Category Archives: Economics
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.
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Pope John XXIII on Muintir na Tíre
TO OUR BELOVED SON
MAURICE MORRISSEY,
CHAIRMAN OF MUINTIR NA TÍRE
In 1954 Our Predecessor of happy memory, Pius XII, was pleased to address a Letter to John M. Hayes, founder of Muintir na Tíre, referring in particular to the fact that ‘in order to promote the practice of justice and charity in each one’s immediate surroundings, Muintir na Tíre fosters a spirit of neighbourliness and self-reliance, and it inspires individuals to devote themselves to the good of the community even at a cost of personal sacrifice.’ On the occasion of the Rural Week which marks the Silver Jubilee of your Movement, We Ourselves wish to send a message of encouragement to all who co-operate in this praiseworthy work.
Your beloved founder, with his inspiring leadership, had traced the path; and since his death, his steadfast followers, faithful to his ideals, have continued and consolidated the enterprise which his generous zeal had shaped. Local communities are stimulated to identify their particular needs, to strive for the economic, social and cultural advancements of their parishes and to make effective use of public services. Encouragement and guidance have been derived from the study of the use of community organization abroad for the promotion of development, and sociological research into the problem of emigration had been inaugurated.
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Archbishop’s McQuaid’s Letter on Charitable Bodies
The following letter from the Most Rev. John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, was read out in all the churches of the Diocese of Dublin on Sunday, 18th September, 1960:
In the Catholic Social Service Conference the financial year ends on June 30. The audited accounts for the past year reveal a wise administration of the charitable funds that the Faithful have generously put at the disposal of the Conference.
Of the £51,041 disbursed, only 2.27 per cent has been spent in administration.
This year, 21 Food Centres were maintained in which the poor, without any exception, could obtain each day a balanced meal. 2,379,979 meals were distributed.
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The Glorious Revolution: Church and Class
by Peter Brooke
Labour & Trade Union Review; 1988
What did the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 achieve? Or, rather, what followed it and may have resulted from it? England is distinguished in Europe as the only country which achieved the transition from a peasant/craftsman economy to an industrial economy without a violent transformation of its political structures. The Glorious Revolution instituted political structures which were sufficiently flexible to accommodate economic change.
There are many aspects to this question, but the one on which I wish to concentrate is the elimination of the idea of government as a spiritual authority. This is not exactly the same thing as the elimination of the Church as a political power in the land. That had already been achieved; it was the principle work of the Reformation. The whole thrust of Lutheranism and Anglicanism was the subjection of the Church to the national government. Calvinism attempted to reverse the process and reassert the independent authority of the Church but everywhere it was defeated. It came closest to success in Scotland after the Glorious Revolution, but the defeat of the Church of Scotland was a major consequence—and purpose—of the Act of Union with England in 1707. This was shortly followed by patronage acts which asserted the authority of the British parliament over the Church.
Bishop Con Lucey on the Common Good
The following is an extract of a sermon given by Dr. Cornelius Lucey, Bishop of Cork and Ross, to a Confirmation ceremony at St. Mary’s Church, Innishannon, Co. Cork, on the 22nd May, 1966:
The country is in a rather bad way at the moment. Industrial unrest is widespread. There is a stirring among the small farmers who find themselves being liquidated at the rate of 10,000 a year. More and more of the country, its land and its businesses, are falling into the hands of aliens — indeed, absentee aliens — and, with a public debt of over £700,000,000, we are coming to the end of living by loans.
All in all there is a feeling of national frustration and national crisis, such as there has not been since the ‘thirties. It is a dangerous feeling and this is a dangerous moment. Changes there will have to be right away, calculated to ensure security and prosperity for all in the country and not just for the few.
It is the duty of the state to promote the common good of all in the country. That duty rests primarily on the Government and the various Governmental departments. But it does not rest solely on them. We all have our responsibilities towards the common good. That means in effect that in pursuing our own interests we should give consideration to the interest of the public when they are affected by what we are doing or what we are demanding.
It is our duty not only to work for the common good of the country, but also to pray for that common good. ‘God save Ireland’ is on too few Irish lips at present.
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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Archbishop McQuaid and the CIE Strike
The Most Rev. John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, combined an unimpeachable orthodoxy with an active interest in the social question (and seemingly boundless personal charity), founding the Catholic Social Welfare Bureau (which gave extensive material and spiritual support to Irish emigrants and their families), the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology, the Magnificat Family Guild (which helped people to buy their own homes) and the Catholic Social Service Conference, which very soon after its coming into operation was providing over 250,000 meals per month and of which Professor Patrick Corish concluded “transformed the quality of welfare work that still had too much degradation of the Poor Law System attached to it”. Throughout his tenure as archbishop, his Grace took a keen interest in industrial disputes and supported the Teachers’ Strike of 1946 – which privately incensed the DeValera government.
The following instance concerns a strike of over 1,600 men employed in the rail-operative grades of Córas Iompair Éireann (the Irish state transport company) which began on the 16th December, 1950, after members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) rejected the proposed wage increases for the railways offered by the Joint Industrial Council. The Joint Industrial Council proposed that employees be granted wage increases varying from 4 shillings to 11 shillings weekly, whereas the ITGWU demanded a general increase of 22 shillings for all grades. The intervention of the Archbishop was warmly welcomed by all sides.
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Irish Hierarchy’s Statement on the Intoxicating Liquor Laws
The following statement was issued in 1959 by the Irish hierarchy at their June meeting in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth:
The Irish hierarchy has had under consideration the reports of the Commission of Inquiry into the operation of the laws relating to the sale and supply of intoxicating liquor.
The proposal of the majority of the commission to alter these laws has very grave moral, religious and economic implications.
The hierarchy is chiefly concerned with the moral and religious aspects of the proposed legislation.
It is a matter of deep regret that the Report should have confined its attention so largely to drunkenness — a relatively rare occurrence nowadays — rather than to drinking habits or addiction to alcohol.
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Pope Pius XII on Muintir na Tíre
The following message was sent by Pope Pius XII to Canon John Hayes on the occasion of the Muintir na Tíre Rural Week at Roscrea, August, 1954.
We have learned with pleasure of the praiseworthy work being accomplished by the organisation which your apostolic zeal prompted you to found 17 years ago.
Every effort to put Christian social teaching into practice is deserving of commendation and encouragement, not merely because the children of light, as Our predecessor of happy memory Pius XI pointed out, must not allow themselves to be surpassed in zeal by the children of darkness, but also because of the very real benefits that accrue to the community from the application of the Church’s social doctrine.
The organisation of which you are chairman rightly looks upon the parish as the basic unit of a Christian social order and We have noted with satisfaction that this is the subject chosen for discussion at your forthcoming rural week.
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Rev. William Conway on The Church and State-Control
Click on cover to read in full (pdf)
The following biography of Cardinal Conway is from Florida International University Library:
Lux Occulta 