Catholic Ireland

September 17, 2018 by dmoana Leave a comment

39594165_10215029072273558_2111548378188873728_o The Republic of Ireland is deeply and ambivalently Catholic. As one portly middle aged man in his cups said to me at a pub: “Are you Cat’lic? No? We’re all Cat’lic…but sometimes, we’re just…fooock it!”

Catholicism is embedded in Irish identify. The English occupation was waged by the crown seizing Irish lands, giving them to Protestant settlers (like my ancestors), turning Catholics into tenant farmers, and suppressing their language, culture and the religion to boot. So, independence, cultural pride, and Catholic identity go hand in hand. The Catholic Church remains influential in Ireland. The church is owner or patron of 90% percent of Irish primary schools, despite those schools being government funded. In contemporary Ireland, loyalty to Catholic institutions is waning, due largely to well documented abuse of power and cover-ups. Only 30% to 35% regularly attend Mass today, down from 90% in the 20^th century. Large majorities of the people recently voted via referendums to make gay marriage and early abortion legal The Irish Prime minister is openly gay. One young man I spoke with on a train who works in information technology in Dublin told me he is Catholic but “secular” and believes in separation of church and state. He voted “Yes” in both referendums, but was surprised when 70% of his fellow countrymen and women voted to make abortion legal for the first time. “The Irish people who are flocking to see the Pope are the same ones who voted “Yes” on the abortion referendum” opined Tommy Graham, excellent guide for a lively historical walking tour I joined while in the Irish capital.

On an hour-long bus ride from the Ros a Mihl docks at Galway Bay back to Galway City, a radio was playing Irish talk radio and a bus full of people, locals and tourists alike, was hearing frank and angry talk about sex abuse by priests. I could not help but wonder what folks were thinking. One woman crossed herself a couple times –whether because we passed a church, or because of what she was listening to, I could not tell. Abuse of children in Catholic schools, churches and orphanages has been pervasive in Ireland, and systematically covered up by church and civil authorities, charges well-documented in the 2009 government-commissioned Murphy and Ryan reports.

20180816_125305 Meanwhile during my August 2018 visit, Ireland was preparing for the first papal visit in 39 years. Dublin work crews were busy building scaffolding for events; banners and social media promoted #popeinireland. According to news stories and a random sample of men I spoke with in pubs, Pope Francis himself is popular in Ireland, even if the institutional church is not. “This is a good man, this Pope, not like the last one” offered a friendly older gentleman sitting at the bar in his noisy neighborhood pub, a place he has frequented for over 20 years, and yet still generously shared with at least a sprinkling of us tourists. After departing the Emerald Isle, I read that only 130,000 people attended the outdoor Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in a Phoenix Park, compared with 2.7 million who turned out to see Pope John Paul in 1979. And this Pope’s visit was also met by large protests. Though Francis held a meeting with child sex abuse survivors, advocacy groups said he promised few specific actions. Then while still on the ground in Dublin, he was personally accused of knowledge and cover up of sex abuse by a highly placed priest. The accuser’s motives are questionable – the man is a former church official, and current member of a highly conservative group of clergy politically opposed to the Pope’s more progressive measures. But it was surely the icing on the fallen cake of a visit that was supposed to be a homecoming reception in one of the world’s oldest Catholic nations.