"Anglo-Saxons" in the Church

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HomeschoolDad

HomeschoolDad

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Are “Anglo-Saxon” Catholics disliked by the rest of the Church?

By this I mean Catholics in countries that derive their social structure and philosophy, ideas of law and justice, and even language from Britain — the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

I recall a couple of times during the recent sexual abuse crisis that churchmen of other nationalities were bemoaning the “Anglo-Saxons” and their straightforward, inquisitive approach to the crisis. The unspoken part appeared to be that “if it weren’t for those pesky Anglo-Saxons, the top wouldn’t have blown off all this, and we could have kept things under wraps where they belonged”.

As a side point, while I deplore the Anglican schism and wish it had never happened, at least it brought into being a church that had its roots in the English-speaking world and had, among other things, a reverence for its own language, and expression of liturgy and theology in that language. The traditional Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible are splendid examples of classical, literary English that ICEL translations and contemporary bibles (and even the Douay-Rheims version) simply can’t approach.

And yes, I say this as a slightly biased Anglo-American 😇:uk:
 
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I’m not sure Anglo-Saxons are disliked as such by people in other countries. Americans often are, and are probably all considered “Anglo-Saxons” in a way. I do think Americans have a fondness for the language, just as Irish seem to.

I think the ICEL attempt to change the language usage is more motivated by a (I think misguided) disdain for anything “old” and an undue fondness of anything “new” or “modern”.
 
I can’t really speak for anyone except myself, but a lot of my favorite writers are English, including two competitors for “Favorite Theology/Philosophy Writer” and two for “Favorite Fiction Author” (Frank Sheed in theology, Tolkien in fiction, and Chesterton in both). I could kind of understand (though not agree) with those who say that if it weren’t for England, the Protestant Revolt would have been crushed, but that could be said for France also, so…
 
Ridgerunner said:
I’m not sure Anglo-Saxons are disliked as such by people in other countries. Americans often are, and are probably all considered “Anglo-Saxons” in a way. I do think Americans have a fondness for the language, just as Irish seem to.
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I deliberately omitted Ireland from that list because, first of all, they are not Anglo-Saxons, and the relationship of Ireland to Britain has been fractious throughout the centuries (and that is putting it mildly).

I have a bit of Scots-Irish heritage as well. My AncestryDNA results placed a huge blue circle straight over Belfast, and I’m reasonably sure they were Protestants.
 
You might be right about protestant ancestry, but not necessarily. My maternal grandmother died young, and my grandfather married a lady of Scots ancestry. She was Catholic and her whole family back to Scotland was too.

But as to the Irish, during the big immigration period, many were from Gaelic-speaking parts of Ireland, but most were English-speakers and had been for generations. In the literary use of the language, the Irish are worthy competitors with the English, and in some ways are more imaginative. Half my Irish ancestors were longtime English speakers and had a way with the language that was always clever, fresh and surprising.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
It certainly didn’t help matters one bit.
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Yeah, I’m personally more annoyed at France though. A cardinal helping to preserve Protestantism is a little too much. Not that I have anything against France. Germany, on the other hand… 😂
 
Ridgerunner said:
You might be right about protestant ancestry, but not necessarily. My maternal grandmother died young, and my grandfather married a lady of Scots ancestry. She was Catholic and her whole family back to Scotland was too.
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There is no known Catholic heritage in my family. Some would call me a convert (was baptized and confirmed in the Church at age 15) but I didn’t convert “from” anything and I have never embraced anything but Catholicism. I think of it more as an infant baptism delayed eight years.
Ridgerunner said:
In the literary use of the language, the Irish are worthy competitors with the English, and in some ways are more imaginative. Half my Irish ancestors were longtime English speakers and had a way with the language that was always clever, fresh and surprising.
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No doubt about that. Ireland is in a very advantageous position within the EU, as its population speaks English as its first language. Ireland is on my bucket list of countries to visit sooner rather than later.
 
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As I recall reading it, the largest single ethnic descent in the U.S. is German.

But when it comes to a gigantic swath of the country running from Appalachia through the Smokies, Ozarks, Ouachitas and into the TExas Hill County, it’s very, very Scots-Irish. In all of that country, the “traditional” popular music (like Bluegrass) is almost indistinguishable from the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland.
 
Ridgerunner said:
But as to the Irish, during the big immigration period, many were from Gaelic-speaking parts of Ireland, but most were English-speakers and had been for generations. In the literary use of the language, the Irish are worthy competitors with the English, and in some ways are more imaginative. Half my Irish ancestors were longtime English speakers and had a way with the language that was always clever, fresh and surprising.
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No wish to be pedantic, but when I come across things like this, I simply must respond. I hope you will forgive me. I come from a Gaelic speaking area and I happen to know the history of the language like the back of my hand. Its highly unlikely that your ancestors had been English speaking for generations when the came to America if they came in the nineteenth century and are not “scots Irish” in descent.

Irish remained the dominant language on the island of Ireland into the nineteenth century. The Peasant class in 1800 was almost universally exclusively Irish speaking, right until the Great Famine of 1845-1851. That class was the demographic that was most likely to emigrate. The better off farmers, the middle and upper classes were to varying degrees bilingual and they tended to be the class that stayed behind.

Even as late as 1860-1870, so long as your family didn’t come from the area near Dublin, or the heavily Protestant areas near Belfast, they were almost certainly Irish speaking, or their parents were Irish speaking.
 
Half of my Irish ancestors came from County Leix (Laois) and County Offaly. They were English speakers and could not speak more than a few words of Gaelic. Their name was very recognizably Norman-Irish.

The other half were primarily Gaelic-speaking, though they could speak some English, and came from County Mayo. Their names were more “Irish” than the others.

But thinking about it, I think you’re right about the majority. I recall reading that before the Famine, most Irish were Gaelic-speakers. After it, most were English-speakers. Not sure of the exact time frames. Slightly off the subject, the average marriage age before the famine was about 20 for men. After the famine it was about 30.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
“if it weren’t for those pesky Anglo-Saxons, the top wouldn’t have blown off all this, and we could have kept things under wraps where they belonged”
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Give the pesky Irish some credit too for blowing the top off all this hidden abuse. They were making an issue of things early on in the 1990s.
 
Just for fun, I’ll relate this. As a child, my (Irish) father went to the home of his grandparents from County Mayo for dinner. After dinner, they always said the rosary in Gaelic. To him, it seemed interminable. Longer than in English.

My mother’s father’s people were Italian, and she used to go to her grandparents’ house sometimes, and they would say the rosary in Italian. She maintained that it took much less time than in English.

I don’t know any Gaelic other than the sign of the cross and the Hail Mary. But I sometimes wonder whether my father’s perception of time was lengthened by the fact that he couldn’t understand the Gaelic.

Anyway, it all made a good story.
 
Even if they were from Laois and Offaly, which Anglicised pretty early, around 1850, they were most likely Gaelic speaking, or their parents were Gaelic speaking. As late as 1817, an English traveller remarked that the market traders in Dublin shouted their wares in Irish. In Belfast, they were still doing so at Saint George’s Market in 1900. Even those families that originally were Norman, were more than likely to be Irish speaking. If you were Catholic, you were probably Irish speaking.

Its true that the Famine dealt a severe blow to the language. Basically, before virtually everyone needed to have some Irish because you couldn’t travel around Ireland, buy goods at the market, deal with your tenants or employees etc etc without speaking Irish. The Famine annihilated that class of people almost entirely and thus the necessity of speaking Irish disappeared. The new pattern of emigrating to America and England made English absolutely essential so the people who survived took to raising their children only through English, even if they themselves didn’t speak it. Irish wasn’t permitted in schools so literacy in the language almost disappeared, and it became associated with poverty and the bottom classes. The Church also was part of the problem as it considered Ireland’s role, as the only Catholic nation, to convert the British Empire, which also nessecitated English. Gradually, the language receded into the mountains and the west where it survives as the dominant language to this day.

Its still the case that Irish speaking areas have a higher age of marriage than the rest of Ireland and tend to have fewer children. Most people ascribe that to the poverty of the region.
 
It was the belief in Irish speaking areas until quite recently that God didn’t answer prayers in English and that the devil couldn’t speak Irish!
 
StillWandering said:
If you were Catholic, you were probably Irish speaking.
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They were Catholic and English-speaking. I never knew much about their parents, but they, themselves, could not speak Gaelic. That particular group were merchants. Maybe they sold to the protestants, who had the money. I don’t know.

Have it as you wish, but I know what I know.
 
I still have many relatives that live in Northern Ireland that are Catholic.

The only frustration I have ever heard expressed about “Anglo-Saxon” Catholics is that their married priests convert and become Catholic Priests in Northern Ireland. It is not so much that they want priests to be celibate. In fact, the issue is quite the opposite. If you have a married Catholic priest in Northern Ireland who is a convert, there should be married Catholic priests in Ireland who are not converts. That is their main concern. It is an issue of fairness.
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
Are “Anglo-Saxon” Catholics disliked by the rest of the Church?

By this I mean Catholics in countries that derive their social structure and philosophy, ideas of law and justice, and even language from Britain — the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

I recall a couple of times during the recent sexual abuse crisis that churchmen of other nationalities were bemoaning the “Anglo-Saxons” and their straightforward, inquisitive approach to the crisis. The unspoken part appeared to be that “if it weren’t for those pesky Anglo-Saxons, the top wouldn’t have blown off all this, and we could have kept things under wraps where they belonged”.

As a side point, while I deplore the Anglican schism and wish it had never happened, at least it brought into being a church that had its roots in the English-speaking world and had, among other things, a reverence for its own language, and expression of liturgy and theology in that language. The traditional Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible are splendid examples of classical, literary English that ICEL translations and contemporary bibles (and even the Douay-Rheims version) simply can’t approach.

And yes, I say this as a slightly biased Anglo-American 😇:uk:
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Q:​

For clarification, when you say “Anglo-Saxon” Catholic, are you Catholic who is English or are you Anglican?
 
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