The Way of the Cross?

The Way of the Cross?

Dr. Peter Boylan captured it well yesterday

"We are familiar with the historical circumstances in which responsibility for and ownership of education and large swathes of health and social care was both ceded to and actively acquired by the church over more than 150 years. I see it as a twin legacy of both colonisation and “Cullenisation”, ie the success of Paul Cullen, the mid-19th century archbishop of Dublin, in fostering and promoting Catholic religious orders in Ireland.

Cullen was instrumental in securing separate and clerically controlled – but state-supported – Catholic education, overturning the aims of the 1831 national school system which envisaged non-denominational tate education. After 1922, the Church’s grip on education increased."


'The veins of knowledge' about child sexual abuse have existed since the foundation of the Irish State in 1922.?

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The key mechanisms of ideological induction as sovereign allegiance; taking possession of our hearts, minds, institutions, identity as a nation - the template of ethos opt outs were well and truly ingrained. Just to say, the asset/acid test for how successful this appropriation was/is as a cultural project, is that it did not feel like an opt-out, more like an automotive opt-in.?

And opt-out can mean a fear of reprisal.

Such a lack of liberty induces shame; a fear of ostracism/alienation and social disavowal, a public opprobrium felt within our internal locus of control.

The lack of exit also induced attachments that proved deeply injurious and even fatal.

Such forms of life produced pathological loyalties and alliances and when enacted in the self, the consequences were often dire.

Reinforced by the routine of a conforming ideology and combined with proximate adherents and indigents. Together, both are enacted as forcefields on impressionable biologies, the social order via "a long apprenticeship by way of the body that begins in infancy in the daily contact with the world, comes to be inscribed in the bodies and minds of individuals; the way in which social and gender hierarchies are thus able to perpetuate themselves' (Bourdieu Pierre, Pascalian Meditations 1997 and Masculine Domination)Didier Eribon 2004).

In the 20th Century, our politicians endorsed and underwrote the naturalisation of first principles in the social contract, advocating vigorously for the need to supplement the political process with ethical/religious/spiritual guidance.

For example in history:?

"In 1951, during a Dáil debate on the ill-fated mother and child public health care scheme, which the Hierarchy opposed as contrary to Catholic social teaching, the then Taoiseach John A. Costello informed the House: ‘I, as a Catholic, obey my Catholic authorities’ – to whom he offered ‘complete allegiance.’

A Labour Party leader of the era, Brendan Corish, similarly declared: ‘I am an Irishman second, I am Catholic first, and I accept without qualification in all respects, the teaching of the church to which I belong.’ (p. 7) from Eoin Daly 2012 Religion, Law and the Irish State.

On a cultural level, ó Tuathaigh (2018) captures the normative grounding for a significant period of twentieth-century Ireland, the key enculturation sites as our mechanisms of action:

"The constitution and statute law reflected Catholic moral and social teaching in sensitive areas, such as marriage and the family, contraception and family planning, and censorship (print and cinema). Indeed, social cohesion, such as it was, was the outcome of high levels of conformity to the social values and teaching of the Catholic Church. This was not surprising. Constituting over 90 per cent of the population of the Irish national state, with overwhelming control of schools and commanding a network of church-run hospitals and charitable institutions, the Catholic Church infrastructure gave it enormous influence on all aspects of life. Politicians – for the most part – were deferential or politically attentive to the wishes and warnings of Bishops. A formidable network of organized Catholic laity exercised a wide supervisory and morally vigilant role in the main arteries of social life – from charitable organisations to library committees – ensuring that all such bodies, public or vol- untary, would do ‘the right thing’ by the Church."

ó Tuathaigh, G. (2018). Introduction: Ireland 1880–2016: Negotiating Sovereignty and Freedom. In Bartlett, T. (ed.),?The Cambridge History of Ireland Volume IV 1880 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

O’Toole (1998) says of the Irish, we were

"likely to be born in a Catholic hospital, educated at Catholic schools, married in a Catholic church, have children named by a priest, be counselled by Catholic mar- riage advisors if the marriage runs into trouble, be dried out in Catholic clinics for the treatment of alcoholism if he or she develops a drink problem, be operated on in Catholic hospitals, and be buried by Catholic rites" (p. 67)

O’Toole, F. (1998).?The lie of the land: Irish Identities. Dublin: New Island Books.

And Inglis (2005) says there was a dominance?of ‘Catholic-church personnel in such key areas as philosophy, psychology,?and sociology’ (p. 10).?

Inglis, T. (2005). Origins and Legacies of Irish Prudery: Sexuality and Social Control in Modern Ireland.?Eire-Ireland, Vol. 40:3–4 Fall Winter, pp. 9–37.

This rollout across multiple spheres is well framed by Dr Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin in 2011 at Dublin City University:??

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"An integral dimension of the success of Catholic schools is that they are truly Catholic. The Catholic school is not just a school with a different mission statement framed at its front entrance. The contribution of the Catholic school involves a formation in religious faith which fosters the integral development of its pupils and is also a contribution to the good and the moralisation of society. The Christian message, when lived authentically brings a special contribution to the development of a healthy society. The Catholic school must defend its ability to maintain and foster and indeed strengthen its Catholic identity in a pluralist context. If the Catholic school waters down it Catholic identity then it is not going to bring its specific contribution to society."

.....

"We need to look at models of a more participative society where government and citizens are not seen as separate and distant poles of activity and where intermediary bodies work with State and citizens to foster what Pope John Paul II had called a “subjective society”.??

Dr Martin continues?

"Social reform will not be attained by social engineering but by enabling greater participation of citizens and the voluntary sector in the planning and delivery of services."

"Mature relationships between Church and State help social stability and bring out the best from both"?

"Transparent dialogue will contribute to that process of maturation. Giving to Caesar the things of Caesar means that the Church respects the autonomy of the secular sphere. It also means that Caesar does not play God and does not try to banish God out of the reality of society into the most remote private corner of individual conscience"

"The principal contribution of Church institutions in an increasingly secular society is, as Pope Benedict noted in an interview of some years ago, “to witness to God in a world that has problems finding Him… and to make God visible in the human face of Jesus Christ, to offer people access to the source without which our morale becomes sterile and loses its point of reference”"?

"The Irish Constitution clearly carves out a special role for the family. The legal presumption is that the definition of the family in the Constitution is one based on marriage between a man and a woman. In line with most European countries Ireland recognises the fundamental difference between marriage and other forms of relationship. This is not to say that the law should not guarantee people in other forms of relationship their fundamental rights. Marriage is however a fundamental good in society which deserves a unique protection"?

(End quotes from Dr. Diarmuid Martin)??

It is pretty clear where the former Archbishop positions himself. Dr. Martin envisages the church as a counter-cultural testament to the State, when it is potentially pressured to change. The State on its own is somehow hollowed out, a sterile instrument on its own, even potentially losing the run of itself in its self-referents.?

The former Archbishop is largely describing the normative ground for Church adherents and initiates; how Catholics, hit the ground running, to bear witness. His article utilises many resources to illustrate how the rollout has been historically underwritten into the manifold layers of our constitutive first principles as primary social reproduction pathways.

?Dr Martin warns against a Caesar overstepping the ethos opt-outs?

"The Christian in political life cannot deposit his or her commitment to the truth about the human person with the priest in the sacristy and embrace a different set of values as he goes into the public square."

For me this means 'Lead us Not into Temptation' and by following the Way of The Cross and bearing witness; a fortitude is displayed as obligation to Christ the King who carried/carries our sins.?

Dr Martin, like the new Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Dermott Farrell, have very clear ideas re the self image for the Children of Paradise in their ethos deductions and teachings.??

In my view, the issues here, primarily relate to political judgements that sustains religious quotient of power across many of the credential spheres in Irish life.?

The very political judgements they claim run the risk of sterility without their religious conceptualisations, ethical theorisations as Christ's image.?

They believe their faith in the Gospels, it is the way of Truth as service to the Lord.??

These recent articles from Irish Times Journalists Fintan O'Toole and Una Mullally alongside Dr. Boylan deals with the above themes as well.

End

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