Lux Occulta

Excellent letter by Fr Pádraig McCarthy in today’s Irish Times  — a newspaper which gave prominent coverage to the Prime Time documentary but has been irritatingly mute about RTÉ’s recent apology to Fr Kevin Reynolds. Patsy McGarry, that newspaper’s religious affairs correspondent, has not published anything about the apology at all — despite this being an explosive news item, and despite having authored that aforelinked report about the documentary following its broadcast (but he can still find time for the comparatively trivial “Pioneers thank public for group’s survival“.)

A chara, – On October 6th and 7th October, RTÉ broadcast on television and radio an apology to Fr Kevin Reynolds for allegations made in its Prime Time Investigates programme of May 23rd of this year entitled A Mission to Prey . The apology, as given on its website, is 352 words. This is the longest apology from any media organisation that I can remember, and yet still unequal to the original broadcast.

Coming less than five months after the programme, the apology seems unusually swift, following assistance of a legal team through the Association of Catholic Priests. If Fr Kevin Reynolds did not have that assistance, would he have been left at the mercy of the might of a large corporate body and its legal team, with little hope of redress, or only after a lapse of years?

Abuse can never be undone. There is a saying about false reports that the bell cannot be unrung. I have no knowledge of the other cases covered by the programme. Any abuse of another, whether child or adult, is seriously sinful, to use an old-fashioned word. There are, however, answers still to be sought about this case at least.

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From one of the Irish Church’s most original thinkers.

I am pleasantly surprised that this got published in the Furrow. (See also his 1962 article, Will the Irish Stay Christian?, which he kindly allowed me to republish.)

(NB: Read the comments here and here for background.)

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1006/apology.html

On the evening of the 23rd May 2011, RTÉ broadcast a Prime Time Investigates programme entitled “A Mission to Prey”.

The following is an extract from an article (‘Laylines’) by Seán Mac Réamoinn in Doctrine and Life, April, 1996:

An old friend who died last month had made it clear to his family that he wanted a sung Requiem in Latin for his funeral. Fortunately, with more than a little help from the Dominicans, his wish was granted. And I know that all who were present were considerably moved by the liturgy. For many of us it was a reminder not just of old ways, but of the power of plainsong to shape our worship. And for those to whom it was a new experience it was, I believe, no less affecting, if at times more obscurely so…

Some of us who joined in the singing were out of practice, to put it very kindly. I hope we didn’t damage the ensemble too seriously. And I believe we didn’t for, though the Gregorian discipline demands as much careful respect, if not more, than other musical forms, it can cover a multitude of imperfections…

[L]ast month’s experience was a sharp reminder of what we have lost, or rather mislaid or thrown aside. I have written here before about the appalling philistinism which has allowed us to neglect so much of our western Catholic heritage: it is as if the Orthodox world had suddenly decided to embrace iconoclasm as a way of living and praying, and thrown all those images — which are plainsong’s rival in their deep and direct communication of the spiritual — on the ecclesiastical scrap heap. And I shudder to think what the more enthusiastic among them would have adopted as substitutes, what glossy meretricious essays in neo-sentimentality would have paralleled some of our recent hymns, post-modern effusions of sentimental pietism…

When we ignore plainsong, or for that matter, classical polyphony, to the point of banishing this great music from our churches and denying it to our younger people, we are depriving them and us of a spiritual enrichment whose value is more, far more, than aesthetic — important as that may be. It reminds me of nothing so much as the pathetic way so many of our great-(great-) grandparents believed that they must not pass the Irish language on to their children….such was the crazy logic of the time, they thought that a knowledge of Irish and of English were mutually exclusive. We now realise, or at least I hope we do, what an injustice was done in those days, from the best of motives.

Mind you, it is harder to see what has been the motivation of ‘getting rid of the oul’ Latin’ over the past thirty years or so. How can anyone have possibly seen such stupidity as an aid to liturgical renewal? Certainly the composition of vernacular settings was, and is, to be encouraged, but not to the exclusion of work of a standard which it would be difficult to emulate or approach overnight. And interestingly, the simple O’Riada Cúil Aodha Mass seems to be the most generally popular of all the new settings, not least among congregations who would be hard put to it to provide translations of the texts…The ‘poetry’ seems to get through, in spite of any verbal problems. Is there a moral here?

Some clips below from One Man’s Hero, which tells the story of the St. Patrick’s Batallion — Irish troops who defected from the US Army to the Mexican side in the Mexican-American War. Irish Catholic immigrants suffered horrible discimination in the very Protestant, nativist climate of 19th century America, and the prospect of a fellow-Catholic nation (Mexico) loosing territory to Protestant Anglo-Saxon expansionism aroused considerable sympathy among many Irish troops, who viewed it in terms of the Irish situation. There is an excellent essay here on the Batallion at the Catholic Culture site by Michael Hogan.

The San Patricios are still revered as hereos in Mexico today, though tragically forgotten in their native homeland. (It is testimony to the poverty of modern Irish foreign policy, insomuch as such a thing exists these days, that we aren’t developing our once very strong links with Latin America.)

¡Viva México!

“The need to recover a sense of ourselves is imperative. The demonization of our past has to stop, as does the cycle of blame about everything that has gone wrong in Ireland in the past hundred years. We have many important anniversaries planned between 2011 and 2016. They could be occasions of yet more recrimination, but, with good leadership in every aspect of Irish life, they will be times to begin healing, forgiveness and self-acceptance in a small island on the Atlantic edge of Europe.”

— Studies editorial, Autumn, 2011

The following account by Captain Count Roussel de Killough was first published in Revue du Monde Catholique and subsequently republished in translation in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, December, 1869:

(For background, read this)
 
It was worthy of Catholic Ireland, that noble daughter of the church, which has preserved intact the faith of St. Patrick in the midst of struggles, trials, and persecutions of every kind, to send to the pope a legion of her sons to fight beside the generous volunteers whom every vessel brought from France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. As my thoughts revert, after an interval of eight years, to this noble band, whose organization I superintended temporarily, I love to recall the great natural qualities which redeemed their defects, and, despite their disorders and uproar, and their incessant quarrels, won for the Irish the admiration of Lamoriciére, and merited the approval of the pope, who, after the crisis, desired to form around him a guard of these valiant soldiers, these indomitable heroes, these Catholics faithful to deaths.

Unfortunately, in the midst of the fatigues and excitement of this period, amid marches and countermarches, orders and countermands, it was impossible for me to keep a journal of the thousand and one strange incidents, daily events, interesting or amusing, of which I was a witness; indeed, they would furnish Alexander Dumas abundant matter for dramas and endless tales. I must limit myself to those scenes which have left the deepest impression on my memory.
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The follow advertisement appeared in America magazine, 15th February, 1969:

LATIN MASS

The beauty of the Latin Mass can still be yours — on record. “Missa Ave Verum,” sung by the Columbians, famous male choir, Mater Dei Council, Knights of Columbus. RCA’s finest quality 33⅓ LP, mono. 40 min. in length.

THE COMPLETE MASS SUNG IN LATIN

Appreciated by shut-ins
A wonderful gift

For prepaid delivery, send $3.50 ($3.00 each, for 5 or more) to:

LATIN MASS, Dept. L
P.O. Box 1777
Indianapolis, Ind. 46206

The Irish hierarchy resolved to send a letter of solidarity to the Church in France in 1906 at their October meeting in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. The following is the text of the letter (in translation) sent to Cardinal François-Marie-Benjamin Richard de la Vergne (in photo above), Archbishop of Paris:

Maynooth,
October 10^th, 1906.

Your Eminence,

The warm friendship which has always bound the Catholics of Ireland to their brethren in France and the signal favours which we have often received from the great and generous French nation, make it a special duty for us to share in your cares and sorrows, as you shared in ours in the days of our struggles for the faith of Jesus Christ.

We take occasion, therefore, at our annual meeting to express to Your Eminence, to the venerable Episcopate of France, to the clergy and the Catholic people of your country, our deep and most fraternal sympathy in the midst of the bitter trials through which you are passing today.

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http://www.irishcollege.org/2011/09/appointment-rector/

Many congratulations to Father Ciarán O’Carroll on his appointment as Rector of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome (founded 1628). Fr O’Carroll is an ecclesiastical historian — I found his book on Cardinal Cullen very impressive and think it challenges some of the received wisdom about that prelate’s life, legacy and attitudes towards movements for political reform. Well worth reading.

This is from today’s Irish News (click to zoom in) — a northern nationalist paper not always sold in the south, but whose religious coverage is generally much more informed and balanced than that of its Dublin counterparts. (Incidentally, if you’re fed up with the increasing fatuity of the Irish Times and Irish Independent, it may be worth considering as an alternative.)

See also the current editorial of the Irish Catholic. Fr Gabriel Burke and Fr John Horgan also make some very good points.

See also the Thirsty Gargoyle’s excellent analysis of the response.

Maynooth,
January 25^th, 1881.

Most Holy Father,

The bishops of Ireland assembled in Maynooth College to transact business connected with its administration deem it their duty to approach Your Holiness with the expression of love and reverence which have always animated the Irish episcopate towards the Apostolic See, and to thank Your Holiness for the fatherly letter which you have lately addressed to them through the Archbishop of Dublin.

It is needless to assure Your Holiness again that every word of counsel and advice coming from the successor of St. Peter will always receive a cheerful and prompt obedience from the children of St. Patrick; for the deepest devotion to the Roman See is Ireland’s special glory, and the proudest page of our history is that which records the unconquerable firmness and constancy with which our predecessors persevered, amid the fiercest storms of persecution, an unbroken union with the successor of Peter. That the love of the father has equalled the devotion of his children is fully attested by the vigilant and truly paternal care with which the Sovereign Pontiffs have in every age constantly watched over the interests of our country. In the letter received by us we find another proof of that fatherly solicitude, and that not the first which Your Holiness has afforded to our afflicted country.
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Here is David Quinn’s take (listen here) on the Holy See’s response to the Cloyne Report (worth reading in full).

The Irish hierarchy issued the following appeal in 1954 at their October meeting in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth:

Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers and dearly beloved brethren:

We desire to draw your attention to the wretched condition, especially from the spiritual standpoint, of the millions of Catholic refugees now in Western Germany.

The Potsdam Agreement in 1945 permitted the Russians to expel 14,000,000 people, mostly Germans, from the territories which came under their control at the end of the war; and of these about 9,000,000 made their way to Western Germany. This number has since been increased by a further 2,000,000, so that there are altogether in Western Germany about 11,000,000 refugees, of whom half are Catholics. The material conditions under which these refugees have to live are indeed wretched, but even more pitiable is the plight, from the spiritual standpoint, of those of them who are Catholics. Considerably more than half their priests died from the hardships which they had to endure during the period of migration, and of those that remain many are old or in delicate health and all are without material resources. The result is that large numbers of these poor Catholics are deprived of the ministrations of religion and of the consolations which Holy Mass and the sacraments could bring them.

Belgian and other Catholics have already done much to alleviate the needs of their refugee brethren in Germany; and we too, deeply sensible of their pitiable condition, have undertaken to help in founding a Mission House in Western Germany, from which priests will go out to celebrate Mass for refugees, to administer the sacraments to them and to give them sermons and instructions.

We ask you, Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers and dearly beloved brethren, to co-operate with us in this charitable work. These refugee Catholics are our brothers in Christ, they are bound to us by a bond more sacred and precious than that of humanity or fatherland; and they are in dire distress. We appeal to you then to pray that God may alleviate their condition, material as well as spiritual, and join with us in helping towards the establishment of a Mission House. Contributions for this purpose may be given to the parochial clergy or sent directly to the bishop of the diocese. No formal collection will be made.

The following is the text of a circular letter (in translation) issued by Monsignor Pedro Ladislao González y Estrada, Bishop of Havana (Cuba), on 22nd May, 1921:

Extraordinary circular letter urging the faithful to plead Almighty God so that the sad situation of Ireland may cease.

Ireland! The country that has so justly merited the name of “Isle of Saints,” the Catholic nation by excellence, the self-denied mother of noble and heroic martyrs, finds herself to-day in great tribulation, such as has had no precedent in the history of civilised countries.

That country, chosen by the Divine Providence to bear the foundations of the fervent and glorious churches of North America and Australia, mourns at present the persecution of its religious faith.

That free and supreme country is now crushed by the most odious tyranny, while her unquestionable rights, trampled now and again, are not vindicated by the nations that recently proclaimed themselves before the world to be the support of helpless and feeble countries.
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H/T Loyal to the Magisterium

John Minahane has an interesting response (‘The Self-Confidence of the Gaels’) in the current issue of Church and State to Pat Muldowney’s review (which I posted here) of his new book on An Argument Defending the Right of the Kingdom of Ireland — authored by the Lisbon-based Jesuit theologian Conor O’Mahony in 1645. He states that O’Mahony would be more accurately described as an Irish Ilya Ehrenburg than Ireland’s Himmler. While Minahane acknowledges Muldowney’s praise of the Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay as an “example of the contrast between the expansive cultures of Europe and other cultures” he also points out that the Paraguayan Jesuit Reductions presupposed an acknowledged cultural ascendancy which the Irish did not accord to their English conquerors: “They weren’t worthy of it. And they were never going to be worthy of it, no matter what they might do.”

Though already inclined to apologize politely for their community’s failings (even Hugh O’Neill did so on occasion!), the Irish had a tenacious feeling of being on an equal if not better level. I think that much can be gathered from O’Mahony’s book. Or from Philip O’Sullivan Beare’s book published a quarter of a century earlier. Or from the Remonstrance of the Irish Princes which was sent to the Pope in 1317, with its tremendous denunciation of the Anglo-Normans as wreckers of Irish civilization. Or even from Gerald of Wales’s accounts of his interchanges with Gaelic Irish prelates like the Archbishop of Cashel, right at the beginning of the conquest.

The Irish thought pretty highly of themselves. By the same token, the English feeling of cultural superiority was still undeveloped, though Francis Bacon and John Davies were working hard at it. One can feel the insecurity in someone like the writer of Pacata Hibernia, who is so obsessed with the personality and career of that great blighted talent, Florence McCarthy (whom the English twice kidnapped, for want of a better way of dealing with him), hating him like poison and yet fascinated by him.

Even the crushing material superiority of the English was only finally proved by Cromwell. Before that one might fancy the chances of the Irish side, as O’Mahony does. Actually, one major reason for this is unmentionable for O’Mahony because of his Portuguese attachments: the power of Spain. Spain was the greatest Catholic State and one could easily imagine that Spanish power would be able to establish and sustain its supporters in possession of Ireland against the English.

Supposing you were the ally of Philip II (then ruler of an empire on which the sun never set, whereas English imperial activity had hardly begun), why should you be overawed by the English? Or even supposing you were the potential ally of Philip III or Philip IV? It seems that the hope of being rescued by the power of Spain was still important in the 1640s. I cannot fill in all the details, but I think the Pope did not consider re-donating Ireland to Spain in 1647 without somebody in Ireland pressing for him to do so.

But it wasn’t only the real or intended allies of the Philips who felt no sense of inferiority. The land was full of people for whom Ireland was the measure of Ireland. It’s hard to get a feeling of that now, but in many ways it shaped all that happened.

Minahane’s aim has been to “try to restore a sense of Irish perspectives and Irish concerns, distinct from English concerns, in the 1640s and 17th century Irish history generally”.

No one has such a burden of hindsight as the historians of Ireland. How much they know, in their smug wisdom, that no one knew in 1645! With my book on O’Mahony I hoped to provoke some vestige of the sense of ignorance — that feeling of not knowing everything, of suffering some sort of lack of clear understanding, which makes us want to check all our bearings again.

Minahane’s book, which contains an introduction, explanation and translation of O’Mahony’s treatise, can be purchased from Athol Books here (scroll down to the bottom of the page) for €20. It is very well worth reading and gives a sad but exciting insight into the prospects facing the remnants of a rich and ancient civilization, just on the eve of its demise.

The aforementioned “Philip O’Sullivan Beare’s book published a quarter of a century earlier” is a reference to Hiberni vindiciae Hibernicae contra Giraldum Cambrensem (published in Lisbon in 1625) — and more commonly known as Zoilomastix. (The Latin text is reposted in full by Fr Aubrey Gwynn SJ in the Irish Manuscript Commission’s Analecta Hibernica of November, 1934). It also gives a fascinating insight into Gaelic Irish self-conception and how Irish nobles positioned themselves within a wider continental context. Far from being insular and isolated, Irish Gaels had close and long-established commercial, fishing and even scholarly links with Spain. In the popular self-conception of Gaelic Ireland the Irish race was descended from Miles Hispaniae. (Interestingly, recent studies in genetics by Prof. Brian Sykes of Oxford University have found a high level of genetic similarity between northern Iberia and Ireland, and suggests that these myths are at least partially derived from oral tradition of actual historical events).

Exiled Irish nobles in Spain put strong emphasis on what they claimed were the Spanish origins and identity of Ireland. O’Sullivan Beare is no exception. He is keen to assert the constant loyalty of the Irish to Catholicism since the time of St. Patrick, the fused ethno-religious relationship of the Irish to the Spanish and the suffering of the Irish at the hands of the English. This sense of fellow-feeling is reciprocated by their hosts (nuestros hermanos irlandeses, los españoles del norte as the Conde de Caracena, Governor of Galicia, wrote to King Philip III, after receiving O’Donnell with the most extravagant hospitality — the local archbishop even offered him his palace!) and Irish pretences to Iberian blood purity are simply accepted at face value (The Origins of Sectarianism in Early Modern Ireland, ed. Ford and McCafferty. [Cambridge University Press, 2005; p. 225.]) Unlike English law, Gaelic titles and social structures were upheld by the Spanish Crown; this is noteworthy given Spain’s contemporary concern with limpieza de sangre. (Incidentally, after O’Donnell died, his remains were interred with full regal honours in Valladolid Cathedral, where a monument was erected in his honour by the King of Spain.) Irish exiles were accorded a unique and privileged position in Spanish society — not without provoking resentment from some other European immigrants. This is because the Irish were viewed in Spain not as foreigners but as a northerly variant of the Spanish race — as ‘Northern Spaniards’.

This sets the context for ‘the self-confidence of the Gaels’. The destruction of Ireland was not an inevitable prospect and there is no reason why the Irish should have thought it was. Far from being isolated and militarily impotent to resist, as has often been thought, the Irish were intimate allies of what was then the most powerful country in the world – Spain.

Nothing makes for friendship like a common enemy. The political undertone and agenda of Irish appeals is easily discernible in a 1618 report on Ireland by the exiled Archbishop of Tuam, Florence Carthy, to King Philip III. Archbishop Carthy’s report offers a valuable insight into the conditions of early 17th century Ireland, and relations between the Irish and English nations. Particularly strong is his emphasis on the distinctions between the Irish and English and in his suggestions that the King should undertake an invasion of Ireland, which would be in the interests of Spain: “And the Ancient Irish, as these are descended from the Spanish, desire always to be governed by the Kings of Spain and their successors, and bear affection and love to the Spanish nation. Likewise great hate and enmity to their enemies and are sharp of wit and valiant in war, altogether like the Spaniard.” This is also seen a year later in the report of a Salamanca-educated Irish priest to the King lamenting the Stuart Plantation of Ulster, with the enterprise characterised as an attempt to undo the Milesian invasion of Ireland (the Milesian invasion is seen by the author as having been holy and beneficial) and native evictees described as ‘Catholic and Spanish Irish’. Whether factually accurate or not, the intent in both cases is not mere flattery but to convince the King of his obligation to help brethren in distress. When you’re faced with an indefinite period of persecution, the spoliation of all your property and the destruction of your entire society, it usually helps to have friends in high places. But, ultimately, not in this instance.

In a report dated June 10, 1582, Sir Henry Wallop (then Queen Elizabeth I’s Lord Justice of Ireland and soon to become a prominent figure in the Plantation of Munster) writes to William Cecil expressing frustration at the insubordination of the Irish and their refusal to conform to the Protestant religion:

The causes of rebellion, my good Lord, as I conceive them are these: — The great affection they generally bear to the Popish Religion, which agreeth with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves to a priest, or obtaining the Pope’s pardon, they persuade themselves they are forgiven. And hearing mass on Sunday or Holyday, they think all the week after they may do what heinous offence soever and it is dispensed withal.

They also hate our nation, partly through general mislike and disdain one nation hath to be governed by another, partly that we are contrary to them in religion, and lastly they seek to have the government among themselves.

The governours, for fear to stir them to rebellion, dare not, or have not power, to punish any outrage by any of the Irish Lords.

PART II — PART III

For background to this debate see also this excellent essay: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~donegal/chapter_one.htm

**************

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I am compiling a historical scrapbook on Vatican II and the subsequent liturgical reforms in the Church in Ireland. If you are interested, please send me an email and I’ll send it as an attachment.

Email: shanesemail2010atgmail.com (replace ‘at’ with @)

In May 1960, the Committee of The Vernacular Society of Great Britain decided to undertake a survey of priests to ascertain their opinions on the further application of the vernacular in the liturgy. The Society existed to “promote the use of the vernacular in the liturgical worship of the Catholic Church in Great Britain” and hoped the results of the survey would inform the prepatory work of the upcoming Ecumenical Council. Due to a lack of resources, the Society opted to confine the survey to one diocese — the Diocese of Portsmouth — and received the permission of Archbishop John Henry King to send a questionnaire to the clergy (both secular and regular) of that diocese.

The questionnaire was sent in July 1960 to a total of 302 priests — 137 secular and 165 regular — and replies were received from 122 priests (40%), of whom 60 were secular priests and 62 were regular.

The findings were published in the appendix section of the Clergy Review, April 1961, and are reposted below, preceded by the questions.

The questionnaire is prefaced with the observation that “the reform of the liturgy, initiated by St Pius X and continued under his successors, especially Pope Pius XII, is likely to be completed at the Second Vatican Council. In view of the interest aroused by suggestions that the Church should make greater use of the vernacular, at the expense of Latin, in the liturgy, The Vernacular Society of Great Britain, with the gracious permission of His Grace the Archbishop-Bishop of Portsmouth, has prepared this questionnaire, in the hope that the findings may assist in the prepatory work of the Council.”

PART I — Prepatory Questions

(1) If you are generally in favour of some use of English in the Mass number the following reasons in the order of their importance:

(a) The People would be made one with each other in Christ, and so formed into a community, more effectively, if they could pray aloud together and hear the Word of God in a language they understood.
(b) The liturgy would better achieve one of its own purposes, which is to teach people to know and love their Faith.
(c) In the Dialogue Mass, the people would be able to pray with their minds and hearts and not just in a mechanical way.
(d) It is more fitting that the Word of God should be proclaimed to the People of God in their own language.
(e) The Mass would be made more interesting and attractive, not only to our own people, but also to non-Catholics.
(f) The English language has its own dignity and beauty.

(2) If you are generally against any use of English at Mass, number the following reasons in the order of their importance:

(a) It would be detrimental to the unity of the Church.
(b) The Mass would no longer be so impressively the same everywhere.
(c) Such a change would be disloyal to the traditions of our martyrs in penal times.
(d) There is no popular demand.
(e) It would destroy the valuable element of mystery.
(f) It is difficult to make a fitting translation of the Latin.

PART II — The Mass

I would like to see the following parts in English:

(1) The Liturgy of the Word of God — The Fore-Mass

(a) the Kyrie. Yes/No
(b) the Gloria. Yes/No
(c) the Collect. Yes/No
(d) the Epistle. Yes/No
(e) the Gospel. Yes/No

(2) The Eucharistic Liturgy — The Holy Sacrifice

(a) the Secret. Yes/No
(b) the Postcommunion. Yes/No
(c) The Preface. Yes/No
(d) the Sanctus. Yes/No
(e) the Pater Noster. Yes/No
(f) the Agnus Dei. Yes/No

PART III — The Liturgy of Holy Week

I would like to see the following parts in English:

(a) the Passion. Yes/No
(b) other Scriptural lessons. Yes/No
(c) the Collects. Yes/No
(d) the Hymns. Yes/No

PART IV — The Divine Office

(a) I would like the Divine Office, when publicly celebrated, to be in English. Yes/No
(b) I would like to be able to recite the Divine Office in English. Yes/No

The following resolutions were adopted by the Irish hierarchy at a meeting in Dublin on 15th and 16th October, 1873:

Resolution No. 1. That, with a view to the improvement of Catholic Education, and in order to make our University a great centre of Catholic education throughout Ireland, we will take immediate steps to affiliate to it the several Colleges, Seminaries, and higher schools of our respective dioceses; that we approve and adopt the scheme proposed to our meeting relative to examinations for Matriculation and Degrees in Arts, Philosophy, and Theology; and that we sanction the arrangements for the creation of Bourses and Exhibitions, and authorize the University Council to complete and carry out this scheme in all its details.

Resolution No. 2. That we pledge ourselves to have the prescribed collection for the Catholic University made every year on the third Sunday of November, in every parish of our respective dioceses, giving it precedence of all local claims.
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Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, gave an address on ‘Authentic Catholicism vs Cafeteria Catholicism’ at the Catholic Voice Annual Dinner in Cork on 29th July. The following is the text of the address (slightly edited) from the current issue of the Catholic Voice newspaper.

Where Have All the Fighters Gone?

I am not going to talk about the Church in Ireland but I am going to talk about what I am trying to do in Australia, as an archbishop, and you can draw your own conclusions on what might, or what might not, be adaptable to here in Ireland. Despite my English Protestant name (and I am proud of my English heritage) I have plenty of Irish blood, most of it Catholic, and so I think that entitles me to make the first point, and that is that we Irish Australians, and I suspect the Irish, enjoy bad news. It’s like the Englishman whose face will light up when he says, ‘Isn’t the weather terrible?’ This, then, is my question: has all the good Irish blood gone overseas into the colonies? The Irish that I grew up with were fighters: they were people who had convictions and went and battled for them. Has the spirit of Dr. Daniel Mannix — one of the greatest exports of Cork — has his spirit vanished forever from this land? Are you going to sit on your tails and let 1000 years of tradition and faith just slip away? People are saying to me the same things they were saying to me back in 1998; we need this, we need that, nobody is doing anything — well, if nobody else is doing anything then you have to get it started yourself and if help comes, as it might or might not, at least you’re doing things. I realise that your presence here tonight is evidence of your desire and determination to do something BUT things are slipping and, from what I hear, you know you are slipping; so if others won’t act then do something yourselves.
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Reports that the Bishop of Danzig, Rt. Rev. Count Edward O’Rourke, was killed by communists in January, 1940, caused a stir in his ancestral homeland. Bishop O’Rourke’s ancestors belonged to the Ua Ruairc of Bréifne, but fled to the continent with the Wild Geese in the 17th century. After first establishing themselves in France, the family eventually settled in Russia and, like many exiled Irish dynasties, could boast of distinguished military acheivements. The family maintained strong contacts with Ireland, and continued to regard themselves as Irish. During the Famine the O’Rourkes organized food relief and sent a food ship to Ireland with supplies. Bishop O’Rourke was present at the 1932 Eucharistic Congress in Dublin (“I would not have missed it for anything”). In this letter to a friend in Dublin from February, 1940, he reassures him that he is still living and denies the media reports:

I have been three months in Rome awaiting in vain for a German visum to go back to Posen. The most part of September I was in Poland; practically all the time of the warfare there.

I was in Warsaw and in Siedlce during the bombardment of these cities, and came out of Poland with the help of a sympathetic German General, who sent me, with a motor car, to Eastern Prussia, and from there by sea I reached Stettin, and then Berlin and Rome.

The Germans were very kind to me, but they did not, and do not, wish me to go back to Posen.

The rumours, spread in the papers, that I was killed by the Bolshevists, were probably caused by the fact that my cousin, Count Charles O’Rourke, was arrested by the Bolshevists, and it was said that he was killed. But he was only put in prison, and is till now detained, in horrible circumstances, in a cell with 30 other prisoners. He is 78 years of age, ill, and very weak.

The President of Lithuania, Mr. Smetana, is trying to liberate him, but till now without success.

I was very amused by the cutting of the English paper. I am sorry I cannot confirm the good news it brought about me. But, fortunately, the bad news in the ‘Sunday Independent’ was not true.

In Ireland there are many happy people and I hope Ireland will remain neutral and not take part in that terrible trouble the Continent is going through.

An editorial in the Irish Catholic newspaper on the reaction to the Cloyne Report has harsh words on Irish Catholicism:

“Le catholicisme du type Irlandais” in many ways betrayed 14 centuries of unbroken and life-giving Christian tradition. Instead of fond memories of a nurturing Church, most remember an arrogant authoritarian Irish Church and a privileged clerical caste that obsessed over sexuality and hell fire and neglected the tender compassion of Christ.

These are not my memories. I struggle to recall even a single instance of a priest ever mentioning sex in a sermon. Perhaps that’s because I’m young — but even in the very different Church of the 1950s Irish priests rarely preached about sex (except at parish missions). I suggest most Irish Catholics could more easily relate to the experience of Eamon Ryan, leader of the Irish Green Party: “my childhood was defined more by the freedom and hope that came from the Second Vatican Council rather than any sense of religious repression.”

Attempts to isolate the peculiarities of Irish Catholicism (whether real or imagined) have a long history but recent reports have given the discussion renewed vigour. On the part of Irish Catholics themselves, this often descends into narrow, narcissistic navel-gazing. Stereotypes and prejudices about the Church in Ireland also seem to flourish on the Catholic blogosphere and I wonder if they really would survive critical scrutiny.

Has a lop-sided focus on the defects of Irish religious tradition (again, whether real or imagined) created a distorted image of its historic social role? Liberal theologian and literary professor, Fr Joseph S. O’Leary, believes so. Discussing the portrayal of priests in modern Irish literature, he expresses concern that recognition is not being given to the positive part played by clergy in Irish society:

I am afraid that the image of the clergy seen in the sombre mirror of twentieth century Irish fiction is a depressing one, more déclin than grandeur. Literature rarely flatters. If one were to portray married life in the nineteenth century on the basis of novels, it would seem an unrelieved hell. Yet the clerical reader of this literature is troubled – sua res agitur – for it chimes all too closely with the critical assault on Irish Catholicism now afoot in the real world. In both cases, justice is not being done to the admirable qualities of many Irish priests, the dedication, compassion, piety, which left a salutary mark on Irish society. The clergy, in their homilies and in their very presence held out the moral law to the Irish people. If their moral preaching fell into an abusive sexual puritanism, this was in harmony with the popular mindset of rural Ireland. If they preached Law more than Gospel, and if their sermons were theologically and biblically undernourished (as is still the case), this was compensated for by the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, which effectively brought the mercy and peace of Christ to the faithful. Today Ireland has acquired a new reputation for corruption in political and business life and crime is rampant. The disabled clergy no longer provide a moral voice.

A recent editorial in the Irish Jesuit magazine Studies likewise points out that Catholicism was once viewed as a very important component of Irish identity and its decline has left many people confused about who they are. Studies has certainly played a valuable role in Irish society. Since its foundation in 1912, it has functioned for the greater part of its existence as Ireland’s leading intellectual journal. Its academic heritage is fascinating.

But what actually interests me more are the criticisms of Irish Catholicism from a Catholic angle, and the defects (whether of a theological, liturgical or pastoral natural) that are frequently attributed to the Irish Church. Is the very negative perception that prevails on the blogosphere really just or warranted? Personally I have found these criticisms to rarely rise above cliché or caricature. I was discussing this with commenter jaykay, who discerned some common impressions of Irish Catholicism on Anglophone Catholic blogs: “that pre-V2 people attended [Mass] in droves, because of social compulsion, Masses that were liturgically inadequate and in Victorian churches of dubious architectural merit festooned with gaudy statues, and that the Irish Church was basically a peasant Church for a peasant people producing no distinguished theologians or music or art etc. Now, some of this was true to some extent, as we know, but it by no means encapsulates the reality and I think that your site brings this out.”

I would welcome discussion on this from readers, whether Irish or not. Despite my overall positive take on Irish Catholicism, feel free to disagree.

(Note: This post and the comments will be deleted after 21 days so don’t get overly worried about saying something you might later want to revise.)