Ireland’s 40-Percent Solution

The Catholic Thing ^ | May 26, 2015 | Robert Royal

[NYer]

You have to hand it to the Irish bishops, priests, and religious. It’s not easy to de-Christianize a whole people. Yet they managed, in about a generation, to help detach an almost entirely Catholic population from its 1500-year-old religious and social roots. Social “scientists” are going to have to closely study this phenomenon, which far exceeds what has happened even in what used to be thought of as bellwether secularizing states like Germany and France.

The media have been touting the massive popular support, over 60 percent, for gay marriage in Ireland’s referendum last Friday. It’s clear that they regard it as a harbinger of things to come: if that can happen in Ireland, what’s next? And at the superficial, incurious level of media-driven discourse, it is remarkable. But more remarkable by far – and something to consider for the future – is the 40 percent who did not go along, which is, at the very least, a minor miracle in our day.

It’s all too easy – and misleading – to list the usual “secular” reasons for “secularization.” Yes, there were sexual and financial scandals in the hierarchy and several religious orders. Yes, the “Celtic Tiger” experienced rapid economic growth and social change. Yes, some think science eliminates the need for religion. Yes, the political leadership in Ireland caved in to gay propaganda and intimidation – not a single political party or major public figure urged “No.”

But to think that these things explain the outcome is not to think like a Christian. A Christian starts from a different place. How is it that the Irish, like others who have left the Catholic Church, have not, in large numbers, become atheists – which is to say outright non-believers – but in their spirituality and religiosity have turned to something other than classic Christianity? And where did many get the idea that they’re Christian, and even that their “openness” and “tolerance” are more Christian than Catholicism? (Look carefully at all those faces in the photos.)

Here’s part of an answer. Over the past few years, I’ve been tangentially involved through the Catholic Distance University (an orthodox, online institution) with setting up a formation program for catechists in Ireland. Nota bene, this is not an effort to teach the Irish directly, but to form teachers who would have to convey the faith to them.

Why was such a program necessary – and why is it that it took an American woman, living in Ireland, to come up with the idea and promote it to various dioceses? Simply put, in the past few decades there was no longer anything reliably Catholic in education programs on the Emerald Isle. It was easier to bring something from outside, from the fabled shores of America.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, a decent man but not a very vigorous leader, noted as the vote approached how odd it was that many young people supported gay marriage, even though they had attended Catholic schools for twelve years or more. Many people, including perhaps the archbishop himself, regard this as a “rejection” of Catholic moral teaching. But that assumes teachers in those schools were strongly presenting that teaching. As we know, from San Francisco to Dublin, that is not necessarily the case.

In fact, the archbishop himself, perhaps thinking it would avoid a political backlash, said last week that he personally was voting “No,” but would not tell anyone else how to vote. (Some commentators have claimed he was following Pope Francis, who was silent about the Irish vote and recently told the Italian bishops that they should trust their own people to do the right thing, not try to tell them what to do.)

People will choose different approaches to hard questions, and we owe some deference to an archbishop in such a situation. But people notice when a Church leader is triangulating for support like a politician, rather than boldly preaching the Gospel, like a follower of Jesus.

I myself would have risked the backlash and would even have preferred sounding like a fundamentalist preaching fire and brimstone – which, after all, Jesus Himself did quite often. All that stuff about unquenched fire and Gehenna, and the salt losing its savor.

The longer game now, however, must be to renew real Christian teaching and to woo people back to the love of Christ’s Church. The two, as Pope Francis has emphasized, must go together. It’s a sound Thomistic insight that most people are not and cannot become philosophers and theologians. Most people who want to think themselves Christian have to be confident that there are people they trust – and revere – who have Christian answers to difficult moral and spiritual questions, even if most Christians don’t know the arguments themselves.

That connection and confidence have been lacking in Ireland – and many other places – for a generation or two now.

In the wake of the Irish vote, a priest sent me a passage from St. Augustine’s Enchiridion, which describes how “crimes were not only not punished, but were openly committed, as if under the protection of the law. And so in our own times: many forms of sin, though not just the same as those of Sodom and Gomorrah, are now so openly and habitually practiced, that not only dare we not excommunicate a layman, we dare not even degrade a clergyman, for the commission of them.”

After decades of dithering, it will be a long way back from where we are now. Despite everything, let’s take heart from the almost 40 percent who did right in Ireland, under heavy pressure and facing long odds. As Chesterton’s Virgin puts it to King Alfred, facing a barbarian horde, in The Ballad of the White Horse:

I tell you naught for your comfort,

Yea, naught for your desire,

Save that the sky grows darker yet

And the sea rises higher.

 

Night shall be thrice night over you,

And heaven an iron cope.

Do you have joy without a cause,

Yea, faith without a hope?

[9thLife]

Last time I checked, a "great apostacy" was part of the plan.

And none to soon in coming, for my money.

[NYer]

RELATED: How Catholic Ireland Became the First Country to Vote for Same-Sex ‘Marriage’

Worth reading!

[GeronL]

I wonder how many of those voters had ever heard an argument from the other side?

[demshateGod]

Marginalize 40% of the population just so 1% can avoid the shame of depravity.

[Red_Devil 232]

I thought this wa going to be about 40% Whiskey to water!

[MeganC]

The Catholic Church itself contributed to the falling away as their scandalous acts particularly involving the infamous “Laundries” became widely known. Enslaving rape victims because they had the temerity to fall pregnant from their attackers is the absolute height of tyranny and hypocrisy.

It is no wonder then that a popular cynicism would set in regarding the Catholic Church in which young people would find no attraction in an institution that institutionalized oppression.

[Impy]

In fact, the archbishop himself, perhaps thinking it would avoid a political backlash, said last week that he personally was voting “No,” but would not tell anyone else how to vote.

Profiles in courage.

You know personally, I think Hindenburg would be a better President than Hitler but I won't presume to tell anyone else how to vote.

[allendale]

Ireland has forsaken Christianity and jumped into the epicurean, neo pagan, decadent toilet.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

In all fairness, the Catholic church in Ireland has invited tremendous public disdain for things such as horrific corruption and scandal, and even enslaving women and children with the tacit approval of Ireland’s government as late as 1996. When that government finally fell, there was reform as great as when the Soviet Union collapsed.

http://americablog.com/2013/02/magdalen-laundries-catholic-ireland-irish-apology.html

“The Irish Prime Minister gave a partial apology today for the government’s role in a 74-year scandal in which, a new official government report says, over 10,000 women were forced to work without pay at commercial laundries called Magdalene Laundries, operated by the Catholic Church for “crimes” as small as not paying a train ticket.

“...the estimate of the number of women who were used as forced slave labor by the Catholic Church in Ireland alone goes as high as 30,000 over the entire time the Magdalene laundries were in operation.

“The women were locked in and not permitted to leave. And if they tried to get away, the cops would catch them and bring them back. They were quite literally Catholic slave labor working for the government and even Guinness, which would pay the laundries for the women’s slave labor.

“Half of the girls enslaved in these Catholic Church prisons were under the age of 23. The youngest entrant was 9 years old.”

The bottom line is that the name of the Catholic church in Ireland right now is “mud”. They are lucky that as an institution, the government is not demanding hundreds of millions of Euros in compensation to its victims.

[Honorary Serb]

Look who’s been funding the campaign that led to the sodomite victory in Ireland:

http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/sites/default/files/uploads/Atlantic-LGBTCluster-ROI.pdf

http://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen2/15b/Ireland-marriage-vote/index.html

Before the late 12th century Norman invasion, Ireland was Orthodox. As they were resisting and finally getting rid of English rule, they never thought about going back. If they did, might they have been as resistant to foreign “gay” propaganda as Russia or Serbia? I don’t know!!

[El Cid]

How is it that the Irish, like others who have left the Catholic Church, have not, in large numbers, become atheists – which is to say outright non-believers – but in their spirituality and religiosity have turned to something other than classic Christianity?

"Classic Christianity"?
I'm not sure that I find a dime's worth of difference between the atheists and these folks who have made a god who they think is acceptable (i.e., thinks like they think. A god made in their own image).
Sure, idolaters are not atheists - but they are not worshiping God nor seeking to worship God.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

On the face of it, “enslaving” seems to be a gross misnomer. Requiring people to “work off” their crime for a set period of time isn’t exactly unheard of.

[Albion Wilde]

Is it not possible that the One-Worlders and the pro-caliphates funded and carried out massive voter fraud? They have certainly been active in this country, which is much larger. Queering the vote in Ireland is small potatoes in comparison.

[NKP_Vet]

27% of the Irish electorate voted in the homo marriage referendum. The vast majority of Irish, both protestant and catholic will not be seen going in the front door of a church.
The entire country sold it’s soul to the devil years ago.

[Unam Sanctam]

Very depressed about this vote. But Robert Royal is right, there has been no proper catechesis in the Church for decades, and this vote is just the fruit of that betrayal by bishops and the clergy.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

"It’s a sound Thomistic insight that most people are not and cannot become philosophers and theologians. Most people who want to think themselves Christian have to be confident that there are people they trust – and revere – who have Christian answers to difficult moral and spiritual questions, even if most Christians don’t know the arguments themselves."

In a communitarian culture people who are not experts in theology will defer to theologians. However, in an individualistic culture people will tend to depend on their own intuitions.

Even in our individualistic culture, people are willing to defer to scientists when the math gets too difficult, but not so for philosophy or theology.

I think one problem is that most people think that philosophy is much easier than it really is. So lots of people feel that they can make intelligent choices with regard to what is moral and good.

Part of any religious training should be exposure to how difficult moral reasoning can be so that amateurs know they can go wrong if they depend on their own limited reasoning skills.

Just telling people "Trust us, homosexuality is deviant" won't cut it. Also, coming up with very simplistic arguments like "Here, look at this verse in Leviticus" won't cut it either.

A lot of the arguments I see here on FR against gay "marriage" are so simplistic and lame that I can understand why they are not compelling to anyone but the choir. There is also a general disdain for philosophy and theology here on FR. "Just read your Bible" seems to be the ready answer to most controversies.

If the level of discourse from the conservative side doesn't rise above circular reasoning and ad hominem attacks then there is no reason to hope for a turnaround any time soon.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

However it included abuse in Catholic-run orphanages and workhouses for children. The Irish government since has paid more than 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to more than 13,000 people who suffered sexual, physical and psychological abuse in the children’s residences.

Many of the women were imprisoned for life, beaten if they resisted, sexually abused, etc. Importantly, this was a profit making enterprise, and offenses were often just moral, not criminal, for example unmarried pregnancy resulting in both the mother and their child being made slaves.

[BillyBoy]

Ironically, nearly all the Catholic Archbishops & Cardinals with spine are in African countries. The US and European ones are mostly wimps, and that includes the “very conservative” ones.

And don’t get me started on Illinois, where the bishops have spine with the EXCEPTION of the Archbishop of Chicago (and that includes when Cardinal George held the position).

[Impy]

Africa is where people are under daily threat from Islam, AIDS, and other nasties. I would imagine Priests NEED spine there. That men without them would not seek the job there.