Technological University Dublin ARROW@TU Dublin Articles School of Business and Humanities 2005-1 A Cardinal's Voice of Protest : Cardinal Cahal Daly and the Dangers Facing Planet Earth Eamon Maher Technological University Dublin, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ittbus Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Maher, E., (2005) A Cardinal's Voice of Protest : Cardinal Cahal Daly and the Dangers Facing Planet Earth, Reality, Vol. 70, No.1, January, pp.10-12 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Business and Humanities at ARROW@TU Dublin. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of ARROW@TU Dublin. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License The danger facing planet earth In his book The Minding ofPlanet Earth, Cardinal Cahal Daly presents a scholarly, yet readable analysis ofsome of the challenges and dangers facing our planet, writes Eamon Maher t is hard to dislike Cardinal Cabal with additional income- all of it paid in us his forays into the world of tax. Daly. A man of peace, a genuine cash, of course! He continues: "On second thoughts, why should he? I Christian witness, a scholar, he "Not only does Daly condemn tax Being an archbishop makes you an possesses many admirable qualities. I evasion, he seems to blame the 'richer authority on everything. That is why it liked the excerpt from his latest book, people' for the problems of the poor. He must be great crack to be a cardinal." The MindingofP/anetEarth (Veritas: 2004) links tax evasion to poverty. He says that appeared in The Irish Times a few Ireland's rich people's decisions- on Example of how Ireland has months ago. The views expressed in it their domicile, their citizenship, their changed made me want to read his reflections in investments and even their profits­ Talk about killing a man with faint full, which I have duly done. distance them from the negative conse­ praise! You may well be wondering why Senator Shane Ross in The Sunday quences for the poor. Blame the tax I'm giving so much attention to Shane Independent took issue with the cardinal's evasion of the better-off for poverty." Ross's views, which are at variance with competence to pronounce on such issues Ross considers this a dubious thesis at my own. I do so for a number of reasons. as tax and, while acknowledging his posi­ best because of the fact that poor people, First, to illustrate how times have tive feelings towards the man, proceeded living under an extremely penal tax changed in Ireland. A short few decades to cast much scorn at some of the posi­ system, were forced to evade tax them­ ago, a journalist would have thought tions he adopted. It is worth quoting selves. He goes on in a similar vein for a twice before embarking on such a tirade some parts of Ross's article ("Give us this few more columns, stating the cardinal's against a cardinal. Public opinion would day our Daly bread," Sunday Independent, obvious dislike for 'liberal capitalism' have been predisposed to respect the August 29, 2004): "The good cardinal is and saying how his choice for Minister views of a person of episcopal standing. an authority on theology. He is hardly a for Finance would probably be joan However, there is now a widely held view master of the dull details of accountancy. Burton of Labour rather than the former that Catholic priests and religious of all He seems to believe that everyone should incumbent, Charlie McCreevy. The guises have no right to point out issues in pay their fair share of tax." former would have more sympathy with relation to social justice, the abuse of the Ross develops a seeming contradiction the problems of the Third World and environment, sexual activity, or the in Daly's calling for an equitable tax poverty in general. Ross ends his article growing gap between rich and poor. The system when priests in this country are with the following observations: reactions of most Irish people are quite classified as 'self-employed' for taxation "Daly is a wonderful, lovable man, a simplistic: What right have they to be purposes. In Armagh, they get a mini­ cleric of impeccable morality and preaching to us? They'd be better off mum wage, and after that depend on the humour. As a peacemaker, he may well putting their own house in order! What generosity of their flock to supply them be without parallel; but he should spare about the Magdalen laundries, the indus- 10 january 2005 Reality trial schools, Brendan Smyth, Eamon mystery of beauty, art, and science itself. systematic bad faith. He paraphrases Casey, Michael Cleary? Accepting this fact made him consider Camus's questions: "Do they (Christians) There was undoubtedly much damage himself a 'deeply religious man.' simply use this world as an opportunity caused by all the aforementioned, but is This opening chapter is well-argued for gaining merit in the next world? Do that sufficient reason to tar all the good and reads easily. It leads logically to the they merely use their fellow-humans as work done by individuals on the ground? chapter devoted to the Galileo case: the occasions of 'making acts' of charity Because there are so many priests, nuns scientist who was persecuted by the directed, not at brother and sister and religious who are doing fabulous Catholic Church for what were consid­ humans, but at God and, ultimately, at work in highlighting the plight of the ered heretical views at the time. His reha­ self-interest?" less well-off in Irish society. They are bilitation took a long time but it did This is certainly the problem Dr Rieux reminding the politicians and people at happen in the course of the Second raises in The Plague as well as asking how large that the Celtic Tiger hasn't brought Vatican Council more than three an all-loving God could allow the suffer­ many advantages to the lower sections of centuries later. ing and death of innocent children. In Irish society. The voices of Peter McVerry, The scope for tension between science the end, he comes to the conclusion that Sister Stanislaus, Sean Healy, Willie and faith is always there, and perhaps this sometimes we are asked to love what we Walsh (the bishop, not the chief execu­ is not all bad. After all, a fusion of the cannot understand. tive of Aer Lingus!) continue to make a strengths of both systems is necessary if Daly urges that we find more time for case for the needy, even when the vast we are to increase our understanding of meditation on the beauty that is around majority of people don't want to hear the universe we inhabit. People who have us. John McGahern writes very persua­ their message. They are the type of had the opportunity to view the earth sively on this point when he describes Christian witnesses that we need. from space and to appreciate more fully how Moran, the hero of Amongst Women, We also require books like the one the vastness of the celestial skies have spent so much time struggling with written by Cahal Daly. Readers might often related their awe at the splendour of nature that he failed to see its splendour: find some of it heavy-going. There are creation and stated their conviction that "He had never realised when he was in the long quotations from papal encyclicals a divine source must be at its origin. midst of confident life what an amazing and different philosophers which grate at glory he was part of." (Amongst Women, times. But there are excellent sections The church & sexuality London: Faber&Faber, 1990, p.179) also, and it is on these I will concentrate. Chapter III, 'Church and World', Shane Ross dealt with what is a very contains a number of interesting obser­ Care for the earth short passage in the book that deals with vations. For example, it traces the This leads ultimately to the central point taxation. The five chapters are Science tendency of Christianity to despise and of the book, how we should 'mind' the and Faith, The Galileo Case, Church and fear the body, and particularly sexuality, earth. Chapter IV emphasises the need for World, The Christian and Work, The as a source of temptation and sin back to all people to work. He quotes Pius XII's Minding of Planet Earth (1) and (2). the alleged Platonic influence on the comment on Christmas Eve, 1953: Fathers of the Church. But he maintains Science & Faith there is also a more positive strain of Beginning as he does with the tendency thinking: "The Church has also been Just because faith of many of our contemporaries to aban­ mindful of St Paul's teaching that the involves a beliefin the don faith which they view as being body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that incompatible with science, he dismisses God dwells in the body, and that Christ intrinsic mystery that the notion that religion and church are has redeemed it and sanctifies it." lies at the heart intrinsically unscientific. Ever since the That may well be true, but in Ireland, at Enlightenment, reason and modernity any rate, sexuality was the big taboo, to of existence have been set in opposition to faith, such an extent that distorted attitudes does not make backwardness and superstition.