Catholicism and the Irish State - Time to Separate
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Catholicism and the Irish State - Time to Separate Kieran Allen Irish Catholicism is declining. Nomi- republican governments enacted a series of nally, 78 percent of the population declared laws to create a more secular society. In themselves Catholic in a recent census. This 1882, religious education was banned from data, however, is often completed by the French schools; in 1886 priests were banned ‘head of the household’ who defines the re- from schools, and in 1905 the formal separa- ligion of their teenage sons and daughters. tion of the church and state was declared in The reality is that religious practice has France. These attacks on the church, how- fallen dramatically. Only one third of de- ever, differed from the earlier Jacobin tradi- clared Catholics attend mass on a regular tion of the French Revolution which sought basis. In the Dublin area, the figure is to destroy religious belief completely. By even lower at 14 percent.1 Vocations to the contrast, the Ferry laws, as they became priesthood have almost collapsed. At the known, were carried through in the name of high point of Irish Catholicism, every re- a liberal individualism where religion was to spectable family hoped that one of its sons be pushed into a purely private sphere. would enter the priesthood and, possibly, join the great missionary project of con- verting ‘Godless’ Russia or the ‘black ba- Political loyalty bies’ of Africa. During the 1940s and 1950s there were over 20,000 members of religious In Ireland, however, no major political force orders. Today, just about 20 men volun- opposed church control. The main reason teer to train for the priesthood each year in was the ambiguous role that the Catholic Maynooth. There are less than 2,000 priests Church had played in a colonised coun- and their average age is 65 and rising. try. Until the end of the 18th century, the Catholic religion was targeted in a series of The rapidity of the change is even more penal laws imposed from Britain. Catholics remarkable because the Catholic Church were barred from inheriting Protestant land; never faced sustained political opposition excluded from occupying public office; for- until recently. The contrast with the sec- bidden to marry Protestants; banned from ular tradition in France, for example, could entering Trinity College. As a result, the not be more pronounced. Here the church Catholic Church took on all the appearance was identified with the ancient regime of feu- of an oppressed church and adherence to dal privilege. Throughout most of the nine- Catholicism a sign of resistance to imperi- teenth century, it was seen as a supporter of alism. However, British strategy in Ireland the aristocracy and a defender of the worst changed after the French Revolution and it form of reaction, including anti-semitism. sought to incorporate the hierarchy of the As a result, republicans knew that they had Church. It supported the training of priests to combat its influence if were to hold po- in Maynooth and promoted Catholic control litical power. In a major speech in 1900, of schooling. One result was a dramatic in- for example, the French premier Waldeck- crease in the size and strength of the institu- Rousseau, warned about how church repre- tional church. Previously, Irish Catholicism sentatives were ‘doing their best to make had a much looser structure and a greater their pupils hostile to the Republic and to mixture of religious and superstitious beliefs republican ideals’.2 As a defensive measure, but this changed dramatically. The number 1‘Dublin mass attendance drops to all time low of 14 percent’ Irish Central 14 December 2011. 2C. D. Hazen, Modern European History, New York: Henry Holt, 1917 p. 400-401. 3 of priests rose by 150 percent at the very tion of its armed struggle, republicans typi- time the population was shrinking. In 1861, cally responded with anti-clericalism -rather there was one priest for every 755 Catholics than outright opposition to the role of the but by 1911 there was one for every 210.3 Catholic Church. Republican leaders re- The growing niche that the Catholic Church mained devout Catholics and, even while found within the imperial structures made they were condemned by Bishops and Car- it deeply hostile to the Irish revolutionary dinals, found sympathetic individual priests movement. Cardinal Cullen, the leader of as their confessors. Throughout its history the Irish Catholic Church for much of the Sinn Féin ensured that its politics did not nineteenth century put it like this: challenge the Catholic church in any funda- mental way. In 1931, for example, Sinn Féin For thirty years I have studied adopted a radical Saor Éire programme writ- the Revolution on the Continent; ten by Peadar O’Donnell. But after a fero- and for nearly thirty years I have cious assault by the Bishops, a subsequent watched the Nationalist move- Ard Fheis, disassociated the movement from ment in Ireland. It is tainted at ‘anti-Christian principles’ and promised a its sources with the Revolution- social order based on the ideals of Popes ary spirit. If ever an attempt is Pius V and Leo X111.5 In the early 1950s, made to abridge the rights and Sinn Féin adopted a ‘national unity and in- liberties of the Catholic Church dependence programme’ which, promised a in Ireland, it will not be the En- ‘reign of social justice based on Christian glish government, nor by a ‘No principles’.6 The republican fighter Sean Popery’ cry in England but by South of Garryowen is celebrated in song the revolutionary and irreligious for his attack on an RUC barracks. Less nationalists in Ireland.4 well known is his membership of the extreme right wing movement Maria Duce and his Yet alongside this hostility, there re- activities in chasing courting couples out of mained a verbal opposition to ‘Protestant cinemas. The early Provisional IRA often England’. Some of the clergy joined move- said the rosary at its funerals and even in re- ments like the Land League and supported cent years its former Sinn Féin leader Martin Conradh na Gaeilge. One result of this am- McGuinness has stated that abortion ‘on de- biguous legacy was that after independence, mand’ is incompatible with his Catholic be- there was no sustained opposition to the liefs - even if his party was willing to allow church’s role in Irish society from either the it in certain circumstances. republican movement or from the weakened Irish social democracy has taken an even form of Irish social democracy. more supine relationship to the Catholic Irish republicanism differed from French Bishops. Leaders of the Irish unions and republicanism in refusing to challenge the the Labour Party proclaimed their loy- dominant role of the Catholic Church. alty to the Catholic Hierarchy for decades. There was a rhetorical appeal to the ‘unity In the 1940s, for example, the ITGWU of Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter’ but formed an alliance with Fianna Fáil and the republican tradition was imbued with The Catholic Standard to attack Larkinism a Catholic culture. Faced with condemna- and communism. It fomented a split in the 3Strauss, Irish Nationalism and British Democracy, p. 210. 4E. Purcell, The Life of Cardinal Manning: Archbishop of Westminster, New York: Macmillan, 1896 p. 610. 5H. Patterson, The Politics of Illusion: Republicanims and socialism in Modern Ireland, London: Hutchin- son Radius 2010. P53. 6ibid. 4 Labour Party and helped to create a Na- and there has been a huge exodus from the tional Labour Party which ‘was clear and land. In 1951, 38 percent of the Irish labour definite on fundamentals intertwined with force worked on farms. Today the figure has Faith and Nationality’.7 The official Labour declined to 5 percent. There are more un- Party, however, was hardly less loyal to the employed people in Ireland today than there same principles. It joined the Bishops in are farmers. Moreover, a very high propor- opposing Noel Browne’s Mother and Child tion of the population identify themselves as scheme which would have given free medi- workers. Some 42 percent of the Irish popu- cal care. Even when Labour shifted left in lation regard themselves as working class - a the late 1960s and proclaimed that ‘the sev- figure that is just below the British figure.9 enties would be socialist’ its leader, Bren- Ireland has also become an increasingly ur- dan Corish, was a member of the Knights of banised society, with 40 percent of the Irish Columbanus, an elite and secretive organisa- population living in the greater Dublin area. tion. He stated that he was a Catholic first, an Irish man second and a socialist third. Industrialisation undermines the bonds He added ‘If the hierarchy gives me any di- which link individuals to church and tra- rection as regard to Catholic social teaching dition. These communal ties were deeply or Catholic moral teaching, I accept with- rooted in rural Ireland and produced a par- out qualification in all respects the teaching ticularly strong variant of Irish Catholicism. of the Hierarchy and church to which I be- Brinsley McNamara captured this intense long.’8 form of conformity in his novel The Valley of Given this history, the question arises the Squinting Windows which tells a story of as to why the Catholic Church declined so a fictional village, Garradrimna, most prob- rapidly. Opposition to the power of the ably based on Devlin in Westmeath. It is Catholic Church only came from the margins a tale of shame, gossip and tragedy based on Irish society and there was no generalised on sexual relations stigmatised by Catholi- opposition to its role in society.