The Historical Record

Among those events being celebrated this year is that of commemorating Magna Carta, the agreement hammered out by English barons with King John which has become the basis of Common Law around the world. I was watching the news a few days ago and the Church's influence on the document was being explored, however as one listened one could not help but think that the Church being referred to was the Church of England, which wasn't around in 1215: it was the Catholic Church and her ministers that had a role in the formulation of Magna Carta. 

Ed West takes exception to this in  a couple of articles in the Catholic Herald which are well worth reading. In the first he writes on the Church's part in the formation of Magna Carta, and in the second decries the whitewashing of the Catholic Church out of achievements in England. All of this, of course, was part of the revisionism which came after the Protestant Revolution. Thankfully historians are now tackling that revisionism, foremost among them Jack Scarisbrick and Eamon Duffy. 

I suppose given the increasing secularisation of Ireland we can expect a similar revisionism to take place here, indeed it is already happening. A version of the Monty Python speech, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" can now be heard in a Catholic context in some quarters. I suppose that is one reason why the Church must ensure that truth is persevered.

In other news, it seems it was the French that won the Battle of Waterloo....

Catholic Charity For Puritans

Who would have thought it? It was Catholics who fed the Puritans on that first Thanksgiving in America. The Native American Squanto who took the Pilgrims under his wing as they struggled to establish their colony was in fact a Catholic. Taylor Marshall has the details here. Why isn't this more widely known? Wikipedia has it.

Polls: Catholics?

 

Here is an interesting poll for you: an American one on Catholics's attitude to gay marriage.  Interestingly it did what most polls on such issues do not do: it distinguished between Catholics who go to Mass and Catholics who do not.  The findings are revealing: among Catholics who go to Mass a majority are opposed to gay marriage.

 

Of course that is not surprising: those who practice their Catholic faith are more in touch with its teachings, are more inclined to understand them and will be more faithful to them.  Those who do not go to Mass have established a distance from the Church and her teachings, and will be less inclined to accept or live them.  That is an important point to note when it comes to issues of controversy, particularly moral issues which are at odds with the prevailing ideologies of relativism and secularism.  

 

So if a journalist or statistician wants to hear what Catholics think on issues, where do they go?  They are supposed to take a representative sample - but a representative sample of whom?  Catholics who believe and practice or Catholics who do not believe and do not practice?    Given the ideology which dominates at the moment they may be inclined to go to those who do not practice in order to get the results they want.  But if they are not ideologically driven and want a true picture, they may well need to begin distinguishing between those who practice and those who don't.  So perhaps the first question they need to ask in the poll is: "Do you go to Mass every week?" 

 

Of course this brings us to another, larger issue: what does it mean to be Catholic?  Now there's a controversial question.

 

 

Laundries: Catholicism Or Puritanism?

I was up late last night watching a debate in the Dail.  The government introduced emergency legislation to liquidate IRBC, formerly Anglo-Irish Bank, the bank at the heart of Ireland’s financial collapse.  There was war in the parliament as opposition TDs, appalled at the government’s tactics, vented their rage.  It seems they were only given a short time to read the Bill and then were asked to vote for it for the sake of the country: of course many of them refused to do so.  But the opposition parties have no real whack – the government has a huge majority and the main opposition party endorsed the Bill too, so it was passed.  The President, who is on a state visit to Italy, was flown home in the middle hours of the morning to sign it into law: he has done so and is now back in Italy continuing his visit.   Given the President’s age, it will be a very hard day for him after all that nocturnal activity.

What I find most interesting is that this Bill, it seems, was being secretly prepared for some time, so as to why they left it so late and just sprung it upon the Dail I do not know.  However it has done the government a service: it has pushed the report into the Magdalen Laundries to one side as the media give blanket coverage to the Bill.  The report examined the government’s part in the abuse of women in those dreadful institutions; during a debate in the Dail following its publication, the Taoiseach refused to give a proper apology for the State’s role, saying he needed space to think about it – imagine if a bishop said that when the various reports into child abuse came out.   The media were covering this refusal all day yesterday.  But that’s all forgotten now, although the government is coming in for some criticism for what many see as a fiasco in the Dail last night.    Distraction in place, but has it backfired? 

As regards the Magdalen Laundries, given that the Taoiseach was extremely critical of the Church and the Vatican for its tardiness in dealing with the issue of abuse, one would have thought he would have been consistent himself and make amends instead of pleading for time to think about an apology. 

To be honest I cannot understand how the Church got involved in the Magdalen Laundries.  They were an invention of well meaning Protestants who wanted to raise up fallen women, but as with a lot of these initiatives they lacked not only real Christian faith, but basic humanity.  Now I know that not all the Laundries were as bad as painted, but I think there were fundamental flaws at the heart of them.   For one thing I think their charism was more about Victorian prudery, respectability and punishment than Christianity - among other abuses, they dehumanised the women who lived in them and there is nothing Christian about that.   I sometimes think that Catholicism as it developed in the 19th and 20th centuries in Ireland was influenced more by Victorianism than real Catholicism.  It seems that Irish Catholics adopted that spurious respectability and intolerance that was more Puritan than Catholic.  Real Christian values of compassion, forgiveness, charity, hope and restoration were forgotten and instead respectability and pushing the “sinner” under the carpet was the norm; and that led to huge injustices.

Why did this happen?  I think it was the fruit of too close an alliance with the prevailing social attitudes of the day.  It is well known that when the Church renounces her prophetic nature and conforms to the fashions and morality of any given age she suffers – and so too those we are suppose to be helping.   Christians adopting the puritanical respectability of Victorianism undermine real Christianity where respectability has no place – in Christianity we are to act in response to the love of Christ and to share that love with those who need to experience it.  Jesus eschewed respectability – he chose to die in the most shameful way possible in order to redeem us.  We Catholics were rarely respectable, too often down the centuries polite society was appalled at us, at our beliefs and our practices.  Many of our Saints were considered crazy because they did not conform to the narrow norms of society, but took the Gospel as their rule rather than public opinion: just look at St Francis.

The holy founders of charitable institutes in the Church offer us powerful examples of the right response to social problems at any given time.  When we reflect on what they did we see that they did not seek to create harsh, penitential environments, but rather homes where women and men who had fallen could again find their human dignity and be helped to start new lives.  There was no judgment: yes there was urging to repent of sin but with the realisation that we are all sinners.  I think of the Servant of God Frank Duff who, with his first Legionaries, sought to help prostitutes.  He set up a house for them, not a laundry, where they could live and from where they could begin to make a new life for themselves, get jobs and as soon as they could set up new homes for themselves.

We have other great founders who did likewise, but whose spiritual sons and daughters drifted away from their ideas.  Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice was the Don Bosco of his day.  In founding the Christian and Presentation Brothers he wanted to form a community of brothers united in love and in service of the young.  They were to teach with love, there was to be no physical punishment, but correction had to be made on the basis of love and respect for the child – Don Bosco’s Preventative system in embryo.  That his congregations should be at the heart of the abuse crisis is not only tragic but ironic – Blessed Edmund sought and did the exact opposite in his life.   

All of this should be a timely warning to us today.  Once again we are being told that the Church must “update” herself, conform to the fashions and thinking of the age – to abandon her prophetic stance to conform to temporal and temporary ideologies.  If she does so she will be cooperating with dreadful practices and condoning a godless relativism that ultimately undermines the dignity of the human person and is centred on pleasure and selfish self-fulfilment.  This is the opposite of Victorian Puritanism and respectability, but just as poisonous and dangerous to the Church and her mission.  Whether we like it or not, as Christians we live in the world and should help the world, but we are not of the world, our home lies elsewhere.  We profess universal truths and seek to witness to true love, we must not allow narrow societal ideologies and attitudes distract us.

The Gospel Is Controversial

The Holy Father has given us another wonderful catechesis in his Sunday Angelus talk at Castel Gandolfo a couple of days ago.  He reminded us that Jesus was not seeking popularity, he just wanted to preach the truth, and as we saw in last Sunday's Gospel, taken from chapter six of St John's Gospel, some people cannot handle the truth and so walked away.

I am reminded of a conversation that took place in a presbytery some time ago.  A lay member of staff was complaining to a priest about another priest's sermon which he thought too direct - "He's too controversial", he said.  "Well", responded the priest, "the Gospel is controversial."

And it is.  Jesus was unapologetic about what he taught, he did not subject his teachings to the opinions of his followers, nor take a poll to see what the reaction might be.  It was a simple case of "take them or leave them" - stay or go.  Now I know many bishops and priests would not agree with that approach to preaching the Gospel, they would say it lacks pastoral sensitivity, well then we'll just have to say that Jesus was not a very pastoral person and, judged by the standards of some of those who teach pastoral ministry skills today, Jesus would flunk the course and would not be allowed go forward to ordination.  Funny that, and him being God.  It is a pity that God tends not to conform to our standards, isn't it?   I suppose that is the reason so many Christians today feel the need to reinvent God.

As we continue our novena to St Genesius, we have to bear in mind that one of the main reasons why we are persecuted is because our Church teaches the Gospel of Christ without diluting it.  She is committing to transmitting what Christ taught on his term.  Now she doesn't always live up to it, and for that she must repent and those sins bring misfortunes on her head too.  But even though our members are sinful, the Church never lets go of the ideal.  In the modern world there is a pessimistic approach to ideals - if they are hard to reach, then they are scrapped.  If we follow that way of life we will end up with little or no ideals, and then we find ourselves back in the caves, beating our heads with bones and enslaved to every passion. The Gospel will keep us human, it will enhance our dignity and remind us that we are destined for a greater life - life with God in whose image and likeness we are made. 

I see Amnesty International are fighting hard on behalf of the jailed Pussy Riot members.  Listening to the news this morning on my way to a funeral I heard the newscasters say that AI acknowledged that the protest may have been offensive to some, but that was not a good enough reason to jail them.  Interesting, ironic.  I wonder if AI realises that death is not a good enough reason for an innocent child just because its conception is inconvenient for the mother.  When AI stands up again for the innocent victims of abortion, then I'll take them seriously. 

We knew it was only a matter of time: Catholic priests officiating and assisting at "gay marriages".  It has happened in New York.  Say a prayer for Cardinal Dolan, he'll have to deal with it.  And say a prayer people will lay off him re the Obama invitation.  I was not too pleased to hear the President was invited to the dinner, but I trust the Cardinal and I think Obama is in for a very hot evening - I doubt if he wants to go because he'll be literally surrounded and pestered.  Let's just hope the place is full of zealous pro-life pensioners - they have a wonderful way of breaking a man with fatal persistence!  I can see the Cardinal telling them "He's all yours!" and the Secret Service will be powerless to stop them.

Carnivale!

In Ireland we call it "Pancake Tuesday" where the hottest thing on the menu is a flat bread cake smothered in butter - hardly Catholic at all.  In other Catholic countries Shrove Tuesday is Carnival - the last day before Lent when they celebrate for the last time and then cease at midnight to begin the observance of the traditional fast for forty days or so.   Now I know modern celebrations of Carnival are hardly edifying and Lent doesn't figure for most of those jousting in the streets, but the idea of this great feast is still a good one if we mean to take Lent seriously.

The feast and the fast is very much a Catholic thing.  Our holy mother foundress St Teresa of Avila famously said that there is a time for penance and a time for partridge (she was particularly fond of partridge) and she is right.  Many think being Catholic is being prudish and a killjoy - teetotal and miserable - and perhaps many are.  Jansenism and, here in Ireland, the influence of dreary Victorian morality, has dampened our Catholic identity so we are more Calvinistic than Catholic in our approach to the faith, and mix that with a fondness for the drink and you get a strange creature.  

Being Catholic is, in reality, more joyous and riotous.  I think true Catholicism, when lived in its authentic dimensions, has a balance of feast and fast, faith and fun, observance and irreverence which is refreshing.  Just look at some of our great Saints and figures: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Pier Giorgio Frassati, G.K Chesterton, Thomas More, Philip Neri - none of those could hardly be described as boring.  Teresa loved her partridge and was well know for her wit, Therese spent recreation taking people off, Pier Giorgio was pushing carts through the streets of Turin with a gang of lads for the craic and climbing mountains, Chesterton was a laugh a minute shocking the straitlaced British establishment, Thomas More couldn't go to his martyrdom without a wry smile and a funny remark, and as for Philip - well he had to be seen to be believed!  I tell you, brothers and sisters, heaven is going to be some riot with that lot up there waiting for us!

So, for your Lenten penance, fast, pray, give alms, read Scripture, and for today - celebrate Carnival  - the Catholic way.  Forget the pancakes, if the heart can take it, eat cake - lots of creamy cake and then at midnight, sackcloth and ashes!  As for pious reading for the season in preparation for the feast of Easter (seven weeks of celebrations!! That's Catholic!), together the usual edifying stuff, this book: The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living - with lots of good inspirational ideas within.  

Now I'm off to do the samba on the roads of Rathkenny - I'll probably be doing it on my own, but at least I'll be having fun...until the men in the white coats arrive.  Happy Carnival!

The Young Rally For Life

Each year in Washington DC, USA, one of the world's biggest annual civil rights rallies takes place on the 22nd January and is ignored by most of the media and political figures in the US and beyond.  It is of course the March for Life which takes place on the anniversary of the Roe v Wade judgement which legalised abortion on demand. 

I am edified reading the reports, usually from Catholic and pro-life sources, and I see the numbers are growing, not only in number, but also in age - the protestors are getting younger each year.  As statistics show us, the young are ardently pro-life in the USA, and are prepared to take to the streets in defence of the unborn.  Someone once said that this wonderful development emerges from a realisation on the part of Americans born post Roe v Wade, that they are the survivors of a pro-abortion regime. 

Another wonderful dimension of the March is the role the Catholic Church plays.  In the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception a Mass is offered the evening before the March, the huge basilica is packed to capacity as a large number of bishops and priests offer a Mass for Life.  The basilica is left open all night and those marchers who could not get accommodation for the night sleep in the church - marvellous!  How fitting: the Mother of God provides hospitality for her children who have come to bear witness to the Gospel of Life.  

As we in Ireland totter towards the introduction of abortion, probably on demand practically speaking, we should look Stateside to see how the pro-life movement has managed to win the hearts of the young and may finally see the beginning of the end of the greatest evil known to humanity.   The Church in Ireland should also take note and prepare to take its place on the side of the pro-life movement. 

We may have our own anniversary in a few years time and it should be marked with sorrow, reparation, determination and prayer.