The Irish - The Lost Tribe?

THE IRISH - THE LOST TRIBE?

By PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Vos autem genus electum, regale sacerdotium, gens sancta, populus acquisitionis - 1 St Peter, 2:9

A combination of material wealth and religious poverty is invariably followed by on of those immense 

catastrophes, which write themselves forever on the memory of man.  - Donoso Cortez 

MY FAVOURITE NOVEL in Irish is Monsignor Breandán Ó Doibhlin's Néal Maidine agus Tine Oíche.*  The title "Morning Cloud and Night Fire"is based on Exodus 40:36.  In fact the novel closely follows the delivery of the enslaved Hebrews from Egypt andd their subsequent journey town the promised land.  But the book is written about the Irish, and it is made difficult for the average Irish reader by his frequent references to an older form of the Irish tongue.

Mgr Ó  Doibhlin was not the first.  When I read the book for the second time a number of years ago, I wondered how much the author knew about the fascination of the early Irish monks with ancient Israel and also how shocked those monks would be with modern scholarly attitudes.

Biblical influence crucial

The literature of early mediaeval Ireland has to date been analysed in a strictly Aryan construct.  Parallels are forever sought within the overall Indo-European (indo-germanisch) context.  This can be fruitful. For, example, Cormac mac Airt is suckled by a wolf in infancy.  We could safely assume this to be a direct borrowing from the story of Romulus and Remus, were it not for the fact that a similar tale is told of Cyrus the Persian and the same theme emerges in Greek and Germanic lore.  Though valuable, the Indo-European view is not the last word on the matter.

The early Irish monks had little interest in India or Persia.  Their only interest in Germany was to convert the place.  In general, their only interest in an alleged Caucasian heritage was a belief that were are all descended from Noah's son Japheth.  The early Irish monks were more interested in Israel than in India.

Most of the writings now seen as mythological can be read as a retelling of a distinctly Irish folklore, subject to biblical influence.  So the puny Lug Lám Fata slays Balor of the evil eye with a sling shot.

But the monastic scribes went a lot further than that.  Lebor Gabála (The Book of Invasions) describes the primaeval history of Ireland.  It shows the influence of St Isidore of Seville and St Augustine in its view of history.  But it is interesting to see the lengths to which the monks went to parallel the Irish experience with that of the Hebrews.  In ways quite reminiscent of the Boers in South Africa or the Mormons, the first Irish Christians appear to have latched on to the conviction that they were a unique people, to whom God had allotted a special destiny.

Egyptian link

The common ancestor of the Gael was a Scythian.  (Here - and only here - would mediaeval and modern scholar find consensus.)  The lawyer and linguist, Fénius Farsaid, finds his way to Egypt where he founds a school of law.  His son married the Pharaoh's duaghter, that the father names  the language he invents after her son, Góedel, so we have Gaelic.  It is strongly hinted that young Góedel had Moses for a foster brother and Fénius taught both of them law.

Anyway, the time comes when it is now longer politic for Fénius and his kin to remain in Egypt, so they embark on a journey which brings them through the North African desert over 40 years and than through Spain, before they come to rest in Ireland.  Of course, they have to displace the peoples who were there before them, which they have no problem in doing.

 Place of natural law

A nice story, but the monks had to back it up.  They appealed to St Paul, who in Romans 2:14-15, implies a Natural Law written into creation by God.  The Irish were quite diligent in there observance of natural law (recht aicnid), according to the scribes.  Natural law was seen as a very important judicial concept; aand one presumes it remained so until Chief Justice Hamilton enlightened us on the the topic in the judgement on the constitutionality of the Abortion Information Act a few years ago.  Wherever they could point out a coincidence with the Law of Moses (recht litre - written law, they did; the most striking example being in relation to heiresses.

In the fullness of time, the Irish received the Law of Moses and with it, the Prophets and the New Testament.  This would naturally single St Patrick out as somewhat special.  The monks depicted him as a Moses-Elias figure.  Whereas the St Patrick of the Confessio and the Epistola is a simple and zealous missionary (methinks he doth protest too much - both writings are a lot more sophisticated than they appear to the naked eye), the various biographers of the saint give us the picture of either of the greatest figures of the Old Testament.

 Not merely hagiographical

Again and again, incidents are related which are similar to the lives of Moses and Elias.  In his various confrontations with the druids, we see retellings of the stand-off between Moses and Pharoah's magicians or between Elias and the priests of Baal.

It is all too simple to dismiss the Lives of St Patrick in the light of his own literary legacy.  Too simple, and based on an uncritical reading of both.  It should be remembered that St Patrick must have been a very impressive figure to silence the whole court of the High King and pave the way for the Christianisation of the entire country.

One of the Lives contains a very frank details: though the saint makes a great impression of King Lóegaire Ua Néill, the king remains a heathen.  This would hardly appear in a text which was merely hagiographical.

As Moses and Elias (foreshadowing Our Lord) fast 40 days and nights, so does St Patrick.  Finally, as the 12 Apostles are given the authority to judge the 12 Tribes of Israel, (St Matthew 19:28), Muirchú's Life assigns the same task to St Patrick, as he had been an apostle to us.  This is as close as the monks came to claiming status as a lost tribe.

 Judgement for sins

One could go into great detail about other efforts to associate Early Ireland with the peoples of the Old and New Testament, whether in lawa or customs, in origins ( though Japheth was the father of the Europeans, most Irish genealogies were traced through Shem), or personal contact.  (At least one Irish jurist went the wrong way on leaving Egypt and wandered with the Israelites for 40 years, receiving the Law from Moses.  And three Irish nobles were said to have become Christian before St Patrick came - Conchobar mac Nessa and Cormac mac Airt are the best known.)

The matter did not rest there.  At a much later time, during Plantations and Penal Laws, Irish writers and scholars returned to the same theme.  This time the literati were largely in exile on the continent, especially in Louvain.  The Elizabethan and Cromwellian terrors were fresh memories and it seemed one anti-Catholic pogrom followed another.  The writers went back to the Old Testament view of the Babylonian captivity and the conquest of the Promised Land by the Gentiles.  It was the judgement of God on Ireland for the sins of the Irish.

 Slavery and idols

Mgr Ó Doibhlin returns to the same theme this century.  Behind all the allusion to Exodus and Lebor Gabála, despite how archaic and remote all the characters and themes appear, one cannot help but believe he is referring to our own day.  Slavery and idols, though they come in different shapes and sizes, are still present; and little is so destructive as the slavery or seductive comforts, especially after enduring the more obvious slavery for so long.

Ireland has changed a lot since the 1960s, and the delusion of the Celtic Tiger within a new European superstate suggests that our present affluence may be a new form of enslavement.  If I draw my own parallel with the Old Testament in 1 Macchabees 1:11-16, we see the description of the apostasy of the Jews.

It is a depressing portrait of a race who throw off their distinctive beliefs and customs, given them by the true God, for the peace and prosperity of a pagan empire: an apostasy before the coming of Christ, which prefigures the apostasy before His Second Coming: Quo vadis, Hibernia?

There are many similarities between the Irish and the Jews, and the comparison is a lot more instructive than ideas about common links between Ireland and India (links which do exist but are buried in the mists of prehistory).  Unfortunately this resemblance is not a matter for self-congratulation; it is, rather, a cross to be carried.

Nations, like individuals, have their own vocations, their own specific missions.  Has Ireland, insula sanctorum et scholarum, made good use of the graces God has conferred on her?  And does she continue to do so in our own day?

* Breandán Ó Doibhlin, Néal Maidine agus Tine Oíche, Foilseacháin Náisiúnta Teoranta, 1964

 The Brandsma Review, Issue 39, October-November 1998 

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.

  

Anamchara: Soul's Friend or Foe?

ANAMCHARA:SOUL'S FRIEND OR FOE?

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

 Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate: tunc autem facie ad faciem - 1 Corinthians XIII, 12

JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU has a lot to answer for.  As a writer of ghost stories, he incorporated many themes from Irish folklore into his tales and was widely read in the Victorian great house.  His best known story is the novella Carmilla which appears in his collection In a Glass Darkly.

Carmilla is a chilling vampire story and was among the models Le Fanu's compatriot Bram Stoker used for Dracula.  Those who like to talk of Ireland's literary tradition should know that no Irish written work has made quite the impact on the world as Dracula.

Carmilla - which I find scarier than Dracula - is set in Carinthia ( an Austrian province where Jörg Haider is currently governor), but Le Fanu draws on Irish tradition here too.  The female vampire Carmilla is like a banshee insofar as she is attached to certain families and draws her victims from among their daughters.

Off on a tangent

Rev John O'Donoghue has also drawn on Irish folklore, among other sources, to write an international bestseller: Anamchara: Spiritual Wisdom from the Celtic World.  (Please excuse my typography: Father O'Donoghue puts a dot above the c in anamchara rather than using a ch.  That is dreadfully pretensious).  Some years ago, one Sunday Independent journalist described it as one of the creepiest books she knew, though Father O'Donoghue did not intend it as such.

An anamchara is literally a soul-friend, and in early Irish monasticism was a confessor, who was the fore runner of the modern spiritual director.  Perhaps the старец (elder) in the Russian monastic tradition provides a counterpart; both ultimately derive from the same source.  But Father O'Donoghue's Anamchara does not tap into any type of recognisable Irish spiritual tradition.  It goes off on its own distinct tangent.  Before one even starts the book, nothing draws attention to Father O'Donoghue's status as a priest of the Galway & Kilmacduagh diocese.  His photograph, in mufti, appears on the jacket cover which lists his academic achievements and publications.  These are considerable, though one would question the wisdom of his then bishop in sending him to do a doctorate in philosophical theology in Tübingen, home of Rev Professor Hans Küng.  Long before Father Küng, the Catholic Theological Faculty there (Tübingen is the international academic centre of the Lutheran Churches, but nevertheless had a Catholic theological faculty there for two centuries) had a history of blazing trails.  Anamchara, however, does not blaze any trails.

'Wonderful', 'lovely'...

Anamchara is written in a very readable style.  So readableI would describe it as positively patronising.  He punctuates the work with quotations and references to literature, art, philosophy and to Irish folklore, normally qualifying either the phrase or the writer with adjectives such as "beautiful", "wonderful" or "lovely".  For example:

A beautiful example is Berninis's Teresa in Ecstasy 

The wonderful Polish poet Tadeusz Rozewicz describes the difficulty of writing good poetry

 There is the lovely story of Oisín who was one of the Fianna, the band of Celtic warriors.

This can sometimes be more than a little ridiculous, e.g.:

The phrase from Edith Piaf, Je ne regrette rien, is wonderful in its free and wild acceptance.

Sometimes, Father O'Donoghue totally misses the mark:

There is nothing as near as the eternal.  This is captured in the lovely Celtic phrase: tá tír na n-óg ar chul an tí - tír álainn trina chéile, i.e. the land of eternal youth is behind the house, a beautiful land fluent within itself.  (sic).

What he is in fact quoting here is the opening line of a very modern poem written by Seán Ó Ríordáin (1917-1977).  Ó Ríordáin suffered from tuberculosis, and for part of his life lived in isolation in a pre-fabricated building at the back of the family home in Ballyvourney, Co Cork.  This was tír na n-óg ar chúl an tí, the land of youth at the back of the house, so-called because the resident was fated to live a short life.  It is a terrifying thought, really; though in the context of what Father O'Donoghue has to say about death, I think he would see beauty in it.

The book goes through six chapters on friendship, the senses, solitude, work, ageing and death.  Father O'Donoghue writes authoritatively on each of those subjects, almost as if he has direct personal experience of each.  Well, Father is not yet aged, nor has he worked in the work environment he describes - except perhaps briefly - nor has he ever died.  And I find how he writes about conjugal love and sex very disconcerting.  Had he been a married man of his age (he is still very young), I would have been incredulous; for a priest to write of marriage, I would expect decades of pastoral experience, which was certainly not acquired in the academic groves of Tübingen.  As for sex, the question of experience or lack of it is immaterial; it is quite disedifying to see a priest writing about sexuality as Father O'Donoghue does in this book.  In this context, one might wonder whether Anamchara would have had such a roaring success if the author were identified as a priest.

Living dog and dead lion

As for solitude, he has never lived an eremetical lifestyle.  Though I can identify with a lot of what he has to say about the workplace, there seems to be something very cynical in the way it is put.  (Just as in the way he describes marriage and sex).  And I will believe his sincerity about this liberating force of death, if he is able to confirm it to me after he has in fact died.  I thought of the phrase in Ecclesiastes 9,4: melior est canis vivus leone mortuo (a living dog is better than a dead lion).  This was a reaction to Father O'Donoghue's peculiar treatment of death and the hereafter, rather than my actual view on the subject of both.

Aside for the occasional citation, which in at least one case is quite wrong, for the most part Father O'Donoghue's case for "Celtic Spirituality" is based on hearsay evidence, which is encapsulated in a very misogynistic Irish saying which denotes gossip: Dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi (a woman told me that a woman told her).  In many incidents he talks of people he knows to illustrate his point.  This is fine, but it is hardly something on which to construct a model for spirituality.

He cites many philosophers, notably Hegel, but his references to Christianity are few.  Johannes Scottus Eriugena is notable by his absence, though he is one of the few indisputably Celtic philosophers in the textbooks.  Father O'Donoghue's view of the cosmos seems to suggest pantheism: in his reaction against dualism, he comes very close to monism.

He has little time for a spiritual world apart from the material world.  So it is not surprising his approach is very post-modernistic.  Philosophers appear alongside ordinary people and superstition is juxtaposed with both science and theology without any qualification.  So he mentions alleged phenomena such as the banshee and fairies quite positively.  Personally I prefer Sheridan La Fanu's treatment of the same.

What the author seems to prove is that we only see things "through a glass in a dark manner", and he seems to provide an even darker glass through which to look at and beyond the world.

A 'feel-good' book

On the positive side, I agree totally with Father O'Donoghue on the topic of television and its effect on the world.  But the book is written for television consumers.

Essentially, it is a "feel-good" book.  The spiritual counsel offered is to do nothing, to follow your heart, to go along with your feelings.  Any effort to "improve" yourself is doomed to failure, and Father O'Donoghue insists that we were made the way we were for a purpose, that we are naturally good.  It is difficult to see where either Fall or Redemption fit in here, but that does not mean they are absent.  I wonder whether a true soulfriend would advise anyone to relax and do nothing.  In my opinion that counsel is more consistent with the behaviour of a soulfoe - I suppose an anamnamhaid.

As I have said earlier, Father O'Donoghue does not say anything new or original in this book.  There is nothing challenging in it, though it is the work of a man with a gifted mind and an ability to communicate.  It was written to be a bestseller and the author succeeded in that aim.  A pity.  Father O'Donoghue could have used his talents to advance the teaching of the Gospel and the Church.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 48, April-May 2000. 

Catechesis from Killaloe

CATECHESIS FROM KILLALOE

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

Then Editor's note: Our writer Peadar Laighléis has been taken to task by the Bishop of Killaloe's Advisor on Primary Catechetics, Father David Carroll, over something he wrote in The Sunday Business Post on January 14 this year.  In the course of that article, Peadar analysed the vocations crisis in the light of the new catechetical programme, evaluated developments in sacred music and architecture, and examined the policies of conferences of bishops, priests and religious in regard to issuing official statements.  Here, he responds to Father Carroll's strictures:

WHILE I received the most positive feedback to The Sunday Business Post article from people I would never have expected of having an interest, I did notice none of those who supported its conclusions were priests.

In North America, the liberal National Catholic Reporter is described as the paper of the clergy and the conservative Wanderer is described as the laity's paper.  (They used to have the same circulation, but then the Wanderer began to soar ahead in the 1990s.  Recently, it began losing readers to the more reactionary Remnant.)

Does this suggest a dichotomy between clergy and laity here as in the United States and Canada?  I know The Irish Times would like to think the middle-aged, middle-class and middle-ability suburban wannabee priestesses Patsy McGarry has such a rapport with are representative of the Catholic laity.  But they are not, if for no better reason than that they have ceased to be Catholic.

Maybe most Irish priests believe what they read in The Irish Times.  I am reminded of Mgr Michael Nolan's assertion that the clergy read Irish newspapers which have an anti-Catholic bias, but have a problem with reading The Daily Telegraph, which is somewhat favourable towards Catholicism (relatively), because of its anti-Irish bias.  A very telling point.

Aimless meetings

I mentioned the aimless meetings parents are dragged to in preparation for their children's reception of the sacraments.  Fr Carroll says he puts a great deal of work into preparation and he states his aim as

to affirm parents in the difficult work of parenthood today

and

to offer support and information on their child's faith development.

Did I read this right? Surely Fr Carroll knows that both Church teaching and the Constitution establish the parents as the primary educators of their children?  If there is to be any transfer of information on a particular child's faith development, it should be the other way round.  I personally would be inclined to tell Fr Carroll, or his equivalent in my diocese, to mind his own business.  (I should say this question is academic, as I am not married and therefore do not have children.  Many graduates of the Children of God series do not seem to realise that there ought to be a connexion between the two.)

Fr Carroll is confident that the change in catechesis is welcome and that

Faith development and education takes account now of the age and learning abilities of the child

This is just an excuse: education is in trouble nowadays.  Illiteracy and innumeracy rates are rising.  Graduates, even in sciences and commerce, require calculators for the simplest mathematical problems.  Others rely on spell-check facilities on computers to write formal letters.  In spite of all the investment in the teaching of European languages in the schools, the average Leaving Certificate student can manage to be no more than a clever tourist.  Levels of knowledge of Irish have fallen contsiderably, in spite of rising investment.

Terrifying indictment

And then there is religion.  If I were to sit down and relate all the anecdotes I have heard regarding the lack of religious knowledge, I would put a very boring multi-volume series together.

About a century and a half ago, two Anglican clergymen thought they would have some fun with an eight-year-old peasant boy in the West of Ireland and see how much he knew about his faith.  They came away dumbstruck at the level of  knowledge he had gleaned from the catechism.

That boy contrasts quite well with the products of the newer techniques, reinforced with audio-visual aids.  Would one not expect to find the highest level of religious knowledge among seminarists or those preparing to be catechists?  Yet their frequent failure to distinguish between the Incarnation and the Immaculate Conception is well known.

The inability of those in the earlier years to distinguish between the Catholic teaching on the Mass and the teaching of Cramner, Calvin, Luther and Zwingli on the Lord's Supper is a terrifying indictment of the Catholic school system.  The poor understanding of the nature of the Redemption, consequent to the Incarnation, also indicates that we are in trouble.

Their lack of appreciation of other aspects of Catholicism, peripheral to the faith, is frightening.  I know of a priest of nearly 10 years standing who managed to get through six years in Maynooth, after 13 years in Catholic schools, and could still plead that he never heard of St  Joan of Arc (the editor knows this priest's name and diocese).  In this context, Fr Carroll's remark

helping children to understand what they are learning is hardly a crime.  Or would it be better to keep up levels of ignorance? [sic]

 is quite ironic

The role of Cathal Daly

Fr Carroll is perhaps unaware that a dedicated group of parents met the then Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois in the early 1970s, Mgr Cahal Daly, with reservations about the Children of God series.  They were more concerned about what was omitted than what was included - things like original sin, grace and the soul - and things which were not developed adequately - Purgatory, Hell, the 10 Commandments, the Church, angels, the Holy Trinity.  (This is far from being an exhaustive list.)  The Bishop listened and then went to sing the praises of the new programme.

Well, Alive-O takes this a stage futher.  In addition to all the omissions, one has a series of New Age inspired rituals which I could only call weird, that the children are expected to perform.  When Rod Pead, editor of Christian Order, showed me some of the Alive-O materials, I told him I believed it went beyond mere deficiency - and that I would describe it as being unhealthy.  The Constitution of Ireland, thankfully, gives parents a right to withdraw their children from the religion class.

Then we have this howler from Fr Carroll:

Indeed if Alive-O or Children of God did ignore the teachings of the Church, then one would imagine that the Bishops of Ireland would not approve the texts for use in Catholic schools throughout Ireland.

Passing the buck

Is this guy for real?  Can anyone remember an interview on catechetics given to The Irish Catholic by Mgr Thomas Finnegan, Bishop of Killala - then spokesman for the Federated Union of Bishops?  My recollection is that His Lordship of Killala said that had there been anything wrong with the Alive-O programme, then the Roman Curia would have objected to its use.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam says "it was her", and points at the flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, and then Eve says "the devil made me do it".  If the children were taught this episode, they would have a splendid example of passing the buck - a very unoriginal sin.

There is a wealth of material in ecclesiastical documents on sex education, which the Church would prefer to see as the province of the home and family rather than the school.  The RSE programme is part of a greater Social, Health and Personal Education, which is cross-curricular.  So it can creep into lessons in arithmetic, art, history, geography - or religion.  The objectives of RSE and Alive-O may be very different, but the latter made no effort to restrict the former, in spite of the fact that some RSE is explicit to the point of being pornographic.

Laughable suggestion?

Then Fr Carroll goes to what he believes was the most important point to make about the entire article.  I said of the prospective seminarist:

He probably lacks the support of family or local clergy enjoyed by previous generations.

This I intended as a sympathetic assessment of the situation from the student's point of view.  Fr Carroll retorts:

But never since the day I entered seminary have I experienced a lack of support from family or friends.  To suggest that one could make such a decision without such support is laughable.

Who is laughing at whom?  If Fr Carroll has this marvelous support, he is very fortunate.  But he says more than that.  First of all he sees his priesthood as based on a decision.  Not a vocation from God?  Decisions relate to lifestyle options.

Secondly, he believes that to suggest this decision could be made without the support of family and friends is laughable.  So, St Thomas Aquinas resistance to his family to join the Dominicans is laughable?  Ss Edmund Campion and John Ogilvie joined the Jesuits and were martyred  - nobody supported these men.

If Fr Carroll really believes priesthood depends on support of family or friends, I wonder what he would do if this support were ever withdrawn.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 53, February-March 2001

Céide and Cardinal Connell

CÉIDE AND CARDINAL CONNELL

by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS

CÉIDE is a disingenuous magazine.  It has adopted the motto Doras Feasa Fiafraighe which it translates as "The door to knowledge is questioning".  Fiafraighe is more accurately translated as "asking" rather than "questioning".

Anyway, the Céide people are not good questioners.  For example, while they insist upon questioning every aspect of Catholicism which readers of The Brandsma Review accept, why are they so confident about the fruits of the Second Vatican Council?

Why can they not see the irony of calling Céide a "review from the margins" while touting articles by such establishment figures as Garrett FitzGerald, Michael D. Higgins and Mary Robinson (who all have more than their share of questionable actions - unquestioned by an uninquisitive media)?  Why do they accept the media's assertion that journalists, both print and broadcast, do not form but reflect public opinion?

To digress from religion for a moment: consider the recent revelations about the 1970s Arms Trial.  Captain James Kelly has been referred to on the airwaves as the Dreyfus of modern Irish history and is guarranteed a more favourable reception than hitherto.  (It is true that a terrible injustice was done to him - and now that he is "politically correct" how many new supporters will gather round him?).

But is anyone going to sit down and analyse the media presentation of the political protagonists in the intervening years: Messrs. Lynch, Gibbons, O'Malley, Haughey and Blaney?  Céide correspondent Dr FitzGerald got away with referring to Mr Haughey's "flawed pedigree" in Dáil Éireann in 1979, by which he meant the arms trials rather than the more recent allegations of corruption.

Remember how bright the Progressive Democrats were painted in 1985, about two and a half years before they proposed their Godless Constitution on Trinity Sunday of 1988?  But I am not dwelling on the political vagaries of the last 31 years, only the media's assertions about itself that Céide has no trouble accepting.

I would have thought Dr FitzGerald should be ashamed to comment on Ireland's birthrate, as he does in the April/May Céide.  His 1982-1987 coalition closed Carysfort College, confident there would soon be a shortage of primary school children (Family Planning [Amendment] Act, 1985?).   They got it badly wrong: this is a severe shortage of primary teachers now.

Forgive my brief partisan digression.

Knack of opening doors

Céide has a problem with Cardinal Connell.  I must confess I had a good gloat over the commentary by  Fathers Hegarty, Hoban and other anonymous sources sitting at the feet of  Rev Michael Enda McDonagh - in quick succession Professor of Moral Theology in Maynooth; chaplain to Mary Robinson in the Park; and President of the People's Democratic Union of Priests.  Can anyone tell me what Father McDonagh's handshake is like?  I would love to know.  He seems capable of opening so many doors - though his friend Dr FitzGerald failed to talk Monsignor Alibrandi into moving him into a big house in Tuam in the 1980s.

It is funny that these middle-aged established clerics were so shocked at the advent of  a bright young orthodox priest called Fr David O'Hanlon, who was caricatured in Céide's commentary.  (Hang out with Father David for too long and you won't be invited to suburban middle class semi-ds by non-practicing 30-somethings for Chablis and Brie).  Well, they seem to find the septuagenarian cardinal as threatening as the notorious trigintarian curate.

They are hurting

They don't quite say that Cardinal Connell should not have got the red hat.  But they are terribly hurt on behalf of liberal Irish Catholics and Protestant churchmen (who, Father Hegarty tells us, are also disciples.)  Dominus Iesus and intercommunion are the stumbling blocks in regard to the latter.

I have already stated Céide's mantra "Vatican II" (Has anyone analysed this 36-year old fundamentalism - the cult of the Spirit-of-Vatican II?).  So would it come to a surprise to them that Dominus Iesus might be a rehash of Dignatatus Humanae, the Declaration of Religious Liberty?  Dominus Iesus is founded on the conciliar documents as it is written - not on what a manipulative intelligentsia, both ecclesiastical and secular has duped the tea-and-biscuit ecumenists into thinking it says.

Traditionalists have heard endless debates about the use of the Latin verb subsistere (which doesn't quite mean "to subsist") in regard to the Church of Christ in the visible Catholic Church.  This led to a reaction against the document on the council floor.  Dominus Iesus now apologetically uses the same verb, and largely repeats what was stated.  Although it has been denounced as heresy by extreme Dominican supporters of the Society of St Pius X in Avrillé, the greatest opponents of the new document are those who purport to be loyal adherents to its mother-document.

Archbishop Wojtyla, who was influential in the debate on religious liberty at the Council and the framing of the Declaration, is now portrayed as the reactionary pontiff who tenaciously holds on to life.  Rev Professor Joseph Ratzinger, friend of Rahner and Küng, is now the Grand Inquisitor of a reformation tract.  And Dominus Iesus is open to vilification.  One cannot help but question the leadership of the Pontifical Council Promoting Christian Unity, since the time of Cardinal Bea.  So is it really a case of Bea culpa, Bea culpa, Bea maxima culpa?
Shooting the messenger
Monsignor Desmond Connell, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, defends the document.  This earns him the ire of liberals, who prefer the Second Vatican Council the way they imagined it rather than the way it was.  Rev Patrick Jones of the National Liturgy Centre must find this every time some erudite lay observer reminds him that Sacrosanctum Concilium did not mandate the gutting of church sanctuaries, and can quote the document.  It goes a lot further than church architecture: eg, it states that Latin should remain the language of the Mass; and that Gregorian chant should be the norm for sung Masses.

And there are more where that came from.  The Council Documents also ask priests and religious to continue wearing a distinctive mode of dress.  The Second Vatican Council did not, or could not, accept the reformed sects as "sister churches" and neither does Dominus Iesus.  Cardinal Connell states this, and the liberal approach is to shoot the messenger.  But that is to be expected from a clergy who are quite used to twisting their presentation of the faith to suit themselves.
Orthodox on intercommunion
As for intercommunion, ecumenism and ecumania - I lament we do not have a larger Eastern Orthodox community in this country.  In that case, ecumenism would have a more balanced focus.  I would relish seeing well-heeled liberal Catholics refused communion by bearded archimandrites at the iconostasis.

Over a decade ago, a delegation from the Russian Church (before the fall of the Soviet Union) visited Maynooth.  An ill-informed deacon offered the Metropolitan of Odessa the chalice at Mass.  The Metropolitan refused.  This has not entered the lore of intercommunion on these islands.  So when Archbishop Connell offends a number of religiously illiterate bourgeois housewives in BASIC who socialise with The Irish Times' Patsy McGarry (who also contributes to Céide), he gets vilified.  And Father Hegarty sees Dr Connell's new red biretta as giving

little hope to Irish Catholic liberals who need leadership

Don't they have the media to lead them where they want to go?
Left losing support
Céide also names Father Vincent Twomey SVD, lecturer in Moral Theology in Maynooth as Connell's ultimate successor.  As I have no access to their crystal ball, I will not comment.  Fr Twomey studied under Ratzinger at Regensburg in the late 1960s, after the future Cardinal moved away from the jet-setting theologians who founded Concilium.

Céide's main source of information on Father Twomey is John Allen's new biography of Cardinal Ratzinger.  John Allen is a correspondent with the American National Catholic Reporter.  This has been the flagship periodical of the American Catholic left since the Second Vatican Council.  It has been losing steam for some time recently, as it has noticed that the younger generation  of American Catholics is either leaving the Church altogether (often to become Eastern Orthodox or evangelical protestants) or going to conservative, traditionalist or eastern Catholic movements.  The United States Catholic left, hard and soft, is losing support.  Would Céide profit by their example?
Swipe at St Thérèse
Céide have some solutions of their own.  They suggested that when Jim Cantwell retired from the Catholic Press and Information Office, he be replaced by a bright young woman like Annette O'Donnell.  Do they seriously believe that perception is everything?  I think they seriously need to question the media.  And they also propose Father John O'Donoghue as the perfect candidate to translate the Church's spiritual treasury into the language of the unchurched young (this is my terminology).  Father O'Donoghue did not even identify himself as a priest in Anamchara, which was a highly questionable work anyway.

Father Hoban denigrates alternatives to Anamchara, such as trips to Medjugorje and tours of boxes of relics (a swipe at St Thérèse of Lisieux).  In the first instance, the Medjurgorje phenonomen has not been (and is unlikely to be) authenticated by the Church, and pilgrimages there are private affairs.  And the tour of St Thérèse's relics is based on an initiative of the laity - not the hierarchy, not the clergy and not the religious.
Spiritual bankruptcy
This is something that Father Hoban should reflect upon: the paternalistic liberals dominating the Irish clergy do not seem to accept the fact that the most dedicated among the laity now have a different vision to them.  Has the faith they once possessed deserted them so completely that they react against anything tainted by traditional Catholicism - even though, in the majority of instances, this does not in fact come from traditionalists?

Do they not see that the apparitions and the prayer-groups and the new devotions are born out of the spiritual and sacramental bankruptcy of many pastoral settings?  The present state of affairs  has its origin in a false reading of the Second Vatican Council.  Céide follows The National Catholic Reporter in this respect.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 54, May-June 2001

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  

Engaging the National Patron

ENGAGING THE NATIONAL PATRON
by PEADAR LAIGHLÉIS
Vivo autem iam non ego vivit vero in me Christus.(Galatians 2, 20)

ONE EXERCISE I did in the New Year was a response to a challenge by Joe McCarroll was to return to the fundamental documents concerning Christianity in Ireland. I am referring to St Patrick’s Confessions and Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus. I worked through Dr Ludwig Bieler’s Latin text, helpfully provided in Bishop William Philbin’s Mise Pádraig and Bishop Joseph Duffy’s Patrick in His Own Words. Both bishops provided their own translation, Mgr Philbin in Irish and Mgr Duffy in English.  The former Bishop of Clogher, though, provided a free translation and also used The Jerusalem Bible as a model for the numerous scriptural quotes, for which the saint used the pre-Vulgate Latin translations. In this, Mgr Duffy followed the trends in the 1970s which elevated readability over literal accuracy in scripture and liturgy alike. But let me state that the notes in the bishop’s text are also valuable and it is possible to consult the Latin text with the English translation. For those who read Irish, Mgr Philbin’s text is both accurate and elegant and he too provides an interesting commentary.

Irish history begins in 431. This is not to say nothing happened in Ireland before this; there is plenty of evidence that much did. What it does say is that an entry in the Prosper of Aquataine’s Chronicle for this year tells us that Pope Celestine IV sent Bishop Palladius to preach to the Irish believing in Christ.  This was the initial point of a continuum which marked the systematic recording of Irish history since then, which what I mean by the first statement. The sentence itself tells us that there were Irish Christians prior to this date. There are several reasons why this was the case. First of all, there was much commercial interaction between Ireland and what is now Wales. The languages of both were still mutually comprehendible. There was population movement and trade between the two countries. Ireland was a good place to go in periods of persecution when it was still an issue in the Roman Empire. There were conversions of native Irish. And of course, many Christians were brought to Ireland as slaves.

We do not know a lot about Palladius, but the little we know is quite interesting. He was associated with St Germanus of Auxerre. St Germanus was in Britain in 429 to deal with the Pelagian heresy. Pelagius himself was British and though the case is made that he was personally orthodox, he has left his name on a heresy. He met both Ss Augustine and Jerome and made an impression. St Jerome said he was bloated with Scottish (i.e. Irish) porridge (Scotorum pultibus proegravatus). Pelagianism rejects Original Sin and the Grace of God, so Pelagians believe they gain heaven by their own labour alone and Christ is an exemplar rather than a saviour. Palladius went from Britain to Ireland where his mission was probably more successful than we imagine. But he was only the precursor in the story.

Of Welsh, Cornish and Breton stock

Before I even begin on St Patrick, there is much controversy over both his date and place of birth. I have heard a lot of arguments locating Bannava Tabarniae in Scotland, England and France, but as none of the above were yet settled by Scots, Anglo- Saxons or Franks, the location is irrelevant to the saint’s nationality. St Patrick was a Roman citizen and ethnic Celt. His family were well off, had been Christian for a few generations and seemed to have had interests in both Britain and Gaul. Mgr Duffy argues the saint’s Latin had a Gaulish accent, but this may be a product of education rather than upbringing. There was a British colony in present day Scotland, but it seems very far from a Gaulish base. I am convinced by the argument that “Tabarniae” could be the genitive for “Sabarnia”, which could indicate somewhere around the mouth of the Severn (“t” can replace an initial “s” in Celtic genitives, with the pattern crossing into Celtic Latin). Calling the saint a Welshman is an anachronism, but he was certainly of the stock of the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. The saint was born in the late fourth century at the earliest, but I am more persuaded for the theory that his mission began in the 450s rather than the traditional 432 which seems much too close to Palladius’ apostolate. In this regard, I would calculate that the saint was born in the early fifth century.

The young saint had no interest in Christianity. He tells us that before his abduction he was guilty of some sin or other which was sufficiently grave to cause him shame much later in life. It has been suggested by modern commentators that this sin was sexual, but this would not have had particular opprobrium attached among young men of his class in the late Roman Empire, so the suggestion it was murder is a bit more convincing. St Patrick believed his abduction was a punishment for this sin. He was taken to Ireland and sold into slavery, with members of his household and others. He was sold to a farmer to keep flocks and herds, in a place now believed to be Slemish in Co Antrim. The later biographers of St Patrick state he kept pigs, but present day farmers believe only sheep would survive on the higher slopes of Slemish and pigs and cattle would be confined to lower ground. It is possible the saint did a variety of work, but what is clear is that his Christianity came alive on Slemish. Here he prayed one hundred times a day and one hundred times a night. He was eventually guided by a dream to run two hundred miles away to find a ship to take him to Gaul, Mgr Philbin suggests around Killala Bay. Initially, he was not admitted as he refused to compromise his new found Christianity. The captain thought better of it and sent a sailor after him to bring him back. It turned out that his presence was useful.  The ship landed in Gaul and the crew wandered severa lweeks in the wilderness before asking Patrick topray. After which they came upon a herd of pigs. The devastation in Gaul testifies to the barbarian assaults as the Roman Empire was breaking down in the West.

Internalised the Scriptures

St Patrick was reunited with his family at the age of twenty-two. They wanted him to stay, but he knew he had to go elsewhere. He missed out on several valuable years’ in education, which is seen in his Latin, but he did study. If the Confession and the Letter to Coroticus show anything, it is how he internalised the scripture. This is evident after he returned to Ireland.  Though later writings give a developed narrative on St Patrick’s work in Ireland, the saint himself has little to say. A strong case can be made that Letter came before the Confession. The Confession appears to be a justification made afterward. In the Letter, the saint doesn’t mince his words about the raids on Ireland.  Many of his own converts were murdered or enslaved. He attempted to ransom the converts but was rebuffed. He excommunicated all the perpetrators.  This is where the bone of contention appears to have arisen: the Church in Britain were not prepared to recognise this and carried on as if nothing had happened.  At this stage, the saint produced his own apologia.

Unconventional

The Confession is not a conventional autobiography, but does give us most of the reliable biographical information we have about St Patrick. To a large extent it is a reaction against the charges made against him by the British Church. In this respect, he is very defensive. No one can doubt the man’s sincerity, but if there is a recurring theme again and again, it is his refrain that he did not carry out the work, but that God worked through him. This is an assertion of orthodox theology against Pelagianism. It happens too often not to be deliberate. The context of a British church riddled with Pelagianism while denigrating Patrick’s personal integrity occurs to one straight away. Issues such as his lack of polished Latin or the unknown sin of his youth came up at the time, and he justified himself. They also suggested he made money from the apostolate, when in fact he spent the little he had to work with.

Trials like Saint Paul’s

One imagines that St Patrick identified very closely with St Paul. He quotes him again and again. In recounting his own trials at the hands of some more hostile recipients, St Patrick’s list is very similar to that of St Paul. Though he was not martyred, he came close enough to it on a few occasions. In relation to his effect on those he preached to, one upper class lady came to him within days of receiving baptism seeking to take the veil. Though St Patrick’s own writing plays down the miraculous, one is impressed that the saint is living in the wake of the original Pentecost with all the gifts and fruits of the Holy Ghost, nowhere more than in the response of the Irish to his preaching.

The Confessions may be termed a working autobiography or apologia, but it lacks finality. This is par for the course in such works. However, at the time of writing, the saint concluded that the substantive work of converting the Irish to Christianity was done. To a certain extent, he seems to have believed himself to be in the end times, because he states that the message of Christ was brought to the world’s edge. This was, and is, one of the conditions which must precede the last times. St Patrick lived through the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west. Though he was first taken from his privileged position as a Roman citizen, he later chose to forego it for the greater glory of God.  But he was aware that for a great many people just like him, there was little choice in the matter. In this way, the Confessions has a flavour of the Apocalypse as well as of the Acts. St Patrick did not completely obliterate heathendom in Ireland. It took several centuries after him before this was the case: evangelisation is a slow and drawn out process and our own day shows us it can never be taken for granted and frequently needs renewal. But what the mission of the national apostle ensured was that it would happen. The impression he made on the Irish, particularly on the nobility in the north of the country which had been least touched by pre-Patrician Christian incursions, put the chain of events in motion which would result in the nation embracing the faith in its entirity sooner rather than later.

The Brandsma Review, Issue 137, March-April 2014