The National Way - Where?

THE NATIONAL WAY - WHERE?

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

WHERE do St Thomas More and Samuel Butler have nowhere in common?  Thus runs an old trick question.  The answwere is that they both wrote books entitled "Nowhere": More's Utopia is derived from the Greek ou topos (not place) and Butler's Erewhon is an anagram for nowhere.

In a collection of 14 essays entitled The National Way Forward, Justin Barrett attempts to map the path ahead for Ireland.  He reflects upon the position of our country, the so-called Celtic Tiger, in the aftermath of the X Case, the Maastricht Treaty, the divorce referendum and the Amsterdam Treaty.  He analyses Ireland from a political, economic and moral point of view and proposes some long-term solutions to what he sees as the current crisis.

I believe this is a book which the Pro-Life Campaign should have read and taken to heart prior to the March referendum.  Published well before the Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill, it contains the following observation:

Surely we knew the Supreme Court was politically appointed and, if the Government were not Pro-Life, the Court could not indefinitely remain so?  Surely, we must have understood that a Pro-Life Amendment, no matter how cleverly crafted, could not survive deliberate malevolence on the part of ideologically motivated Justices?  That, plainly, constitutional prohibition on abortion could not forever resist both a hostile legislature and a hostile judiciary?

And there is the most basic question - IF WE DID NOT UNDERSTAND IT THEN, DO WE UNDERSTAND THAT NOW?

If we do not, then it is, as the saying goes, all over bar the shouting.  For new referendum or not, the forces fighting for Life will have committed the cardinal error of short-sightedness and narrow focus, which must inevitably deliver this country up to legalised and widespread abortion - and sooner rather than later.  (The National Way Forward, p. 16, emphasis in original)

So, in his examination of the X Case and its fall out, Mr Barrett seems to dismiss the practicality of any further pro-life amendment, let alone one with a specific wording.  In his analysis of recent Irish history, the X Case is pivotal to the direction the nation has taken, but his treatment of the case in the book's first essay caricatures the issue by subjecting the court to pop-psychoanalysis, and introduces a novel conspiracy theory to which the Hederman judgement can be regarded a key.  There is no doubt that all pro-lifers found the majority judgement in X to be deeply shocking.  But Mr Barrett's conclusion above is unhelpful, to say the least.

Conspiracy theory

In regard to the other meditations, it could be said that Mr Barrett's Weltanschauung is one that follows the masthead of this journal: Pro Vita, Pro Ecclesia Dei, et Pro Hibernia.  However, I do not think too many of the Brandsma Review's commentators would follow him down the roads he takes.  One can sympathise with an economic analysis that is critical of usury and the notion of money.  However, most of us would recognise the importance of both to the global economy.  For all the many faults of the present system, it would be unrealistic and a waste of energy to work on an alternative.

And peddling versions for a conspiracy theory substantially the same as that found in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Sion is not going to help either.  International finance may well have been behind the October Revolution of 1917, but as long as it remains unproved, it is at least unwise to publish the idea as established fact.

In regard to this country, Mr Barrett is right to see moral bankruptcy cutting across Irish society.  But some of his solutions are problematic.  For example, replacing the Oireachtas with a popularly elected executive president with absolute discretion to appoint a cabinet and without any formal opposition is, let us say, worrying.  Then one recalls that in the Republic, the leitmotiv is Plato's wish for a time when philosophers would be kings and kings philosophers.  Colloquially, this may be translated as "I want to be in charge".  But there the comparison between Plato and Mr Barrett ends - even if much of the latter's thought displays an idealisation of Spartan frugality, also evident in Plato.  This idealisation has appeared again and again in western thought: de Valera, whom Mr Barrett despises, was also an admirer of Sparta.

Questionable assertions

Some of Mr Barrett's historical assertions are questionable.  The idolisation of Michael Collins is not founded on wide reading of the 1916-1922 period, and the suggestion that W. T. Cosgrave ordered his shooting would require a lot more evidence than the conjecture offered.

Moving to our own times, Mr Barrett seems to think we can do business with Sinn Féin, as he doesn't think most of its supporters have much in common with the party's socialist platform.  But Sinn Féin's socialist manifesto must surely be taken absolutely seriously.  Sinn Féin have made political gains in the North, and to a lesser extent in the south, on their stated platform.  To think that one can make a deal with them on the basis of some understood alternative agenda that would be more palatable to us, is ludicrous. 

For a long time now, the bulk of the Provisional IRA members have adopted the philosophy and methodology of Marxist guerrillas; and most of the student influx into Sinn Féin has been due to the left-wing anti-establishment marketing of the party following the H-Block hunger-strike election gains.  Maybe their politics have moderated, but this process would need to go a lot further before we could have dealings with them.

Mr Barrett is very dismissive of the SDLP.  I too would criticise the SDLP's adoption of a socialist masthead, and its fruitless association with the British Labour Party and the European socialist parties at Strasbourg.  But it is wrong to dismiss the party which commands the vote of so many nationalists in Northern Ireland at local government and assembly levels.  Until Sinn Féin seriously alters its policies on socio-moral issues - especially on abortion - the SDLP must be preferred by nationalist pro-lifers.

In  regard to Mr Barrett's view on the European Union and further European integration, I have one observation.  I am a Eurosceptic; I have opposed every step toward European integration since the Single European Act of 1987 (I was far too young to vote against joining the Common Market in 1972).  But in spite of all Europe's difficulties, I would not anticipate a European analogue of the American Civil War as he does.

On constitutional matters,  I would not share Mr Barrett's admiration for America's Revolution and Constitution.  The Irish Constitution of 1937 in fact substantially follows Anglo-American democracy, with concessions to the French revolutionary tradition, to Catholic and secular schools of natural law and even with Fascism (the title An Taoiseach and the vocational compostion of Seanad Éireann) and with Communism (look very carefully at Article 43, on private property rights).

The one serious fault I would find in Bunreacht na hÉireannn is the lack of any meaningful separation of powers.  But this is the result of a strong party whip system - an accidental result of our constitution rather than something directly envisaged in it.

To return to the original point of this review: we just have to live with the fact that written constitutions are subject to creative interpretations in court.  This has even manifested itself in civil law jurisdictions.  To give a recent example, the German Supreme Court found crucifixes in Bavarian schools, hospitals and other public buildings to be repugnant to the German Constitution.  The Bavarian people successfully resisted this.

The chapter on the Church I found to be the most unhelpful, as it is very vague about the crisis in Western Catholicism and it proposes no concrete solutions whatsoever.  Mr Barrett also uses terminology such as "traditionalism" and "traditional Catholicism" without defining them.  There are many conflicting ideas about what these terms mean.

The Barrett book is part soap-box oration, part undergraduate monologue proposing solutions to the world's problems over coffee.  I have some advice for the Justin Barrett PR team: never allow your client use photographs of himself with open mouth, midstream in a stirring rally.  It looks like he's ranting.  If the media want to label Mr Barrett as Ireland's answer to Vladimir Zhiranovsky, it is inadvisable to hand them an invitation to do so.

Secondly, do not mention the Gaelic language or the inability of the populace to speak it, if the fada does not appear once in the book, and Irish words are almost uniformly spelt incorrectly.  And do not assume that either the Irish people or the media are stupid.  It tends to provoke a negative reaction.

The National Way Forward is published by the Guild Press, Longford.  194pp.  €7.55

The Brandsma Review, Issue 62, September-October 2002  

Art for Anti-clericalism's Sake

ART FOR ANTI-CLERICALISM'S SAKE

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

THE DAY Napoleon escaped from Elba, the headline in Le Monde read "Renegade Leaves Elba".  When he arrived in France, the headline ran "Napoleon Lands at Cannes".  And when he approached the capital, the headline was "His Imperial Majesty to enter Paris".  With this exercise in Realpolitik, the editor exercised the standard of objectivity we expect from today's print and electronic media.

I remember reading Mgr Michael Nolan's thesis some time ago in the Irish Catholic that people do not read newspaper's to inform themselves but to reinforce their prejudices.  He gave an illustration of this some years previously when several respectable news outlets repeating the old canard that St Thomas Aquinas said woman was merely a defective male.  Mgr Nolan is an expert on Aristotelian biology and it did not take him long to correct this.  He could quote the Angelic Doctor's own refutation of the charge, but found it very difficult to find a publisher.  Not even the Dominican Doctrine and Life would take it.  So he continued until the Daily Telegraph carried it.  Then he found another problem.  Clergy were unwilling to purchase the Daily Telegraph because of its anti-Irish bias but seemed to have no problem buying the Irish Times in spite of that paper's well-documented attitudes towards Catholicism.

Obscure painter

You think I'm joking?  Sometimes I wonder am I too harsh on the grey denizens of D'Olier St.  But just when I think it may be safe to look once again at the newspaper rack, they give me something which reaffirms my original position.  And on November 2, 2002, this came in the arts supplement.  So how could the discovery of a painting by an unknown 19th century Irish artist in Edinburgh, and the publication of a collection of verse by a forgotten Irish poet of the same century, illustrate the anti-Catholic vitriol I attribute to Ireland's most influential newspaper?

Aloysius O'Kelly was an obscure painter who would have remained obscure but for the fact his Mass in a Connemara Cabin showed up in an Edinburgh drawing room this summer.  This is a picture of a young priest giving the final blessing at a station Mass in a Connemara cabin and it is quite attractive.  The table is laid for Mass with the altar cards, candlesticks, crucifix, missal and chalice.  The priest's white vestments are depicted with detail; even the maniple can be seen on his left wrist.  And the Spartan furnishings of the cabin - basic, but maintained neatly and not without some pride.  The congregation are devout in their demeanour.  One pious old woman is nearly prostrate.  There is a solemn dignity about these tenant farmers and farm labourers and their families.

Three Redemptorists

Of course D'Olier St has to interpret this for us.  They did so by providing a commentary by Dr Niamh O'Sullivan who teaches art history at the National College of Art and Design.  Dr O'Sullivan allows three Redemptorist priests in Edinburgh do most of the talking.  One, Father Richard Reid (a young priest), sees a prefiguration of the Second Vatican Council - an emphasis on the Eucharist and the sanctification of daily life.  I wonder is ecclesiastical history taught so badly that a young priest would attribute this to Vatican II? Has he no knowledge of eucharistic piety stretching back to apostolic times in both East and West?  Has he not heard the maxim of the English recusants: "It is the Mass that matters"?  And in regard to labour and its sanctifying nature, any study of devotion to St Joseph, promoted by Pope Leo XIII, for example (who was Pope when this painting was exhibited in 1883) would fill in many gaps in Fr Reid's theological education.

Dr O'Sullivan gives more column space to the more subversive Father Hamish Swanston, Professor Emeritus of Theology at Kent University.  Father Swanston sees anticlericalism in the picture.  The laity are oppressed.  Maybe they were, but by whom?  By the clergy or by the largely Protestant ascendancy (unmentioned in this article)?  And if by the latter, the second question is who provided leadership to the oppressed Irish labourers?  The clergy or the Fenians?  It is that last question that makes the painting interesting.  Aloysius O'Kelly's bother James was a member of Parliament in Parnell's party and also a leading Fenian.  So, if there is a hint of anticlericalism in the picture, it should be very obvious it had its origin in Fenian bitterness.

Following the debacle surrounding the Fenian raid on Chester castle in 1867, Mgr David Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry, famously announced: "Hell is not hot enough nor eternity long enough to punish those who have led these young men astray."   The Fenians for their part held they took their religion from Rome and their politics from hell.  It is true that the painting reflects Ireland at the time of the Land War
Outmoded aspirations
Dr O'Sullivan draws a parallel between the founding of the Land League and the apparition at Knock in 1879.  No authentic Marian apparition takes place in an historical vacuum.  To give other examples: the Rue de Bac apparitions which gave the Church the Miraculous Medal took place within weeks of the overthrowing of the Most Christian King, Charles X of France and Navarre, in 1830; Pontmain in Brittany occurred at the height of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871; and Fatima happened as the First World War was in its third year.  The timing of the apparition at Knock in 1879 summoned the country's attention to the efficacy of the Mass and the Communion of Saints when more immediate solutions to Ireland's problems were considered - solutions which could lead to more problems.  To see oppression in this particular painting is no reflection on the Irish Church in the 1880s, but rather the outmoded aspirations of a class of theologian either stuck in the 1960s or narrowly focused on some contemporary Latin American experiences.

The painting was discovered in Edinburgh's Cowgate district, a notorious Irish slum area in the 19th Century.  James Connolly was born here in 1868.  But for all the misery, it was here that the Edinburgh soccer club, Hibernians, had its origin, just as Glasgow Celtic emerged from the Gorbals.

If this were not enough, the arts editor of the Irish Times also ran a review of Selected Poems of James Henry.  James Henry (1798-1876) abandoned his career in medicine on receiving an inheritance in 1846 and chose to wander around Italy instead.  On foot.  So it is hardly surprising his wife died in 1849.  The reviewer applauds Dr Henry as a fearless free thinker.  Yet anyone reading the review would see the poet-surgeon in fact failed to grow out of his adolescence and was most at home with the irresponsibility of an undergraduate.  The reviewer doesn't point out that the Church at which most of the bile in Dr Henry's work is directed is most likely the Established Church of the time - the Church of Ireland.  The reviewer describes Dr Henry as the scourge of humbug.  I wonder?  Some of the absurdities in his work were themselves humbug.  A colleague of mine once told me his father advised him not to be a socialist unless he could afford it.  Dr Henry appears to me to be in a category something like this.  He could afford to versify his whims - and no one really cared until the poems were reissued recently.  And the Irish Times deigned to draw them to our attention.

It is quite typical that the Irish Times should try to re-interpret 19th Century Irish art, literature and history through the spectacles with which it views the turn-of-the millennium period we are now enjoying.  One asks oneself: how far is D'Olier St prepared to take its anticlericalism?

The Brandsma Review, Issue 63, November-December 2002

A Brief History of Irish Monasticism

A BRIEF HISTORY OF IRISH MONASTICISM

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

ST PATRICK was trained as a monk in Gaul.  Christian Gaul was under the influence of the old Greek colonies in south-eastern France and the monasticism of Gaul was of a similar character to the monasticism of Egypt - in the spirit of St Anthony.  The popularity of St Anthony is seen in the copies of St Athanasius' Life of St Anthony in the monastic libraries and more concretely in his image on many high crosses.

St Patrick was particularly influenced by his Gaulish monastic exemplar - St Martin of Tours.  Sulpicius' Life of St Martin was also widely available in Irish monasteries.  The Irish monastic communities followed the spirituality and practice of desert monasticism.  This was ascetic and altogether different from the monasticism that would develop on the continent under the Rule of St Benedict.  Benedictine monasticism paralleled the cenobitic  monasticim of Cappadocia influenced by St Basil.

Egyptian monasticism tended to be eremitic; this phenomenon, beloved of the Irish, was later common in Orthodox Russia.  The great Irish monasteries began as hermitagesw.  Anchorites such as St Enda attracted huge followings and thus laid the foundations of influential monasteries - St Kevin's in Glendalough was a good example of this.

When St Colmcille - whether voluntarily or otherwise - went to Iona in 563, he set a very important precedent in the development of the Irish church.  Ever after, Irish monks would seek to preach the Gospel overseas.

Very soon afterwards, Irish monks left their mark all over the continent.  St Columbanus was particularly influential in France and Italy, and his disciple St Gall established a monastery in a canton that still bears his name in Switzerland.  St Fiachra became particularly associated with Paris taxi-drivers.  All over the German-speaking world, the phenomenon of the Schottenklöster or "Scottish monastery" is indicative no of the Scots, but of the Irish.  Scotus was Latin for Gael.  There is a district in Vienna called Schottentor which is indicative of this Irish invasion.  Irish monks went as far east as Kiev and perhaps Novgorod.  St Brendan the Navigator may well have reached Newfoundland.

In time, the Irish monasteries in Europe adopted the Benedictine rule, but continued to be Irish in character until the Reformation.  The Schottenklöster were known for the asceticism of their monks; St Macarius was the prior of the Schottenkloster in Würzburg in the 1100s and he was said to have changed wine into water.  Würzburg is at the heart of the Franconian wine producing region along the Main.
Strict asceticism
Irish monasteries, as remarkable for their distinctive craftsmanship and scholarship as for their asceticism, fell into disarray due to the political instability of the following centuries.  The Viking raids maid a well-publicised impact; but many monasteries suffered at the hands of Irish nobles.

A reform movement was already in place at this time.  In around 800, the Céle Dé (Slaves of God) were established in Tallaght, Co Dublin, principally by the anchorite St Óengus.  The Céle Dé, also known as Culdees and currently fêted among New Agers, were an incredibly strict monastic movement, analogous to orders which developed later.  Their concept of stabilitas loci was very literal and they lived on a very meagre vegetarian diet - they seem to have anticipated the Carthusians.

The movement spread rapidly and soon had foundations all over Ireland - some more questionable than others.  The ninth century king-bishop of Munster and Cashel, Feilimid mac Crimthaind, was a Céle Dé.  Feilimid was both very able and politically astute.  He set about claiming the high kingship and nearly succeeded until he was killed in battle against the Uí Néill in 847.  During Feilimid's reign, the cause of reform had a momentum unlike at any other period.  Not many abbots would risk taking on his wrath at the time.
Malachy and Bernard
The political upheaval that began after the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 was damaging to the Church in Ireland.  Clontarf was no great victory; when Brian Boru died, the notion of a country under a single high king was established, but it was at least another century before a given dynasty established a claim to the high kingship.

In the late 11th century, the Irish Church faced another threat as the Archbishops of Canterbury began claiming jurisdiction over Ireland.  A movement of Irish Churchmen  saw it was important to for Irishmen to reform the Church here before others would come to reform it.  The star of this movement was St Malachy of Armagh - and the most significant element was the relationship of St Malachy to the most influential churchman of the day - St Bernard of Clairvaux.  The relics of Ss Malachy and Bernard are kept together before the high altar in the monastery of Clairvaux - and it is said they cannot be separated.

St Malachy introduced the Cistercians and the Augustinian canons regular into Ireland, and other orders followed.  When the Cistercian Pope Blessed Eugenius III was in exile, he asked St Bernard for advice and St Bernard told him to model his life on St Malachy.   Blessed Eugenius perhaps made the most significant contribution to the Irish Church in its whole history in 1152, when he sent John Cardinal Paparo as his legate to the Synod of Kells.

The embryonic Irish hierarchy erectic dioceses and petitioned for pallia for Armagh and Cashel.  This was not what Blessed Eugenius granted.  Cardinal Paparo delivered not two, but four pallia to Ireland - recognising Dublin and Tuam as metropolitian sees in addition to Armagh and Cashel.
English Pope's role
It is a tragedy of Irish history that there was rivalry between the Cistercians and Benedictines.  The more ascetic Cistercians held the upper hand in Ireland as they do today.  Blessed Eugenius had difficulties with King Stephen of England who retained the throne after a civil war against the Empress Matilda.  Eugenius was succeeded by the English Benedictine Adrian IV who had no sympathy for Cistercians and a better relationship with Matilda's son Henry II (who was later excommunicated for the murder of St Thomas Beckett).  Adrian issued the Bull Laudabiliter to Henry granting him Ireland as a papal fief, on the condition he would reform the Church.

So, within the space of a few years, a Cistercian pope saw the Irish church as being in such a good condition that it deserved four metropolitans, rather than just the two it had requested; and then a Benedictine pope came to the conclusion that the only hope for the Irish church was to entrust its reformation to a foreign monarch who happened to be a fellow countryman of his!

However, there is no doubt that the post-Norman invasion Irish Church maintained its vigour and continued to journey far afield.  To mention two examples, the tutor of the young St Thomas Aquinas was a teacher called Petrus de Hiberniae (Peter of Ireland).  One imagines he did a good job.  And when the Franciscans sent a mission to China in the mid-13th century, among the friars was Jacobus de Hiberniae (James of Ireland).  The Mongol dynasty was quite amenable to external ideas, including Christianity; and an archdiocese was erected in Beijing.  The Mongols were overthrown by the more inward looking Ming dynasty around the time the Black Death wreaked havoc with the Western Church.  And thus a tremendous opportunity was lost.
The Great Schism
In the later Middle Ages, the Irish Church suffered the decadence that was the lot of the Western Church after the Black Death.  Religious communities were particularly affected - and devastated.  The Great Schism of the West happened soon aftertwards.  It is well worth noting that two canonised saints of the Dominican Order, St Vincent Ferrer and St Catherine of Siena disagreed as to which purported Pope was legitimate.  Every order had at least two claimant superiors-general, based in Avignon and Rome.  And after the schism, there was still much disagreement as to the balance of power between a Council and a Pope.

The fifteenth century saw three of the mendicant orders - the Augustinians, Dominicans and Franciscans - develop reform movements within themselves.  These observantine congregations went back to their original rule, constitutions, spirituality and purposes, and also depended directly on the superior general rather than a local provincial who might have had political biases injurious to the interest of the order.  The observantine Augustinians particularly established themselves in the west of Ireland and principally among the Irish-speaking population.  This one bright spark offered a hope to the church which was standing on the brink of chaos.
Disaster on disaster
One immediate consequence of Henry VIII's schism was the suppression of religious houses in Ireland simply to gratify the avarice of the king's henchmen.  Some houses lasted as late as the reign of James I, but excepting a respite during Mary I's reign, the so-called Reformation led to one disaster after another for Ireland, culminating in the Penal Laws which lasted into the 19th century.

However, attempts were made to run religious houses in Ireland during penal times.  My favourite story relates to the presence of incognito Dominican nuns in Drogheda in the 17th century.  The local sheriff called to the house to discuss rumours of "Popish nuns" living there.  The prioress, an aristocratic Irishwoman, received him in her finest gown and put on all her airs and graces, dispelling the suggestion with the truthful statement: "Sir, the women in this house are no more Popish nuns than I am."
All over Europe
All this time, Irish religious houses were established all over the continent, many to parallel the Irish colleges there.  To this day, there is still an Irish Dominican convent in Lisbon and until the First World War there was an Irish Benedictine convent in Ypres (now Kylemore Abbey).  There were Irish religious houses in Paris, Louvain and Salamanca, all now tragically closed.  At one stage, there was an Irish college in Prague, associated with Charles University.

There were several other centres throughout the Catholic world which also provided Catholic gentlemen with education for vocations in the world.  A relative of Daniel O'Connell once said their clothes, their wine, their education and their religious were all contraband.  O'Connell and his brother were students at Douay at the time of the French Revolution and witnessed the bloodshed first hand - and the anti-religious nature of the revolution.  The Napoleonic era marked much upheaval for the church in Europe, so the relaxation of the penal laws afforded the Irish on the continent an opportunity to come home.

The 19th century was marked not only by the re-establishment of older religious orders in Ireland, or those founded on the continent in the interim, but by the foundation of new religious orders specifically for Irish needs: Blessed Ignatius Rice's Christian Brothers and Presentation Brothers; Nano Nagle's Presentation Sisters; Mother Catherine McCauley's Sisters of Mercy; and Mother Mary Aikenhead's Sisters of Charity.  As Cardinal Cullen dominated the Irish church in the mid-nineteenth century, convents and monasteries dotted the country.

Once again the Irish took to the missions, building up the Church throughout the English-speaking world, prior to moving into more difficult territories.  Three endeavours arose from Maynooth  alone in the early 20th century.  Following the failure of the Maynooth Mission to India, the Maynooth Mission to China and the Maynooth Mission to Africa became the Society of St Columban and the Society of St Patrick.
A sudden drought
Religious life continued to expand in Ireland until the late 20th century, when it suddenly slowed down and went into reverse.  Religious houses closed.  Religious were no longer visible.  Religious spokesmen and women sent out mixed messages in a confused age.  The source of religious vocations suddenly dried up where only a short time ago they had been plentiful.

This is not altogether new in the Irish church.  Religious life in Ireland had many dark and bleak periods.  These coincided with a general decline in the health of the Church.  When the Church recovered, religious life was strong - but such a strengthening was evident in the fervour of the religious; the pride in which they wore their distinctive habits, practiced the ascetic life, proclaimed the teaching of the Church  in and out of season, and stuck to the original intention of their founders.

The world is not without such religious houses - more in France than anywhere else.  So when are we going to look once again to continental Europe for guidance?

The Brandsma Review, Issue 65, March-April 2003

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

Hellowe'en

Hellowe'en 

by Melancholicus

Melancholicus is not sure which day he despises most—St. Patrick’s day (March 17, and a holy day of obligation in the dioceses of Ireland), or today, Hallowe’en.

Both days are—at least in their origins—religious festivals of unimpeachable character. But their celebration today has been robbed of all recognisably Christian content, whereat they are perverted to the level of bacchanalia in a spectacle of which words such as ‘orgiastic’, ‘frenzy’ and ‘excess’ would not be an unfitting description.

The feast of St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland c. 500 A.D., is today an occasion for inebriation of a kind to which even the drunken Irish are unaccustomed. The so-called “St. Patrick’s Day Parade” held in Dublin (and mimicked elsewhere throughout the country) has nothing to do with St. Patrick, or with the coming to Ireland of the light of the Christian faith, but is an unedifying spectacle reminiscent of Mardi Gras and (public nudity excepted) with a similar degree of wild abandon. The only remaining religious aspect of the day is the Mass, but even this has been infiltrated by the same kind of trivialising frivolity that has given us enormities such as green beer in the pubs and green milkshakes at McDonalds. Melancholicus has even seen the liturgical abuse of green vestments being worn during the celebration of the saint’s Mass.

But enough of poor St. Patrick, and the degradation to which celebration of his feast has sunk, for today is your blogger’s other most hated day.

The name Halloween (more properly Hallowe’en) is a contraction of All Hallows’ Even, namely the vigil of the feast of All Saints (1 November). Melancholicus traditionally celebrates Hallowe’en by reciting First Vespers of All Saints, after which he pours himself a double gin and tonic, then enjoys his dinner and—external factors permitting—relaxes by the fire. He has no time for the neo-pagan mummery now associated with Hallowe’en, or for the glut of horror films typically shown on the television, nor for the pagan apologetics and sympathetic publicizing in the media of hazards like wicca, and he has absolutely no time whatever for the frenzied youths that run wild, shoving matchboxes filled with excrement through people’s letterboxes, or inserting fireworks up the exhaust pipes of parked cars (or even in the fuel pipe in an attempt to ignite the contents of the tank), or hurling explosives at those unlucky enough to be compelled by their employment to be out in public on this night.

The association of Hallowe’en with the preternatural world is in its origin Celtic, since 1 November is Samain, which begins the dark half of the year and functions as a kind of Celtic new year’s day. What makes Samain particularly auspicious (or inauspicious, as the case may be) is that it is a junture of particular importance. In the Celtic reckoning of time, it was not days and nights that were regarded as particularly important with respect to the preternatural, but the divisions between them. Boundaries between different places were invested with a similar significance for the same reason. According to this belief, one is most likely to encounter a ghost not at night, but at dusk, since dusk is the boundary between night and day. Similarly, one may meet with greatest misfortune at the boundary between this world and the síd (otherworld), rather than in either one or the other.

So the eve of Samain is a juncture of particular danger, because many different boundaries co-incide at once. Once the sun has set but before darkness has fallen completely, it is neither day nor night; we are neither in the light half nor in the dark; we are neither in the old year nor in the new. At such times the boundaries between this world and the other are blurred, the tides of chaos are loosed and preternatural forces have free play with the world of men. Hence the origin of the association of Hallowe’en with ghosts and spectres and hauntings and that sort of thing.

This night is indeed a night of horror, but not owing to Celtic superstitions; Melancholicus is far more concerned about a potential confrontation with those who walk on two legs in a living body than with the spirits of the dead. It is prudent to keep an eye on one’s car until the chaotics have gone home to bed and the nocturnal fracas has died away. If one has a household pet such as a dog or a cat, one MUST keep the animal indoors on this night; dogs, particularly, with their amplified sense of hearing, suffer great distress on being exposed to the noise of fireworks (which, incidentally, are illegal in this country, but the law is in no wise enforced). The chaotics have been known to throw smaller animals onto bonfires, deriving a sick amusement from such cruelty. Other animals have had fireworks strapped to their bodies, or inserted into their orifices. This is the busiest night of the year for the emergency services; the police, the fire brigade, the ambulance service (and doubtless the ISPCA) will be kept going all night.

The celebration of Hallowe’en was not always so lawless and fraught with peril; it used to be, as recently as Melancholicus’ childhood, a gentle evening of fun and entertainment (with mild scariness) for the benefit of children. Today it has been taken over by the yob element, whom one cannot safely ask to move on elsewhere, never mind remonstrate, for fear—literally—of being killed. I do not exaggerate.

Excess is tolerated in our society, and from some avenues even positively encouraged.

This is the fruit of social inversion.

First posted here: http://infelixego.blogspot.ie/2008/10/helloween.html 31 October 2008

Hallowe'en: Threat or Opportunity?

HALLOWE'EN: THREAT OR OPPORTUNITY?

By PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Sancta ergo, et salubris est cogitatio pro defunctis exorare, ut a peccatis solvantur (2 Macchabees, 12:46)

WHEN I was ten, I had to write an essay on Hallowe'en.  I went home from school, researched the customs and background of the festival and was commended for my work by the vice-principal.  Which was ironic as he had imposed this on us as a punishment.  Much later I graduated in Celtic Studies and with the passage of time observed the changing nature of Hallowe'en.

Hallowe'en is a phenomenon.  In the United States, it is second in commercial value only to Christmas.  It surpasses Easter, the distinctly American feasts of Thanksgiving and Independence Day and all the other holidays and commemoration days in the calendar.  This explains how Hallowe'en is encroaching rapidly upon countries and cultures where it is not traditional.  It is no exaggeration to say it has taken the German-speaking world by storm.  From being almost unknown in Germany in the mid-1990s, it is now marked even in small towns and villages all over the country.

Powers of Darkness

It is also the case that Hallowe'en is changing.  Traditionally, Hallowe'en was primarily focussed on children and, in Ireland at least, adults indulged in some innocent amusements.  But in recent years, Hallowe'en has taken a distinctly adult character.  This stems from the United States and is mainly an exploitation of the festival's market value.  And this has become a very successful export, as the profitable new Hallowe'en becomes universal.

It is more than fair to say Hallowe'en presents a threat.  Hallowe'en, as currently understood, gives us every reason for concern.  This does not relate to Hallowe'en in itself or any of the folk customs I understood to be part of Hallowe'en when I wrote my fifth-class penalty essay.  Hallowe'en is almost exclusively associated with the powers of darkness.  The post-Christian West denies these powers' existence, but increasingly pays annual tribute to them on October 31.  The witch movement keeps this date as its most important sabbath.

New Ageism in general appeals to the four principal Celtic festivals.  These festivals, which the witch movement has more or less taken as "sabbaths", mark the turning of the seasons in the British Isles.  Samain, on 1 November, was the most important of these; and all feature in so-called Celtic spirituality.  For its part, the Satanist/Luciferian movement also keeps Hallowe'en as a feast.  Though this is very much a fringe movement, this is the direction in which the ubiquitous shop window displays point.

How much do we know about the original Hallowe'en?  The Celtic feast of Samain was kept around the beginning of November.  This was a new year celebration, which also represented a harvest thanksgiving.  This new year differed from ours.  We are accustomed to go immediately from the old year to the new.  Samain was a three-day feast between the end of one year and the beginning of the next.  This "out of time" quality of Samain led the Celts to believe the dead were free to walk the earth again and that they would visit their old homes.  For this reason, the Celts were particularly mindful of dead relatives and friends around this time.

.But there is really very little evidence in source material as to how Samain was celebrated.  I have read many secondary accounts about some gruesome practices the Celts indulged in at Samain.  While I have no trouble believing the Celts to have been thoroughly barbarous as heathens (despite what Celtic Spirituality devotees may believe), I have seen no evidence for most of the claims made by occultists about Samain.  Much of this is the product of overactive imaginations.

 The Celts dominated Europe before the Roman Empire took shape.  It is impossible to reckon the extent to which Samain was observed in Europe, but it is certain it was still strong among the Gauls when they were evangelized.  The Church recognised the significance of Samain.  So two great feasts were initiated at the time - All Saints (All Hallows) on November 1 and All Souls on November 2.

Samain was providential

So was the Church culturally imperialistic or opportunistic?  Did the Church attempt to suppress Samain or use it as an instrument for conversion?  Let us say Samain, whatever it might have been in heathendom, was providential.  It served two purposes; for the Celts in helping them assimilate Christianity and for the Church, in compelling her to clarify the doctrine of the Communion of Saints.

After the institution of the two feasts, Samain became Hallowe'en, taking the name Eve of All Hallows or Halloweven, later Hallowe'en.  Thus the three day festival of Samain was maintained in the Celtic world, but with a distinctly Christian ethos.  It may well be that many of the Hallowe'en practices have their origins in pagan times.  Or it may not.  Folk traditions only last as long as they are supported by the prevailing culture and they rarely survive indefinitely without alteration.

In the case of the Irish Hallowe'en, the public practice of All Saints and All Souls was suppressed in Penal Times, but Hallowe'en continued.  Over time, the celebration apparently lost its intimate connection with the Church feasts.  It is difficult to say.  For a few generations, wake practices in Ireland were held to be in direct continuity with pagan practices.  Then some scholar suggested some were invented in Penal Times to conceal the presence of a priest illegally performing the necessary ministrations.

If I apply Occam's Razor to Hallowe'en - unbroken continuity with pagan Samain or an attempt to keep a suppressed feast alive - which is the more probable?  I am mindful of the coincidence of Hallowe'en/All Saints and Guy Fawkes' Night on November 5.  That a distinctly anti-Catholic holiday should be instituted in England to commemorate the foiling of one of the many highly dubious Catholic conspiracies in Tudor and Stuart times is very interesting indeed.  I don't believe Guy Fawkes' Night would have emerged had All Hallows not been strong in previously Catholic England.

Distorted notion of fun

So I believe that instead of reconstructing a lost heathen new year, one should compare Hallowe'en with the outlandish folk festivals associated with Catholic feasts in Mediterranean Europe. Such festivals are even more bizzare in the Orthodox world and anyone steeped in a Calvinist anthropology would shout “paganism”.

Hallowe'en was brought to the United States by Irish immigrants in the 1800s. This Hallowe'en had long lost its close ties with All Saints and All Souls. Any older significance was long forgotten. But it took many generations to take its present horrific form. It is easy to see how an apparently non-religious festival could be so attractive in a society in the process of advanced secularization. It is also easy to see how Hallowe'en could become a horror Fest once the Catholic understanding of the next world has been extracted.  Following that, it is not too difficult to see how competing groups - New Ageists, Occultists, Luciferians - could impose their own meaning on Hallowe'en.  And in the process, the commercial value increases.  Especially in a world in which adults have a distorted notion of what constitutes fun.  The terrifying new Hallowe'en is now a successful American export - even to countries in which Hallowe'en is traditional.

Television is to blame.  When I was a child, we used to go from house to house asking for apples and nuts.  More advanced children would ask for help for the Hallowe'en party.  Now it is almost universal for children to say "trick or treat" in the American manner.  One wonders about the educational value of allowing impressionable children to get what they want by threatening people with tricks.

It is a long established custom in Ireland to tell ghost stories around Hallowe'en.  These stories are told as true stories and are of a local nature the audience will identify with.  Though many may be scary, the purpose is not to frighten people.  In fact, some reflect the Catholic belief that the souls in Purgatory need our prayers and the ghosts are there to alert our attention to this fact.  Film and television does not present us with this type of ghost story.  Instead, it transmits plain and simple horror, just for the sake of shocking the viewers.  But this is all part of the Hallowe'en industry and it builds up the Hallowe'en various neo-pagan and satanist elements wish to impose upon the general public.  They have made great strides in this direction.

The Mystical Body

So what do we do about Hallowe'en?  There is very little we can do in the short term, as it is impossible to immunize oneself from the dominants culturee.  So Hallowe'en has to be put back in the context of All Saints/All Souls.  If there are to be fruit and nut collections and fun and games, this should be done as a harvest thanksgiving and in preparation for the great feasts.  In Ireland, a minor fast is kept in November to assist the souls in Purgatory.  The celebration of Hallowe'en may point in this direction.

The first step towar a new understanding of Hallowe'en is a new understanding of the relationship between the Church Militant, the Church Triumphant and the Church Suffering.  The Church - in Heaven, on Earth and in Purgatory - is the Mystical Body of Christ.  Hallowe'en should ultimately mark the launch of a festival to restate our belief in these realities and especially for charitable works towards the relief of the sould in Purgatory.  And those who think Hallowe'en too flamboyant to precede a fast ought to recall Mardi Gras and Fasching are very colourful ways of marking the beginning of Lent.

Yes, Hallowe'en is a threat; it is a battleground upon which the forces of darkness appear invincible.  Our Lord Himself reminds us the children of this world are wiser than the children of light.  But Hallowe'en is also an opportunity - for the children of light to prepare for a reaffirmation of the Communion of Saints and to do something for the souls in Purgatory.  In the early years of the Church, Samain was taken from real pagans to become All Saints and All Souls, upon which Hallowe'en depended.  Taking Hallowe'en back from neo-pagans should be less of a challenge.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 74, September-October 2004

St Malachy, Architect of Church Autonomy

SAINT MALACHY, ARCHITECT OF CHURCH AUTONOMY

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Beatus servus, quem, cum venerit dominus, invenerit vigilantem: amen dico vobis, super omnia bona sua constituet eum. St Matthew 25: 46-47

NOT far from Fatima is the fortress monastery of Alcobaça, resting place of many early kings and queens of Portugal and a monument to Portugal's history as a frontier territory between Europe and the Moorish empire.  This is why so many castles appear on the Portuguese flag and arms.  Alcobaça was Cistercian and among the saints particularly venerated by the mediaeval Cistercian order was one Irishman.  His statue is to be seen in the cloister there.  That was St Malachy of Armagh (1094-1148).

St Malachy, like so many historical figure, has a posthumous reputation that represents a distortion of his career.  In the English-speaking world, his is associated with a series of epigrams concerning future popes.  Assuming the present Holy Father is De Labore Solis, we are left with Gloriae Olivitiae and Petrus Romanus prior to the Second Coming.  I plead agnosticism on both authorship and authenticity of these prophecies, but that does not subtract from either the holiness or significance of the saint.

The Church in early 11th-century Europe sank into a mire that would make the Church on the eve of the Reformation seem positively virtuous - with dubious characters such as Benedict IX occupying the Throne of St Peter.  The one beacon that blazed on Continental Europe was at Cluny and from Cluny came a reform unlike any other - unequaled even by the Counter-Reformation.

Though many saints were raised up in this movement, the pontificate of St Gregory VII (Hildebrand) left its stamp on the Church even after Catholic monarchs throughout Europe implemented these reforms - such as St Edward the Confessor in England and St Margaret in Scotland, queen of Malcolm III Canmore, who succeeded Macbeth as King of Scots.

Ireland was on the outer periphery.  Between 1002 and 1014, Brian Boru O'Kennedy usurped the High Kingship and centralised it in a way his predecessors never could have done.  By the end of the 11th century, Turlough O'Brien had instituted attempts to reform a demoralised church.  Monasteries had ceased to be the centres of learning and piety that earned Ireland the title Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum.  The descendents of the Vikings had long been Christian, but the Ostman dioceses of Dublin and later Waterford and Limerick looked to Canterbury for jurisdiction rather than to Cashel or Armagh.

Ecclesiastical jurisdiction was problematic in Ireland anyway.  St Patrick instituted the episcopacy but as there were no towns in Ireland before the Viking raids, no diocesan structure evolved.  The monasteries became the centre of ecclesiastical, commercial and even political life.  Monasteries linked by a common founder grouped together into federations called paruchiae to advance a common cause.  So the Columban paruchia, centred first in Iona and later at Kells, represented the interests of its founder St Colmcille (or Columba).  It sought an ecclesiastical primacy consistent with the political primacy of its patrons: the house of O'Neill.  The monastery of Armagh and its paruchia represented the interest of St Patrick, who was clearly venerated as the Apostle of the Irish, but until Armagh was universally accepted as the primatial see, not universally recognised as patron saint.

The Comarba Pátraic (successor of St Patrick) claimed primacy but was not acknowledged as such.  The would-be primate was only definitively an abbot of the monastery in Armagh, was not necessarily a bishop and from time to time may not have been a cleric in major orders.  Many of these officials were lay beneficiaries who were lesser nobility - theoretically in minor orders but essentially living a secular life serving the interests of their families or their superiors in the social order.

Other reforms were needed.  Lanfranc of Canterbury, who claimed Ireland was within his jurisdiction, wrote to Turlough O'Brien on the matter - on one occasion complaining the Irish had a law of fornication rather than of marriage.  The shortcomings in the Irish church delineated by Lanfranc were far from unique to Ireland, and the pace of reform was slow.  In Ireland, as elsewhere, it would take a very powerful personality to implement the Hildebrandine reforms.

There certainly was a mood in favour of reform among some political and religious leaders.  Some were aware of the claims of Canterbury and York.  Some were appalled at the prevailing state of the church within Ireland.  No one could question the high king's commitment to reform, but it would take a supernatural effort to bring order to an unruly Irish Church.

In 1096, St Anselm of Canterbury consecrated Malchus O'Hanvery as the first bishop of Waterford.  During a pilgrimage to Rome, Turlough O'Brien's son Murtagh realised how isolated Ireland had become from the Church and civil society on the continent.  In 1098, he invited the reform-minded Meath bishop, Maelmhuire O'Doonan to become Bishop of Killaloe.  O'Doonan was subsequently appointed Legate to Munster by Pope Paschal II.

Murtagh and O'Doonan together set an agenda for reform in the First Synod of Cashel in 1101 and were later joined by the scholarly Gilbert (previously a monk in Rouen) who became Bishop of Limerick at about the same time as Murtagh made Limerick his capital.
Celsus of Armagh
The drive for reform had its base in the south of Ireland and might have remained there had not an educated layman named Celsus become Successor of St Patrick in 1105 following the death of his great-uncle.  Celsus was a member of the Clann Sinaich, who monopolised the abbacy of Armagh for several generations.  When he succeeded his great-uncle, he was already zealous for reform.  One of his first acts was to receive ordination to the priesthood.  As there was a bishop in Armagh at the time, he waited until his death in 1106 to receive episcopal consecration.

The articulate Gilbert of Limerick outlined the plan for reform not only of the Church, but secular society as well, in De Statu Ecclesiae ("On the State of the Church") while Celsus made circuits of all the provinces in his capacity of successor of St Patrick.  In 1111, Gilbert presided as Papal Legate over the Synod of Rathbrasil (Co Tipperary) where the Irish hierarchy proposed an ecclesiastical map of 26 dioceses.  Though there have been a number of variations in the interim, the number of sees in Ireland remains at 26.
The rise of Malachy
Over the next decade and a half, the pace of reform slowed down and might have come to an end, had not Celsus picked out a gifted protegé.  Mael Maedog O'Morgair was a young man, born in Armagh in 1094.  His father was a teacher and his mother was from a family that had a claim over the abbacy of Bangor similar to that which Celsus' family had over Armagh - her brother, a layman, became successor of St Comgall and Abbot of Bangor.  Mael Meadog felt called to the monastic life from an early age, but in spite of many attempts, it was a vocation he would never realise.  Celsus saw in this young man a reformer like no other.  Mael Maedog became known to history as St Malachy of Armagh.

In 1119, Celsus ordained Malachy to the priesthood and sent him to the monastery of Lismore to study under Malchus O'Hanvery, the Bishop of Waterford, who was previously a monk of Winchester.  In 1124, Celsus recalled Malachy north to set him in the position of Successor of St Comgall, Abbot of Bangor and Bishop of Down.  During the following years, Malachy would introduce the rule of the Augustinian Canons and the Savignac Benedictines into his diocese.  In 1127, he was expelled from Bangor following political upheaval and he brought his monks into exile in Lismore.

In 1129, Celsus died leaving clear instructions that Malachy should succeed him as Successor of St Patrick and Primate.  Clann Sinaich were not going to surrender without a fight and nominated Murtagh to succeed.  Malachy refused to challenge Murtach until he had the backing of Ireland's secular and religious leaders.  Murtagh retained the revenues until his death in 1134, though Malachy was recognised as Primate.  When Clann Sinaich nominated Celsus' brother Niall in 1134, it was clear no one in Ireland was prepared to listen - so the Clann Sinaich pretensions came to an end in 1139.

When Malachy was satisfied the independence of the primacy was secured, he resigned the See of Armagh in favour of Gelasius, the Abbot of Derry and head of the Columban paruchia.  This was a deft political move, as Gelasius was uncompromised politically yet was dedicated to reform.

Malachy went back to Down as bishop.  He thought this was the end of his active life and he could retire to the cloister.  But first, the bishops of Ireland asked him to go to Rome to present their petition to Pope Innocent II to grant pallia to Armagh and Cashel, setting them up as metropolitan sees and guaranteeing the independence of the Irish Church.  Malachy undertook the task.

On his way, he visited Clairvaux where he made friends with St Bernard of Clairvaux.  St Bernard was the most influential churchman of his day and also became the biographer of St Malachy.  Malachy was thoroughly impressed with the Cistercian life and he petitioned Pope Innocent to be released from his obligations as a bishop in order to enter the Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux.  The Pope was not without sympathy but recognised St Malachy's calling was to reform the Irish Church.  The pallia were not to be granted to Cashel and Armagh just yet - and Malachy was ordered to return to Ireland.

The cause of reform prospered.  Malachy established the Cistercian Order in Ireland with monks from Clairvaux, and it spread rapidly.  There were some problems between Irish and French monks, but that did not lesson the Cistercian influence in Ireland.  He also introduced the Arroasian congregation of the Augustinian Canons Regular to Ireland, judging them to be particularly suited to Irish conditions.  The Canons Regular of St Augustine would eventually become the biggest order in pre-Reformation Ireland, but were never re-established after penal times.  St Malachy's legacy is still seen in the Cistercian houses in Ireland.
Wine into water
Though the main influence on the Irish Church form abroad was French, there are German influences to be seen to.  The Schottenklöster (Irish monasteries in Europe - in the early middle ages the Latin Scotus or the German Schotte designated an Irishman) had adopted the Benedictine rule at the time of Charlemagne.  In the mid 12th century, the king of Munster's cousin was the Abbot of the Irish monastery at Regensburg, so Irish Benedictines from Germany came to establish houses in Ireland.

At this time an unknown but rather interesting Irish Benedictine was Abbot of the Irish monastery at Würzburg.  St Macarius (died 1153) was so ascetic that he is said to have changed wine into water.  But the more ascetic discipline of the French Cistercians made a greater impact on Ireland that did the German Benedictines.

In 1148, St Malachy, armed with the authority of Papal Legate, summoned a synod of the Irish church to Inis Pádraig, Co Dublin.  At the time, Blessed Eugenius III was pope and had began his pontificate with two years in exile.  As he was a Cistercian, he asked St Bernard for advice on what he should do.  Bernard told him to model his life on the Irishman, Malachy of Armagh.

Malachy set out on another trip to Rome to petition Eugenius for the pallia.  This time he was not to return.  He died in Clairvaux on the way on the night of November 1-2, attended by St Bernard.  Very soon after St Malachy's death, St Bernard regarded him as a saint.  He was canonised by Pope Clement III in 1190.  His feast day is 3 November.

Though St Malachy never reached Rome, the petition did.  And in 1152, Blessed Eugenius III sent John Cardinal Paparo as Papal Legate to Ireland.  Cardinal Paparo convened the bishops of Ireland at a synod in Kells  where he unveiled the Pope's plans for the Irish Church.

Blessed Eugenius did not grant the two pallia as requested.  Instead he sent four - also recognising Dublin and Tuam as metropolitan sees.  In this way, the pope showed a profound understanding of the political and regional divisions in Ireland.  He also guaranteed the independence of the Irish church and recognised the strides made in its reform over half a century.  The pallia are the legacy of St Malachy of Armagh.

Not long after this triumph, St Bernard died.  He was buried with St Malachy under the high altar at Clairvaux as he requested.  The relics of the two saints are still together and according to some traditions cannot be separated.  They are in death as they willed to be in life.

St Malachy may or may not be the author of the prophecies I referred to at the beginning of this article.  It doesn't matter.  The vocation of St Malachy of Armagh represents the transition of Ireland from being an isolated Church with many distinctive characteristics into one which was definitively part of the Western Church.  The drive for this reform came not from without but from within.  The native Irish monastic rules were eclipsed, but that was an unintended effect of the reform.  Nobody foresaw how readily and completely Irish vocations would drift toward the Cistercians, Augustinian Canons and other continental orders.  Nor did this reform destroy the autonomy of the Irish church - on the contrary, obtaining the pallia from Rome in the manner achieved ensured that the Irish Church would be autonomous.  Had it been otherwise, the Archbishops of Canterbury would have gladly instituted a reform of the Irish Church to their own liking.

The saint's lasting memorial is not in imprecise predictions but in securing the independence of the Irish church and guaranteeing its reform by native Irish ecclesiasticsw.  That Church survived the upheaval of the next few centuries, the Reformation and Penal Laws, onl to be seriously threatened in our own day.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 75, November-December 2004