There’s a Catholic cleric on the radio, and the tone has changed. For a long time, the clerics were reflective and tentative on certain matters. There’s new confidence in their rhetorical style. It has the feel of an old, defeated champion hankering for a rematch.
he country is politically adrift. The political parties lack confidence and direction. They remain hapless and hopeless in the face of serious problems.
The old governing parties — Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour — have become little more than vehicles for personal ambition.
Sinn Féin has shown it has enough momentum for significant advance. Every time Leo Varadkar badmouths the party, you can hear its support hardening.
The greatest hope for the party’s opponents lies in the Shinners’ impressive ability to commit unforced errors. It could go either way.
In this moment of uncertainty, it might be tempting to try to regain lost ground.
The Catholic hierarchy is more than a religious body — it’s also the oldest political faction in the country. There was a time when no significant social legislation went through without a thumbs-up from the lads.
Even the Constitution was put together in close, detailed consultation between Taoiseach Éamon de Valera and Johnny McQuaid, the legendary Archbishop of Dublin.
The Vatican was provided with a draft of Bunreacht na hÉireann long before the Dáil was allowed to see it, much less the Irish people.
While de Valera and his mates and rivals took turns running the country into the ground, the hierarchy gave them its blessing, as long as it was given dominance in education, health and the punishment of fallen women.
For generations, the hierarchy was a tough, demanding and energetic political entity. It was comfortable in an unspoken coalition with whichever party was in government. It had a real, day-to-day influence over the laws that governed the lives of millions.
With the blessing of the State, the hierarchy presided over a range of horrors — most of the victims being young mothers and children.
When Fianna Fáil’s corruption and ineptitude eventually became clear, the party was abandoned by those who had been most loyal.
Similarly, when its own corruption was revealed, the hierarchy took a hiding from the people it had previously relied on for solid support — the Catholic laity. People tend to become upset when they discover a trusted institution has taken a relaxed attitude toward paedophilia.
And the evidence was shattering. It wasn’t just that the bishops went easy on the paedophiles to protect the church from scandal — that could be seen as misjudgment, as a bloody awful sense of priorities.
The truth was much worse. In the mid-1980s, the hierarchy took out insurance against being sued over the activities of its paedophiles. That was the depth of the evil. It left the kids at the mercy of the merciless while it carefully protected its finances with insurance policies.
From the 1990s onward, much of the Catholic faithful remained respectful on religious matters, but as a political power the hierarchy was finished.
Without the collapse of that powerful political entity, the liberalisation on social matters seen in recent years would have had a much tougher time of it.
Oddly enough, it turned out that among the bishops were some who actually believed in such things as sin, contrition and atonement.
Such bishops thought the hierarchy needed to ask for forgiveness. It wasn’t enough to merely issue a token apology for deeds committed in the past.
Not surprisingly, there are people who were never happy with the penitential approach. They urged the hierarchy to take a more assertive view.
Just as the pandemic has provided the political parties with opportunities to impress us — and to fill us with rage — so the hierarchy has had to respond to the health crisis.
My first experience of how the pandemic would affect us all was in West Cork, in early March last year, at the packed funeral of a highly respected local man.
We knew nothing then of social distancing. Shoulder to shoulder in the crowded church, we all shook hands as we sympathised with the family and met people we hadn’t seen in years.
But the priests were miles ahead of us all. Without fuss, they provided bottles of hand sanitiser at all the church doors.
Active, responsible clerics took the prospect of illness and death seriously and cooperated wholeheartedly with the measures necessary to reduce the spread of infection.
As the weeks passed, religious practices were altered and improvised with an admirable commitment to public health. A church that had survived the Penal Laws wasn’t going to be put off its stride by yellow signage, elbow bumps and Zoom funerals.
In recent times, though, it can be hard to tell the difference between the Irish Catholic hierarchy and the Licensed Vintners Association.
Each has persistently demanded the freedom to gather crowds together for what we might call “occasions of infection”.
Each has crossed epidemiological swords with public health scientists.
The bishops and the publicans dream of crowds coming to partake of their offerings. The scientists have nightmares about some rough new variant, its hour come round at last.
Bishops — people who literally believe in miracles — want to be heard on the subject of how we most effectively deal with a life-taking, life-changing virus.
Formally, the hierarchy is arguing about communion and confirmation ceremonies. Politically, this is the first time in a long time this long-existing, recently passive political entity has tested its current strength.
To some extent, the hierarchy may be reacting to pressure from below in its own ranks, lay Catholics who criticise the readiness of the hierarchy to observe the cautions sought by the scientists and politicians.
They pointed out how in Denmark you could do this and in Sweden you could do that, yet in poor old Ireland you can’t even . . .
It’s an easy game to play. We’re living in an unfolding crisis, with successes and mistakes, sometimes one turning into the other. No doubt in every country there are people pointing at greener fields to belittle local efforts to deal with the virus.
This is a real life public health emergency, with responses being improvised as we go — it’s not a TV game show.
The lay Catholic activists were, for a while, damning about the bishops for not being demanding enough. Perhaps the hierarchy felt the pressure from that. Communion and confirmation is solid ground on which to try for an easy win.
Note how they’ve sought to co-opt us into their attempt to discredit the politicians and scientists. They accused the politicians of suggesting parents are irresponsible and will carelessly put their children in danger. Bishops, on the other hand, trust parents to protect their children.
I’d be a little surprised if this flourish didn’t originate in a PR company. Maybe not. Maybe some foolish bishop fancies himself as a PR strategist.
But it’s a bit edgy, if you ask me, Catholic bishops lecturing parents on how best to protect their children.
Maybe not — maybe there’s a fondness for that kind of thing, a nostalgia for the old swagger.
That’s the lads I grew up with — they didn’t seek to enter into dialogue with you; they pointed dramatically at your forehead and told you what to do, and they warned that if you didn’t do it you’d be dancing on red hot coals for all eternity.
Second thoughts, no — I doubt there’s a real longing to have the bishops putting their thumbs on the political scales again. To be honest — and this is a terrible thing to say — I suspect we’d rather have Fianna Fáil.
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