Catholicism and Socialism

 

 

 

 

SOCIALISM

 

A series of Lenten Discourses against Socialism delivered by Father Robert Kane, S.J., in Gardiner Street Church, Dublin, 1910.

 

 

Nihil obstat: G. DELANY, S.J., Praepositus Provinciae Hibernicae

Nihil obstat: F. E. O’LOUGHLIN, Censor Theologiae Deputat.

Imprimi Potest: +GULIELMUS, Archiep. Dublinensis, Hiberniae Primas.

Dublini die 12 Julii, 1910.

 

PREFACE

IN offering these lectures to the public at the request of those whose advice is to me a welcome command, I wish to call the marked attention of my readers to some most important points. First, these lectures treat of real Socialism, that is to say, the social theory which would give to the democratic State the exclusive ownership, administration, and distribution of all wealth and of all means of wealthmaking. Thus, once for all the innumerable multitude of men and women who call themselves Socialists merely because they are in favour of philanthropic movements, are ruled out of court. Secondly, I have no quarrel with those who advocate social reform. Nay, rather, I fully recognise how sincerely and how nobly many men and women sigh and strive for the betterment of the masses. They have my most warm sympathy. Thirdly, to some readers, some of my expressions may appear too harsh, some of my condemnations too extreme. To this I answer, that, on the one hand, when dealing with dangerous principles, whether of dreamers or of desperadoes, the extreme of courtesy may be an extreme of cowardice ; and that, on the other hand, in an endeavour to protect our people against principles that lead to irreligion and immorality, it is wiser as well as more honourable, to speak plain Saxon. Fourthly, it has been remarked by some few that the question of Socialism is not at all a practical one in Ireland. But, such a remark can only be made by one unable to perceive that principles distinctly Socialistic in their character are being taught amongst our people, not now by many nor with wide success, but quite sufficiently to call loudly for that prevention which is better than cure.

A Scot who shook the Maynooth progressives

Three years ago I uploaded to this blog a marvellous 1973 exposé of the post-conciliar disintegration of Ireland’s national seminary: The Scandal of Maynooth (which I believe is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the roots of the decay of Irish Catholicism). The dossier provoked a massive media debate on the state of Irish Catholicism and its author Hamish Fraser engaged in a lengthy correspondence with supporters and critics in the Irish newspapers. Shortly afterwards he was interviewed by Des Moore of the Sunday Independent about his life, his communist past, his conversion to Catholicism and his sparring with the Irish bishops. The full text of the interview (published in the Sunday Independent on 9th December, 1973) is posted below:

Hamish Fraser, the Scottish ex-Communist who became a Catholic in 1948, recently attacked Maynooth College in his magazine “Approaches” and went on to describe some of the theological outpouring there as nothing short of being “The Scandal of Maynooth”. Inevitably his outburst caused Irish people to ask again: “Who is Hamish Fraser?” Sunday Independent writer Des Moore visited Frazer in his home in Scotland and apart from tracing his curious and often turbulent past, put some pungent questions to Fraser about the Catholic Church as he sees it today, particularly in the light of Vatican II. Fraser speaks out frankly here in what is bound to be described as one of the controversial interviews of the year.

Ice-bound roads led me through snow-mantled Scottish hills to the Ayrshire coast, to Saltcoats, and to the one-time Communist who has flung down the gauntlet to Maynooth and taken to task the Irish bishops.

The town in which he lives looks across the Firth of Clyde to the Island of Arran, its deserted promenade whipped by a winter wind, and 1 Waverley Place was a corner house in its sandstone suburbia.

He is a big one this Hamish Fraser — a burly man with blunt, uncompromising features and blunt, uncompromising talk. He wears a thick, hand-knit pullover over an open-necked shirt, and although he is 60, the hair brushed briskly back from a low forehead is still brown.

The Catholic Church in Contemporary Ireland (1931)

3 Benedictine nuns gathering peat in a bog in Co. Mayo, ca. 1920s.

See also: Priests and People in Ireland (1957)

The following paper was read by Dr. James F. Kenney at the 12th annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association on 29th December, 1931, at Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA:

In the county of Antrim, on the north coast of Ireland, about ten miles to the east of the Giant’s Causeway, lies the little town of Ballycastle. It grew up in a valley running inland southwest from a small bay, not far from one of the castles of the MacDonnells of the Glens. To the north the town is sheltered from the sea by high ground, where the Catholic church and other religious institutions now stand; to the south rises the dark mountain of Knocklayd, 1695 feet high, one of the more prominent of the Antrim hills. The MacDonnells of the Glens were a branch of the family of the Lords of the Isles, who, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, obtained by marriage a domain in this northeast corner of Ireland. Ballycastle is an out-settlement from the Glens, and, like them, has a considerable Catholic population. The MacDonnells, earls and marquesses of Antrim, although becoming Protestants themselves, protected their Catholic dependents, with the result that today, in Protestant Northeast Ireland, this extreme northeast corner, the Glens of Antrim, is held by a Catholic community.

Bishop William Philbin on Rural Ireland — its Problems and Possibilities

Photos from Inniscarra, Co. Cork:

Switch on at Inniscarra, 22 December 1947. (Note the prominent presence of the local priest – a testimony to times when clergy were expected to take on a leadership role in their communities extending beyond purely religious matters.)

Rollout of the Rural Electrification Scheme, 1947

Inniscarra Dam in 1957 — constructed as part of the Lee Valley Hydro-electric scheme

The following lecture was given by the Most Rev. William J. Philbin D.D., Bishop of Clonfert, to the Agricultural Science Association in University College Dublin on 25th September, 1959:

Emigration, with its roots in the lack of a livelihood at home for all our people, is the chief social and economic problem in Ireland. It is usually considered in association with the depopulation of country districts, not only because the exodus is mainly from the agricultural community — which might, perhaps, be regarded as a natural consequence of our being mostly a rural people — but also for the reason that the drift from the land, even within our own country, is matter for worry in itself. We are concerned, not merely to keep our people in Ireland, but also to keep them on the land. Our land needs more workers to develop its potentialities and, if progress is made in this way, it is capable of supporting a much larger number of people than at present — with consequential rises in output and in economy of production. Our agricultural rivals are making these truths more unpleasantly clear of late years. Although the development of agriculture alone may not meet all our needs, it is recognized by everyone as an essential part of any economic progress and as likely to remain indefinitely in that position. It is the starting-point in our industrial regeneration. The well-being of the majority of our people — and, therefore, that of our people as a whole — depends on the use we make of our soil. There is every reason, therefore, why we should consider critically every aspect of Irish farming and explore every possible approach to its betterment.

Animosities In A Vacuum

 
by Brendan Clifford,
Church and State; Third Quarter, 2008

 
Oxford University was appealed to by Raymond Crotty (founder of the Irish Sovereignty Movement) to take Ireland in hand intellectually, because the Irish were unable to think for themselves. It has now published a volume on Ireland as part of its Oxford History Of Modern Europe. But, alas, it farmed out the work of writing it to a Stickie academic, who was a political adviser to David Trimble during the years when Trimble was leading the Ulster Unionist Party to disaster, and who has now joined his leader in the House of Lords.

The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland

The following is an editorial from Church and State magazine (the organ of the old Campaign to Seperate Church and State), January, 2010:

“The Age Of My Craven Deference Is Finally Over.” That was the headline on Professor Ronan Fanning’s article on the Murphy Report (Sun. Independent, 6 Dec.). Well, it was almost the headline. Fanning used the collective “our” rather than the personal “my”. But in the case of the Professor of Modern History at the chief College of the National University the personal and the collective merge. The Professor (singular) determines in great part what characterised the plurality of those who went through the educational system to its highest level.

It became well known to us long ago that the paid intelligentsia of the state were craven in their attitude towards the Church. They were sceptics in private but were cynically respectful in public, because they were craven.

The Christian Doctrine of Work

The following was a lecture given to the Congress of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, 1954, by the Very Rev. John Canon McCarthy, D.C.L., D.D.

In the world of to-day attempts are being made, consciously and unconsciously, to departmentalize human life, to cordon it off into separate areas, and to prevent or disclaim communication between these areas. In particular, it is frequently suggested to-day that the religious life of man is a sphere apart, that it is confined to times of prayer, to Churches and to Sundays, that it is a sort of trimming on the general fabric of human living. This is not the true or Christian concept of life which considers the total man with all his aspirations and hopes, in all his activities external and internal, in all his relations and combinations within the social structures. Christianity is not a doctrinaire thing. Nor is it a mere partial or part-time philosophy of living. It is a practical way of life impinging upon and directing every area of human activity, individual and collective. A basic tenet of Christianity is that man’s ultimate destiny is the face to face vision of God in heaven, and that his earthly life, with all its diversities of function, with all its strains and stresses, is a period of preparation for, and merit of, that vision splendid. We have not here a lasting city. We seek for one that is to come. We seek that city, we reach out to it, we merit it, by knowing, loving and serving God here below.

This intelligent loving service is not restricted to any sphere of activity, to any particular time or to any special place. It must enter into the daily ways of life, into the recesses of the heart, into our homes, into the fields, the highways and the market place, into the shops, the offices and the councils. This, in brief, is the comprehensive vision and design of life and of its purposes which Christianity presents to us: there is no area of human living to which its doctrines and ideals do not apply.

The Purpose of Catholic Action

From the Irish Independent, October 25th, 1937:

 

Marriage Not Slavery

“Ireland is very favourably situated from many points of view. There is no limit to the full unfettered Catholic life, but there are certain fields far from perfection,” said Most Rev. Dr. Browne, Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh, lecturing on “The Purpose of Catholic Action,” under the auspices of the Aquinas Study Circle at the Dominican Convent, Taylor’s Hill, Galway, yesterday.

The first thing confronting the boy or girl leaving school was to earn a livelihood that would give him or her a sufficient wage and security against sickness or unemployment.

“It is a fact that under present conditions a great number of people are deprived of security and sufficiency. It is this that makes the question so perplexing. These boys and girls are often told that socialism is the only thing that will give them sufficiency and security, and we Catholics must show them that Socialism is not the remedy but only makes matters worse.

The Winnowing of the Wheat from the Chaff

The following article was published in Church and State magazine, First Quarter, 2010.

The Fall of the Irish Catholic Church: Part 2 by Julianne Herlihy

“The notion of race was even more to the fore in the thought of the eugenicists, an influential current of opinion in the birth control movement of the 1920’s, as also, in child welfare. Under the optic of ‘race hygiene’, the poor were mental and moral defectives, a hereditary selection of the unfit—the ‘sub-normal types’ who fascinated the imagination of inter-war social investigators—and whose compulsory sterilisation a Parliamentary Commission in 1933 was solemnly pondering“.
(Patriotism: The Making And Unmaking Of British National Identity. Vol. 11: Minorities and Outsiders. Ed. by Raphael Samuel. Routledge. London & New York.1989.)

“For us—for the Catholic Church—there is a feeling of deep-seated hatred—a feeling that lies as deep as the gravel bottom over which London stands. It seems it is an English feeling—hatred of Catholicity… This bitter dislike… shows itself everywhere… and it burns with a malignant, sulphurous flame … a Catholic Priest is like the prowling wolf or the crafty fox, and a show of millions of hands would be uplifted at any hour to banish us out of the country, if the thing were possible.”
(The Great Link. Canon Bernard Bogan. London. 2nd Edition. 1958.)

Reading the newspapers over the last few weeks in Ireland and listening to the commentariat howling outrage at the Church was rather like the experiences encapsulated in the above quotations.

From the media to the Dail, there was no attempt at objectivity; only the most toxic quotient fell upon our ears. When the good and elderly Bishop Willie Walshe of Killaloe referred to a “public trial of Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick” (79 years old) on an RTE Radio programme, he was immediately called to book by The Irish Times. Next day they revealed “that in a sometimes emotional interview… he accepted that he now realised “my interview caused a lot of offence and maybe I used words which weren’t appropriate but it’s not in my nature to make a judgement on anyone. I am too well aware of my own frailties. I accept the fact that I may not have put the case well”…”.

During the year, we had the international scandal of the Swiss seizing the great film Director Roman Polanski on an outstanding warrant that the United States had out on him since he fled from their jurisdiction some thirty years ago. He was up on charges which were admitted— that he had drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. He fled to a very forgiving Europe before the trial started and has remained mainly in France since with
his second family. Now the Swiss have him tagged in his multi-million chalet after releasing him from custody but awaiting execution of the warrant. All of liberal America is horrified at the Swiss burgers. Whoopie Goldberg, an Oscar-winning actress said: “It wasn’t rape, rape.” From the 1 in 4 and other campaigning children’s right’s groups here, as well as the all powerful Rape Crisis Centre—there has been not a peep.

Salazar and Catholic Social Teaching

From the Irish Press, February 21st, 1940:

“Encyclicals Basis Of Salazar Plan”

Socialism does not raise the proletariat: it reduces all to proletarians and makes all just robots in an inhuman State machine, crushing out personality and destroying individual liberty, said Rev. P. J. Gannon, S.J., in the course of a paper on “Salazar and His Work,” at the second session of the Catholic Social Week, in the Mansion House, Dublin, last night.

Portugal, he went on, had the honour of presenting them at the moment with the most successful attempts yet made to solve the problems which were troubling all people simultaneously and menacing their very civilisation. In many respects Ireland and Portugal resembled each other. Yet, they must not overlook the points of difference either.