Category Archives: Apologetics
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.
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Priests and People in Ireland
The following lecture was given to the annual Maynooth Union Summer School in 1957 by Rev. Kevin Smyth, S.J., Professor of Fundamental Theology at Milltown Park, Dublin.
Dr. Samuel Johnson said that the Irish were a very fair-minded people: he never heard one Irishman speaking well of another. The same sentiment was echoed unconsciously by an Irish priest when he was asked was there any prospect of the beatification of Father Willie Doyle: “No….you’ll never get one Irishman to swear to the sanctity of another.” This attitude causes a grave difficulty to anyone taking a Gallup poll about how people regard their priests in Ireland: the first thing that the subject thinks of is criticism. “The bitther word” rises only too readily to the lips of the Irishman, and if you were fool enough to ask a straight question of a layman, he would probably begin by translating your question into: “What have I got against the priests?”
On the other hand, just as the first reaction is one-sided, it is also often superficial, and the Irishman is as insincere in his blame as he is extravagant with it. Loose talk does not represent the permanent and deep-seated attitude of people towards priests, and most people are incapable of valid generalisations, and inarticulate about their most vital and fundamental loyalties. Our difficulty is therefore to assess the real relationship on its merits, apart from conventions and habits, and to distinguish glib criticism, which people do not really stand over, from the real discontent which may be as potentially explosive as it is silent and unformulated.
My own effort to get some facts, to relate particulars to the universal, to interpret such generalisations as I dared to form, has been haunted by misgivings. Ever since I accepted the invitation to read this paper I have been saying to myself: who am I to draw up the indictment of a nation? How does one take the pulse and the temperature of a people? My only excuse and encouragement is that each of you in the audience is better informed than myself, and therefore that each of you is even more keenly conscious of the difficulty of describing “the present position of Catholics in Ireland” than I am, so that I can count on your sympathy. The best I hope to do is to spark off discussion or contradiction on some points, so that you yourselves may complete and balance the picture, out of your better judgement and wider experience. At any rate, we shall be dwelling on matters about which we all care deeply: our own purposes are involved, as well as the great issues of Ireland’s Catholic future and her almost indispensable contribution to the Church in England and overseas.
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The Messenger Question Box (No. 1 and 2)
The Irish Messenger of the Sacred Heart, a monthly Jesuit devotional magazine, has been an integral part of the Irish religious landscape since its foundation by Fr Paul Cullen, S.J., in 1888. The magazine cultivated an intense devotional life and penetrated every parish on the island, reaching a peasantry that was both desperately poor and devoutly Catholic by means of an elaborate voluntary distribution system. Up until a few decades ago, it was not uncommon for the sole reading material in many rural households to be the monthly Sacred Heart Messenger.
One noteable feature of the publication was the ‘Messenger Box’ column, where readers would ask questions about various aspects of the Catholic faith, and have those questions answered by Jesuit priests. The column gives an insight into the internal temper of a popular religious culture that was then flourishing but rapidly disintegrated after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). Some of the questions in the pamphlets are quite amusing in their innocence and piety:
Q. – May a person who inadvertently tastes milk, but does not swallow it before going to Mass, receive Holy Communion that Morning?
A. – Yes.
Q. – Is it permissible to wash teeth just before going out to receive Holy Communion?
A. – It is permissible and advisable to wash teeth before receiving Holy Communion.
Q. – My teeth get easily discoloured and sometimes I cannot remove this discolouration before going to Holy Communion. May I go to Holy Communion with my teeth in that state?
A. – Yes.
Q. – Is it sinful to inhale the smoke of cigarettes before going to Holy Communion?
A. – No, though out of reverence to the Blessed Sacrament a person is advised to refrain from so doing.
Q. – Are bad thoughts, which come into a person’s mind against his will just before Communion and at other times, sinful and should such thoughts be confessed?
A. – Provided a person does his best to resist such thoughts, they are not sinful and need not be confessed.
Published in 1935 and 1938, these special pamphlets reproduce questions featured in the Sacred Heart Messenger in the previous few years. In those days the Messenger was the most widely read publication in Ireland. Despite the secularization of Irish society since the 1960s, the Messenger retains a readership of over 300,000, making it the second most popular publication in the country (after the RTÉ TV Guide).
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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.
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The Maynooth Catechism (1951)
The Maynooth Catechism was approved by the Irish hierarchy in 1951, and was specially intended for teaching primary-school children, who were required to memorize each prescribed answer by rote.
Lux Occulta 