church politics, Fergal was a conservative with little time for Roman innovations regarding the Easter date or ecclesiastical jurisdiction.  The liturgy in Salzburg under Fergal included commemoration of the 15 Abbots of Iona from St Colmcille down to the contemporary abbot; and he brought relics of St Brigid and St Samthann of Clonbroney with him, inspiring devotion to the two in what is now Austria - the latter virtually forgotten in her own country.

St Boniface was unimpressed by Fergal's arrival in Salzburg.  Odilo had promoted Fergal over Boniface's candidate.  This was a challenge to Boniface's acknowledged German primacy.  Boniface has been accused of racism in his opposition to Fergal and some have suggested this clash of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic temperaments foreshadows future enmity between Ireland and England.  Boniface (né Wynfrith) came from Crediton, Devonshire, not far from the border between Celtic Cornwall and Saxon Wessex and he displayed no affection for his Cornish neighbours.  But he had many Irish monks working under him, two of whom were martyred with him in 754.

We might call Boniface an ultramontanist today.  Fergal may have had Gallican tendencies, but he was so from traditionalist grounds.  Tháinig idir Pheadar agus Phól - the Irish proverb tells us even the apostles Peter and Paul quarrelled.  The two had inevitable disagreements: each suspected the other of heresy.  Boniface knew of Fergal's leanings, but needed something more substantial to go to Rome.

The first occasion Boniface went to Pope St Zachary I concerned the sacrament of baptism.  Two Bavarian priests under Fergal's jurisdiction baptised catechumens with this apparently feminine formula: Baptizo te in nomine patria et filia et spiritu sancta.  This was ignorance, but when Boniface insisted the candidates be re-baptised, Fergal and Sidonius upheld the validity of the sacrament.  Boniface denounced them to Zachary.  The pope confirmed the baptisms were valid and rebuked Boniface instead.
Clash over geography
Fergal had been known for his interest in the natural sciences even in Aghaboe and he engaged in some scientific speculation.  Boniface believed Fergal overstepped the mark, as he appeared to suggest men inhabited the Antipodes.

The confrontation between Boniface and Fergal over geography is still relevant to Catholic apologetics as it deals with the relationship between faith and science.  Anticlerical polemicists hold the Church was staffed by flat-earthers until Columbus' day, by geocentrists until Galileo's and that now, at best, we grudgingly accept evolution (less of a problem for Catholics than sola scriptura Protestants, but this writer needs to see more evidence for macro-evolution). 

Adherents of scientism put the Columbus and Gallileo cases very disingenuously. The objection to Columbus was not that the world was flat but that the round world was a lot bigger than he thought it was.  Columbus extimated Japan was 2,800 miles from Spain.  It is in fact 14,000 miles distant.  Were it not for the hitherto unknown Americas, Columbus and his crew would have died at sea.  As Luther and Calvin's attacks on Father Copernicus trouble nobody, the anticlerical faction point at Gallileo, omitting some details.

Firstly, the Church wrongly accepted the consensus of leading contemporary scientists that the universe was geocentric.  Secondly, Gallileo unwisely strayed into philosophy and theology in self-defence.  This implied the Church herself was heretical and thus brought the Inquisition on to his own case.

Regarding evolution, the only facet of the subject I know anything about is linguistic evolution.  Asked to believe our complex languages developed from animal grunts when all the evidence shows language simplifies over time, I apply Occam's razor and find the Tower of Babel story more credible.  However Occam's razor was first wielded not by the English Francisan William of Occam but by his contemporary, the Anglo-Norman Archbishop of Armagh, Richard Fitzralph, formally canonised by the Church of Ireland in Henry VIII's day as St Richard of Dundalk.  But all this was in the future.
Excommunication threat 
The showdown between Boniface and Fergal anticipated some aspects of the Gallileo case.  Even in the eighth century, thinking people accepted the world was round.  This proposition went back to Greek times.  The problem was to state that men lived in the Antipodes.  Pope Zachary told Boniface that if Fergal taught there were another sun, another moon and another race of men on the other side of the Earth, he would convene a council to investigate Fergal - and if it found him guilty of teaching heresy, he would be deprived of his priesthood and excommunicated.

Greek science held the world was round, but that the equator was in the Torrid Zone, a region of uncrossable heat.  The intelligentsia held this view, and also that no descendent of Adam could have traversed this divide.  This made the premise appear unbiblical: if there were a race of men on the far side, from whom were they descended?

To bring this into the 21st century, many people have an uninformed belief about the possibility of life on other planets.  As it is highly improbable (I gave up using the term impossible a long time ago) that sons of Adam reached hypothetical life-sustaining planets elsewhere in the universe, one must conclude that any alien race differs in lineage.
The shots in Fergal's locker
C.S. Lewis, Irish Anglicanism's foremost apologist, suggested there might be life on other planets, which had not experienced the Fall.  This was the challenge facing Fergal now.  Did he posit there was another race of men on the other side of the world?  Did they experience the Fall and Redemption?  Simply put, the problem was not scientific but theological, though it only arose in the context of accepted science.

So Fergal had to account for this problem before the Pope.  This is where the saint's erudition came into play.  When Ptolomy insisted Africa could not be circumnavigated, he was reacting to an account in Heredotus that Phoenician sailors had already achieved this in the reign of Pharoah Necho, an adversary of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.  Modern research has confirmed both the possibility and plausibility of Heredotus' account of this incredible seventh century BC voyage.  Other accounts hinting at undiscovered countries south of the equator exist in Greek and in the eighth century, Ireland led the west in its knowledge of Greek.

Someone of Fergal's learning and interests would have been aware of this corpus as well as extensive writings in Irish and Hiberno-Latin on the same topic.  The Navigatio Brendani is the best known, but it is not unique.   Like the tale from Heredotus, it was only conclusively shown to be possible in the 20th century.  The Venerable Bede, St Isidore of Seville and St Jerome all mention the Antipodes.  It was on the authority of the latter that St Fergal based his defence.

There was a work in circulation at the time named the Cosmographia by Aethicus Ister.  This alluded to life in the Antipodes in sections attributed to St Jerome, though Jerome's authorship of any of the book is now disputed.  Fergal returned to Salzburg vindicated, but many now hold he was the sole author of the Cosmographia, which is also unlikely. 
First Austrian school
Fergal was eventually consecrated as Archbishop of Salzburg in 766.  He astonished his contemporaries by undertaking a 33 by 66 metre cathedral in 769 which was completed in 774.  Following Irish practice, he established a cathedral school.  This was the first known school on what is now Austrian territory and its foundation precedes the Bavarian Council's decree on schools in 774.

At this stage, Fergal was well advanced in what proved to be his life's work: the conversion of the Slavs in the Carinthian Alps.  This area, inhabited by peoples we now call Slovenes, extended from southern Austria to Slovenia to northeastern Italy.

The Slavs came into contact with Christianity as they moved westward.  St Columbanus preached to them in the seventh century.  Fergal began his earnest mission.  He baptised Duke Chetimar in Chiemsee.  He consecrated Modestus and sent him with 13 companions to Carinthia.  Modestus established his diocese at Maria Saal, dying in 763, but Fergal continued to supervise the missionary work until his own death.

After that, not even a heathen rebellion following Chetimar's death could reverse evangelisation.  Fergal's successor Arno came to an agreement with Patriarch Paulinus II of Aquileia on diocesan boundaries enabling the completion of this work, but Fergal was known as the Apostle of Carinthia ever after.  He also sent missionaries to many unknown parts - including what is now Hungary.

Fergal maintained an active life into old age, falling ill while preaching near the River Dravo in Carinthia.  He died on November 27, 784.  He might well have been forgotten as Bavaria was absorbed into the Frankish kingdom in 788.  However, St Fergal's tomb was rediscovered when the cathedral was destroyed in 1181.  This renewed interest and devotion to the dead archbishop who was canonised by Pope Gregory IX in 1233.  More relics of St Fergal were discovered after the Allied bombing of Salzburg during the Second World War.  His feast is on 27 November, though some Germany dioceses commemorate him with St Rupert on September 24.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 77, March-April 2005