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.

Eight Hundred And Two New Saints On The Way!

Pope Benedict is calling a consistory to vote on the Causes of eight hundred and two Beati which will see the way clear for their canonisation later this year.  Two of the Beati are nuns, but for once the holy nuns are outnumbered with the advancing of the Cause of Blessed Antonio Primaldo and his 799 companions, the Martyrs of Otranto.  

Blessed Antonio was a tailor, a man advanced in years we are told, when the city was invaded by Muslims in 1480.   The men of the city were promised their lives if they converted to Islam, but encouraged by Blessed Antonio, they remained firm.  After the fall of the city following a brutal siege, they barricaded themselves into the cathedral and prepared for martyrdom.  The siege and this further inconvenience for the Muslims actually helped save Italy as news of the invasion had time to get out and armies could prepare for battle as the Turks tried to ferret out the men.  In the end, the cathedral was breached, and the men taken to the Hill of Minerva where they were all beheaded.  According to one account a Catholic priest helped the Turks and tried to persuade the men to abandon their Christian faith. 

A contemporary document reports what happened, singling Blessed Antonio out for his heroism.  Here is an extract:

And turning to the Christians, Primaldo spoke these words: ‘My brothers, until today we have fought in defence of our homeland, to save our lives, and for our earthly governors; now it is time for us to fight to save our souls for our Lord. And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we should die for him, remaining firm and constant in the faith, and with this earthly death we will earn eternal life and the glory of martyrdom.’ At these words, all began to shout with one voice and with great fervour that they wanted to die a thousand times, by any sort of death, rather than renounce Christ.

Antonio, for his obstinacy was the first to die, but accounts say his headless body refused to fall to the ground and remained standing until the last person had been martyred despite attempts by Muslim soldiers to pull it to the ground.  As another account relates:

All of them repeated their profession of the faith and the generous response they had given at first, so the tyrant commanded that the decapitation should proceed, and, before the others, the head of the elderly Primaldo should be cut off. Primaldo was hateful to him, because he never stopped acting as an apostle toward his fellows. And before placing his head upon the stone, he told his companions that he saw heaven opened and the comforting angels; that they should be strong in the faith and look to heaven, already open to receive them. He bowed his head and it was cut off, but his corpse stood back up on its feet, and despite the efforts of the butchers, it remained erect and unmoving, until all were decapitated. The marvelous and astonishing event would have been a lesson of salvation for those infidels, if they had not been rebels against the light that enlightens every man who lives in the world. Only one of the butchers, named Berlabei, believed courageously in the miracle and, declaring himself a Christian in a loud voice, was condemned to be impaled.

The relics of the 800 martyrs are enshrined in the cathedral in Ortanto.  We do not know the names of the other martyrs so the cult will probably be centred on Antonio as the main representative of the group.   I see Wikipedia offers names for a few others: Archbishop Stefano Agricoli who was the Archbishop of Otranto, Bishop Stefano Pendinelli, and Count Francesco Zurlo who was the commander of the garrison.

During his visit to Otranto, as he honoured the martyrs on the site of their deaths, now renamed the “Hill of Martyrs”, Blessed John Paul II, reflecting on their sacrifice, remarked: “Let us not forget the martyrs of our times. Let us not behave as if they did not exist.”

In news today.  I am constantly amazed at coincidences when it comes to the government and controversial legislation.  In the past few years the various reports on child abuse have an uncanny knack of being released at inopportune moments for the Church. Take the release of the report on the infamous Magdalen Laundries –which is due to be released tomorrow, and you’ll never guess what is also happening tomorrow – according to the Irish Independent, the proposed changes to the abortion laws goes before the Cabinet!  Isn’t that just amazing?  Now I would never presume to think that all this is planned, after all those who govern our country are paradigms of virtue and integrity, they keep their promises and there is not an opportunistic bone in any other their bodies.  As they would no doubt confirm, this is all just one big coincidence. 

Interesting news from the UK: the bones found beneath a car park in Leicester are indeed the remains of King Richard III.  His physical handicap, denied by some historians, has been confirmed.  One question has been solved: Where was his grave?  However others remain unanswered – did he kill the princes in the tower?  Was he as bad as he is painted? 

Some are also asking: will he be given a funeral according to his faith?  Richard was a Roman Catholic, but he will be buried in an Anglican cathedral probably with an Anglican service: is this appropriate?  Some think not – they believe he should be given a Catholic Requiem Mass and burial according to Catholic Rites. I would be inclined to agree with them.  We cannot alter history – just as we could not give Martin Luther a Catholic reburial, since he was a Lutheran at this death, Catholic Richard should not be given a Protestant reburial.   No offence intended to the Church of England, but it would be best to respect the beliefs of the deceased.  

Finally, it seems David Cameron’s days may well be numbered.  The forthcoming vote on gay marriage may well see the majority of his party (180 MPs including four members of his cabinet) vote against it, and perhaps may lead to another vote on his leadership.  William Oddie has an interesting article on this issue here.   We should commend the courage of the members of the Conservative Party for their steadfast position on marriage.  It would be great if members of the Fine Gael party here, both elected representatives and grassroots members, took such a stand against Enda Kenny as he seeks to legalise the killing of the unborn.  We can but pray and hope.