Mythical History or Historical Mythology?

MYTHICAL HISTORY OR 

HISTORICAL MYTHOLOGY? 

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Erat autem nox - St John, XIII, 30

I have always regarded tales of de Valera's Catholic theocracy as mythical.  In 1941, he founded the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies to promote scholarship in the two disciplines that fascinated him: Mathematical Sciences and Celtic Studies.

Professor Erwin Schrödinger, a refugee from Austria who later won the Nobel physics prize, gave the inaugural lecture in the School of Mathematical Sciences, in which he proposed that theoretical physics could explain the existence of the universe without reference to a creator-God.  Professor T. F. O'Rahilly gave the inaugural lecture in the School of Celtic Studies and proposed that St Patrick may have been a composite character of two historical personalities.  Myles na gCopaleen found himself in the libel court for suggesting that all Mr de Valera's Institute had done was prove there was no God and two St Patricks.  But de Valera had no inquisition.

Major weakness

As more recent history is enveloped by myth, more ancient history is subject to a myriad of interpretations, not only by scholars, but by anyone with an interest.  One such work, How the Irish Saved Civilization was a runaway bestseller in Irish America.  One might be sympathetic to Thomas Cahill's basic thesis, but one should have problems with many aspects of his arguments.

Mr Cahill brings us on a whirlwind tour of Europe from the last days of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the Middle Ages.  He writes in a very engaging style and the book is very easy to read.  He displays a good knowledge of Latin and of the world of antiquity.

A Spiritual Hitler?

These are the positive points.  The major weakness is that though his central thesis - that the Irish saved civilisation by copying the works of classical literature for posterity - is clear, he does not show how, when or where, for example, the text of the Aeneid was found in Irish manuscripts.  I rather think the attitude of a mediaeval Irish monk to posterity qua posterity was akin to that of one of the members of the Irish House of Commons who voted for the Act of Union in 1800 and exhorted the House to do so with the words "What has posterity ever done for us?"

Mr Cahill spends some time on the fall of Rome, first by caricaturing the poet Ausonius and then by giving us a guided tour of St Augustine's Confessions.  He is very positive about the young Augustine, but not enthusiastic about the older St Augustine.  Could the author of The City of God have brought the dusk of the Dark Ages on the Roman world single-handedly?

This again reminds me of Myles na gCopaleen.  St Augustine appears as a character in The Dalkey Archive, written under the satirist's other pseudonym, Flann O'Brien.  Myles (né Brian Ó Nualláin) described St Augustine as a spiritual Hitler in a radio interview in the 1950s - in de Valera's Ireland.

Then Mr Cahill moves on to Ireland, with St Patrick.  The picture of St Patrick is based on the Confession and the Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus exclusively, without reference to the Lives.  The St Patrick that emerges is like a cross between Frederick Douglas (the 19th century American abolitionist who was himself an escaped slave) and Abraham Lincoln.

There is no doubt what St Patrick thought of slavery, and that his views were probably stronger than those expressed by any churchman until Blessed Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote against it in the 16th century.  But St Patrick did not bring slavery to an end.  A few generations after St Patrick, aristocratic hierarchs were ashamed the Irish Church was founded by a fugitive slave.

Amchurch tendency

Mr Cahill leaves little time to the Church founded by St Patrick.  He covers Ss Bridget, Colmcille and Columbanus and gives a thumbnail sketch to a Church independent of Rome, uninterested in sexual mores and affirmative of feminism.  All this while Europe was in the Dark Ages.  If his sketch seems to resemble Amchurch (as the fading liberal wing of the American church is sometimes called), it is probably a bit more that coincidental.

As Mr Cahill believes the Irish monks copied classical texts for the sake of posterity, he also believes they wrote down Irish folklore exactly as it was.  Folklore is very difficult to deal with.  It is very rare for folklore to remain fossilised, as any of us who have experienced the circulation of "folklore" about ourselves can testify: for, like gossip, folklore is a dynamic process.  It tends to have some relevance to current situation.

In terms of modern Irish political history, until very recently stories about de Valera tended to be coloured by the narrator's view of the Civil War.  At present, such stories tend to reflect the narrator's view of Church/State relations.  Archbishop McQuaid is another victim of the current trend, as John Cooney's biography will illustrate (another repository of folklore).

The caricature of Archbishop McQuaid raises another question: why have the ecclesiastical historians not raised a voice in his defence?  Could it be that the late Archbishop represents a Church the current hierarchy would prefer to move away from, so they leave charges by secularist historians unopposed?  Is this also why Father Pierre Blet is alone in defending Pope Pius XII?

Repulsive Queen Medb

On the basis of vicissitudes of folklore within living memory, I would challenge the proposition that the Táin Bó Cuailgne, written in the eighth or ninth century was essentially unchanged from the version allegedly told in the first.  Mr Cahill quotes Kinsella's translation of the Táin (he has no Old Irish).  Even reading the poetical English translation, I could see that much of the language referred to Latin or Christian concepts, and therefore could not come from the first century without major alteration.  The character Queen Medb is no heroine; she has many repulsive traits and certainly does not reflect historical reality.

My position on the Táin is that it is not folklore, but composed literature with a flavouring from folklore, and it was meant to be didactic.  Its moral is that women are unfit to rule: Medb's paramour, Fergus MacRóich says as much at the end - that a herd of stallions led by a mare is bound to stray.

Schoolboyish treatment

Claims for the independence of the Irish Church from Rome are really based on only two factors: the date of Easter and the tonsure.  Mr Cahill rightly says the Irish monks never fought these issues.  His other more serious assertion, that sexual morality meant nothing in Ireland until Victorian times, is patently false - but unsurprising given Mr Cahill's schoolboyish treatment of the subject.  In many of the earliest tales of the death of a hero, infidelity or fornication spelt doom, and the only evidence for homosexuality is in bad translations.

Mr Cahill rejoices that returning to being what he alleges we were until recent years: sexual hedonists.  If the post-Christian age is a return to heathen ways, we are also returning to crimes against person and property, and I would love to see some bourgeois advocate of promiscuity trying to refute the charge that these things are connected.

When I began to study Old Irish, I was told that the classical world viewed its mythology historically and the Celtic world view its history mythologically.  It is not always easy to tell the difference, but I suspect the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies have a lot of fun in the area (although this tendency if far from confined to the Celtic period alone).  While they labour slowly, people like Mr Cahill make money.

I would say he is in fact describing himself when, in the book, he calls Ausonius a master of a good tunr of phrase for the kudos of the audience.  And in Mr Cahill's case, the audience are those cultural Irish Catholics - principally but not exclusively in the United States - who are somewhat estranged from Church teaching on sexual ethics.

Lifting Shadows?

The influence of Mr Cahill's book outside the United States surely had its zenith in Leinster House shortly before Christmas (1999).  It was one of the major sources for Mary McAleese's address to the other two Houses of the Oireachtas entitled Ireland's Lifting Shadows - something for posterity.  Mrs McAleese directly quoted Mr Cahill's assertion that St Patrick brought, let us say, a benignly ecumenical Christianity to Ireland:

As Thomas Cahill says: "Patrick's gift to the Irish was his Christianity - the first de-Romanized Christianity in human history."  It was a Christianity that fused easily into Irish life, growing side by side with the old pagan culture, with no anxiety to obliterate it.

This is nonsense, but a nonsense calculated to elicit desired responses to the Northern Irish peace process and the refugee crisis.  To this end, Mrs McAleese paints a dim picture of the generation of independence, and a bright picture of the European Union, all in a language of lifting shadows, with relevant quotations from recent literature to show a modern dark age has been dispelled.  An incredibly naïve view of present day Irish life.

As for "lifting shadows", just one quotation strikes me.  It's from St John's Gospel, when Judas leaves the Upper Room:

And it was night.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 47, February-March 2000.

  

Mgr Cremin and the Revolution

MGR CREMIN AND THE REVOLUTION

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Beatus servus quem, cum venerit dominus, invenerit vigilantum - St Matthew, 24:26

DR NOEL BROWNE had a theological advisor.  In his memoirs Against the Tide he outlined the advice he received regarding his Mother and Child Scheme.  The hierarchy were confusing the area of social teaching with moral teaching and reacted incorrectly.  But the advisor was unnamed until the publication of John Horgan's recent biography of Dr Browne.  It was the late Monsignor Patrick Francis Cremin, P.A., S.T.D, J.U.D.

Mgr Cremin was born in Kerry on October 10, 1910.  He had a brilliant student career in Killarney and Maynooth, as well as distinguishing himself as a hurler.  He spent two years in Rome, remarkably achieving two doctorates, one of which was the Juris Utriusque Doctor - Doctor of both Civil and Canon Law. (He was one of only three JUDs who taught at Maynooth since 1795).  He became Professor of Moral and Dogmatic Theology in the Pontifical University, Maynooth on his 29th birthday and in 1949, Professor of Canon Law.  He was Librarian of Maynooth between 1939 and 1946.

One priest said, perhaps in reference to Dr Cremin's prowess with the camán in minor and major seminary, that Frank Cremin occupied the same position on the pitch as ever, but the goalposts were moved so much that he went from the centre to the extreme right.

Resident reactionary pariah

Well, what brought an adviser to the socialist Minister for Health in the 1948-51 Government to become regarded as Maynooth's resident reactionary pariah in the 1980s and1990s?

In 1962, the bishops went to Rome to Pope John's Council.  There was a question whether Professor Cremin would accompany them; most bishops thought not.  The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr McQuaid, brought Dr Cremin as a peritus.  In the course of the council, Francis Cremin debated with other periti - notably Professor Hans Küng - and he worked on Christus Dominus, the Decree on the Bishop's Pastoral Office in the Church, a key document in dealing with the controversial issue of collegiality.

It might be said that few Irishmen has as much insight into the Second Vatican Council as Father Cremin.  But this did not mean preferment.  In 1966, Mgr Mitchell stepped down as President of Maynooth to become parish priest of Ballinrobe.  Fr Cremin was the senior academic in Maynooth and Dean of the Faculty of Canon Law.  The Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Fr Corish, succeeded Mgr Mitchell and he in turn was succeeded by Fr Jeremiah Newman, Professor of Catholic Action and Sociology.  Among other things, Fr Newman was active in promoting the admission of lay students to Maynooth in 1966.  In his capacity as a sociologist, he also spent sometime living in a hippie commune in California.
A job well done
History is written by the victors.  Humanae Vitae was promulgated in 1968 and the Irish hierarchy asked Father Cremin to present it to the Irish media.  Television viewers watched Dr Cremin declare:

There you have it, gentlemen - no change.

To read David Quinn's piece in The Irish Catholic marking the 30th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, one would think the press conference was a disaster.  Immediately after the conference, Professor Cremin asked Archbishop McQuaid's press officer for an appraisal of how he handled the media, and was told he did very well.

It seems controversy developed afterwards when a would-be Labour TD named Conor Cruise-O'Brien initiated a protracted correspondence on the subject in The Irish Times.  But how in tune with Irish public opinion was Dr Cruise-O'Brien at the time?

Leaving aside the antics of Mrs Robinson, Mary Kenny and others on a train from Belfast in the 1970s, the criminalisation of contraception was found to be unconstitutional in the Magee judgement in 1973, thanks to the "emanation of a penumbra" school of jurisprudence, enabling the Supreme Court to discover a "right to marital privacy" in de Valera's constitution.  So the then Fine Gael liberal, Patrick Cooney, attempted to legislate on the matter in 1975.  After a debate, during which the former Fianna Fáil Justice Minister Desmond O'Malley referred to Mr Cooney's Bill as a "licence to fornicate" (I am not making this up), Dáil  Éireann was startled to see An Taoiseach, Liam MacCosgair and several Fine Gael TDs walking through the Níl lobby with Fianna Fáil.

In 1979, Charles Haughey was Minister for Health and Social Welfare and he introduced his Family Planning Bill.  At the time, the Bill was opposed by a majority of voters in Deputy Haughey's constituency.  Mr Haughey's Act has been described as an Irish solution to an Irish problem, as if Serbo-Croatian solutions to Irish problems are somehow more desirable.  This allowed contraceptives on to the statute books for the first time since their ban in the 1920s.  It was a decisive factor in bringing Pope John Paul II to Ireland on his third foreign trip.
Lengthy transition
This was the law until Dr FitzGerald and Mr Desmond decided otherwise in 1985.  I was outside Leinster House the day Mr Desmond's Bill was debated in the Oireachtas.  The climate outside was palpable.  Most of the people of Ireland did not want this Bill passed.  Mr O'Malley was again on the opposition benches and this time he just couldn't make up his mind, so he abstained.  At the division, 83 voted Tá, 80 Níl, with two abstentions - largely a result of the imposition of a three-line whip.  This was before the red herring of AIDS was introduced into the equation.

A few years later, Deputy Haughey was Taoiseach and Deputy O'Malley, now leader of the Progressive Democrats, was in his cabinet and AIDS was seen as a burning issue.  Mr O'Malley assured the Taoiseach of his party's support for a further relaxation of Mr Desmond's Act.  He found that half his party had problems with his liberal stance on the issue - but all this evaporated a few years later when Brendan Howlin succeed Dr John O'Connell as Minister for Health in 1992.  It took Ireland nearly a quarter of a century after Humanae Vitae to embrace the contraceptive mentality.  And this transition did not come easily.  For this reason, I cannot conclude that the 1968 launch of Humanae Vitae was a disaster.
Pipped by Casey
Following the press conference, Fr Cremin had other battles.  He was passed over for the episcopacy - notably when Fr Éamonn Casey was made Bishop of Kerry.  His Eminence William Cardinal Conway told Mgr Casey that it had taken him four years to convince the Congregation of Bishops that he was a better choice than Dr Cremin.  Dr Cremin got the title Monsignor as a consolation prize.

Some rebel seminarists in Maynooth demanded a course on sexual ethics.  Mgr Cremin agreed, on the condition he could deliver the course in a language of his choice.  Henceforth the lectures and examinations on the subject were exclusively in Latin.  But Maynooth had taken a turn for the worse and Mgr Cremin discovered he had to explain matters to Third Divinity students on topics they should have covered in First Divinity, and later, even things that should have been dealt with in school catechesis.

In the late 1970s, he had a series of four articles published in the Irish Independent entitled "What's Wrong with Maynooth?"  This was principally an appeal to the hierarchy to do something.   The one active element of his career was to assist in the drafting of the 1983 Codex Iuris Canonici, with the special reference to the section on the canon law of marriage.  In 1998, he was made a Protonotary Apostolic.
Lonely retirement
Mgr Cremin's years following his retirement were lonely.  A whole folklore about him developed in the college that was quite inconsistent with reality.  Clerical students were not encouraged to make a habit of speaking with him, and those who did were rewarded with a reprimand.  He did not say the Tridentine Mass, nor even the Novus Ordo in Latin.  He said the Novus Ordo Mass in English in the Lady Chapel in Maynooth College Chapel, using Roman vestments and strictly adhering to the rubrics - and he said the Roman canon in a low voice.  On one occasion, I served his Mass and reminded myself that the celebrant of the Novus Ordo Mass used water only for the post communion purifications and not wine, as in the old Mass.  So I was suprised when he requested wine.  He said Mass versus Dominum until the altar in the Lady Chapel was taken back.

He was incredibly well informed about the current situation in the Church.  He believed this current crisis to be worse than the Reformation and that the situation was beyond human redemption.  He was confident of a glorious revival, though not in his own lifetime.  He continued to maintain a broad focus on the world, reading several newspapers regularly, and I remember during a spate of industrial action, his response was to say we neglected the encyclicals on social justice at our peril.
Deeper problems
At a more local level, he was critical of the Maynooth authorities' sudden hardening of attitude towards domestic staff in the early 1990s (until then, domestic staff were treated in a manner consistent with Catholic social teaching rather than with contemporary business practice).  He retained his interest in sport, but regarded the disproportionate reaction to Ireland's soccer successes in 1988, 1990 and 1994 as symptomatic of deeper problems.

In 1999, he moved out of Maynooth when the college authorities closed the infirmary.  This meant that, as his health was deteriorating, he could not rely on medical care as hitherto.  Care for retired academic staff was no longer a priority at St Patrick's College, Maynooth.  On November 1, 2001 he died in a nursing home in Tralee.

Requiem aeternum dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetuae luceat ei.  Anima ejus, et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum, per misericordiam Dei, requiescant in pace.  Amen.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 59, March-April 2002  

Céide Pops it Clogs - Shall we dance?

CÉIDE POPS ITS CLOGS - SHALL WE DANCE?

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

 I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him - Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar

THERE is a difference between writing an obituary and dancing on someone's grave and by the time I am finished this article, I am sure no one will have any doubt as to which of the two I am indulging in here.  (If you have not already guessed when you saw my name under the above headline on the cover.)  I have had occasion to comment upon Céide in the past, after my attention was drawn to the magazine by the late Mgr Cremin.  Mgr Cremin was furious that the pre-launch publicity should advertise a robust respect for dissent.  When it was launched in September 1997, I said:

Céide, my friends, is a bunch of ancient hippies talking to themselves.  For all their talk of imagination and creativity, they offer only the smae worn-out clichés.  Harmless as it seems, this medicine has well-nigh destroyed the Church in Holland, Canada and elsewhere.  These guys just don't get it.  (BR, Issue 33)

I returned to the theme last year:

This [the American National Catholic Reporter] has been the flagship periodical of the American Catholic left since the Second Vatican Council.  It has been losing steam for some time...The United States Catholic left, hard and soft, is losing support.  Would Céide profit by their example (BR, Issue 54)

Signs of the times
Well now, maybe it is time for the National Catholic Reporter to imitate Céide - and fold.  Liberals always talk of the sings of the times and how we must interpret them.  So, let us look at a few signs of the times.  The contrast between the National Catholic Reporter and another American Catholic paper, The Wanderer, was interesting.  Some time ago, both seemed to have similar circulations.  But on investigation, the NCR's source of revenue was due to priests who ordered multiple copies for their churches.  The more conservative Wanderer relied principally on individual subscriptions from laity who went to the trouble to order it in the post.  It takes no logic to deduce which of the two had the greater support of a committed laity.  So what did the signs of the times indicate?  And now, the Wanderer has a clearer lead.

I don't know what the circulation of Céide was.  It may well have been several times that of the Brandsma Review, but I doubt it.  The point is that the Brandsma Review has reached its tenth anniversary (ad multos annos!) since the horrible days in the immediate aftermath of the X Case, and Céide will not see its fifth anniversary.  The Brandsma Review has been for the most part a lay enterprise, notwithstanding the support of Father Brendan Purcell and many other priests over the years - between contributors, promoters and subscribers.  Céide has been first and foremost a clerical initiative, with some lay collaborators.

The Brandsma Review has always been run on a shoestring budget and seeks to present its message unadorned to those who will read it.  Céide, on the other hand, was always an elegant production, complete with coloured photographs and a glossy finish.  The lack of advertisements was sufficient evidence of generous donors.  Nevertheless, the quality of the magazine was not enough to generate the necessary readership to sustain the magazine.  Therefore, why not question the message?
Charter for a People's Church
The editorial team in Céide had absolutely no doubt about the message.  In the final edition, their anonymous critic of ecclesiastical politics, An Ridire (the knight - the only Irish word apparently derived from the German language, from Ritter) spells out what the message is:

The success of the divine conspiracy - enforced accountability, decline of vocations, the growth of lay structures, the end of oppressiveness of clericalism, the sweep of democracy - will ensure the continued implosion of structures that militate against the progress of the Church, sharing the Good News.  The game is up, lads.  God's hand will not be stayed.

I thought this rather ironic.  It came at the end of a charter for a People's Church.  A People's Church which will be governed by lay structures, with

...[a] more creative and compassionate response to issues like divorce and remarriage...the reconstitution of a new priesthood will lead to married clergy and in time the ordination of women.  The next concerted push of the forces of democratisation...will sweep aside the creaky structures that paid too much respect to élites and hierarchies.

To the barracades, comrades!  When I read the above, I heard a choir singing in the back of my head: 

Partiya Lenina, sila narodnaya/Nas k torzhestvu Komunisma vedyot! (Party of Lenin, strength of the People/To Communism's triumph lead us on!)

For those who don't know, I am quoting the Hymn of the Soviet Union.  I am not accusing Der Ritter of being a Stalinist - only of being oblivious to the irony of using this type of rhetoric: the irony is that the game is actually up for Céide rather than for Our Mother, the Church.
On the margins? 
Since the first Pentecost, the Church has seen a lot of demagogues come and go, preaching all sorts of weird and wonderful things, just as she has seen all sorts of prophets of doom attacking her from the other side.  But Céide seems to have been frozen  into its own particular historical and geographical groove, unable in a serious way to engage either with contemporary cultures or - very importantly for Catholics (the Church does teach that tradition is a source of revelation) - with all the previous generations of Catholics in this and other Catholic cultures.  And the Céide people are themselves an élite and a hierarchy of sorts, supremely confident that they know best.

Céide forever prided itself on being on the margins.  Was it really?  It attracted some very heavyweight writers over the years.  It was very happy challenging the Church hierarchy, but did not relish opposing something like The Irish Times or the intelligentsia in this country.  Its target audience were not the underprivileged in Irish society - given the price and content of Céide and its failure to address their real concerns.

 The general views of this country's underclass on travellers and refugees, for example, would make the hair stand up straight or many politically-correct heads.  The only thing marginal about the magazine was how insignificant the Céide team were in the context of the bigger picture and how this reality was lost on them.
More mediaeval view
I am not sure any more if, strictly speaking, Céide was on the Left.  In some ways it was quite conservative.  I was personally educated in the Enlightenment ethos (which I have substantially rejected).  One of its tenets was the separation of Church and State and another was universal freedom of religion and conscience.

In one sense, it is of little significance how few in this country profess or practice Catholicism.  If it is a small minority, it is our duty to act as witnesses to the Faith in the hope of conversion through example, but we may not force the faith on anyone.  The Céide team seemed to have a more mediaeval view of the organic connexion between Church, State and society, believing society must be maintained within the Church at all costs.

If this meant the Church must embrace the mores of society, they seemed to regard this as preferable to writing off huge numbers of members.  Céide tended towards a form of Erastianism, based as much on public opinion as secular authority.  The imperative seemed to be to keep the 95% of citizens of the 26 counties who are nominally Catholic still actually calling themselves Catholic, in spite of deviations in faith and morals by a great proportion of them.
Crowning with Thorns
It would have been salutary for the Céide team to have reflected on the Third Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary, the Crowning with Thorns.  Listen to the mob before Pilate: "We have no king but Caesar!"  Our Lord, with the mock crown on His head, clearly announces to Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world.  The Céide worldview did not seem to acknowledge the subtle distinction between sacred and secular authority.  You do not deny the kingship of Christ just to accommodate the crowd.

Given that Der Ritter gives divorce as an example of creative compassion, I seem to recall a particular divorce case where some creative compassion was demanded.  A certain progressive and very successful cleric reckoned he could acquire an annulment for his employer and failed, ending his life with the words "If only I served God as well as I have served my king..."  A reactionary layman stood up to the king at the time, at the cost of his life - and proclaimed himself at the scaffold to be "the king's good servant, but God's first".  If they don't know what I am talking about here, the writers in Céide would do well to rent the video A Man for All Seasons for a night.

 Well, Céide have not succeeded in accommodating the crowd.  Instead they have faded into oblivion, largely unnoticed by the world around them.  They have not impressed a new vision on the Catholic faithful in Ireland.  And for all their trumpet blowing, the desired innovations within the Church are as far away as ever.  And last time I checked, John Paul II was still Pope.

I do not believe this is the last we will hear from the Céide team - they will still be around for some time.  But they will not be so fast to launch a magazine like this again.  Their support base is not growing.  It is dwindling.

Now, can anybody strike up a hornpipe?  I think I want to dance.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 61, July-August 2002 

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