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.

Rev. Con Lucey [later Bishop of Cork and Ross] on A Christian Alternative to Communism and Fascism

The Irish Ecclesiastical Record; December, 1944

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Bishop Michael Browne on the Commission on Vocational Organisation

A Study of Catholic Action

From the Irish Press, September 20th, 1958:

by Rev. Kevin Smith, S.J.

“CATHOLIC ACTION” at once reminds us older folk of a famous flare-up between the late Pope Pius XI and Mussolini in 1931, only two years after the signing of the Lateran Pacts which ended the long cold war between the Vatican and the Italian State.

In one of the most vigorous of his encyclicals, Non Abbiamo Bisogno, Pius XI denounced the campaign launched by the Fascists against the Catholic youth organisations of the Italian Catholic Action.The breach between Fascism and Catholicism, thus revealed to a startled world, was all the more astonishing because the Concordat of 1929 had established “Catholic Action” as a legitimate function of Catholic life. What had Catholic Action done in two years to provoke the hostility of the Dictator?

There was certainly nothing objectionable in the definition of “Catholic Action” laid down in the Concordat. The definition comprised four points: a form of lay apostolate: under the direction of the Hierarchy: above and outside party politics: intent only on the discussion and propaganda of Catholic principles.

National Action

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Fr. Edward Coyne’s lectures on The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ (No. 2)