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Aslan10
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Yea, because the Republic of Ireland is sooo much like North Korea…
Cardinal Dolan: Islamic State is perversion of Islam, as IRA was perversion of Catholicism [CC]
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pnewton
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We do not disagree one bit on the last part. Heck, Cardinal Dolan called what ISIS is doing targeted genocide. We definitely have to act now and act hard, but toward ISIS. To carry on a tangential, one-point-only, not-to-be-expanded “analogy” with the IRA, just like any action taken to suppress terroristic acts in on the part of Irish militants should not have included treating Irish here with contempt, so an aggressive, military attack on ISIS should* not *include treating Muslims here with contempt.
Reading what he said, I really think that is the only point.
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SonSearcher
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There were really three points I agree with oldcath.
**I did read it, and he is trying to make a moral equivalency that does not exist.
**
here here
**All you have to do is look at the names of the two groups to see the differences “ISlAMIC STATE” and “Irish REPUBLICAN Army.” **
here here
**I think Cardinal Dolan spinelessly is giving in to the modern idea that all religions have performed evil in equity.
**
here here
I would hardly reduce a counter argument to the one in the middle. They all work in chorus to make one solid point, Dolan is using his substantial place in the media to perpetuate a moral equivalency that doesn’t exist, and does nothing to identify the true problem we face currently, an armed resurgent Caliphate that the world hasn’t seen in centuries. I would hope and expect that a Prince of the Church would call it what it is.
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SteveVH
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Yes, exactly.
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JustaServant
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Wow.
Didn’t realize I was walking into a hornets nest.
All I said was that I agree with the Cardinal. The Church should reach out to peace loving Muslims to counter the violence people do in the name of Islam.
As for the rest, I remember Jesus saying something about praying for our enemies.
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Per_Crucem
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Oh, I wasn’t challenging you, Justa. I was just wondering, because the Cardinal said nothing about peace.
And yes, we should pray, and hope for their conversion.
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oldcatholicguy
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Not hard at all since the other poster focuses on ISLAMIC STATE and REPUBLICAN and doesn’t bother to provide any other objections to the claim that the Cardinal is making a moral equivalence argument of religions. Republicanism- not actually a religion and not actually a facet of Christianity. It would be an amoral system of governance.
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oldcatholicguy
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So the IRA is/was a legit branch of the Republic of Ireland’s military?
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jlhargus
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So your theory would be if only the U.S. would do nothing all wars would stop?
What we have done, and are doing, will take at least a generation to fix. And more war will not solve it.
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oldcatholicguy
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Boko Haram kind of destroys that theory.
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Aslan10
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“The Irish Republican Army (IRA) (Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916. In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly (Dáil Éireann), and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army. Thereafter, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against British rule in Ireland in the 1919–21 Irish War of Independence.”
Not so different from the US Continental Army and its militias. The continuity IRA and Provisional IRA are different, but that is irrelevant to the topic. The IRA was/is a politically motivated group fighting for an independent Ireland that was subject to the foreign occupation and oppression from the British government for centuries. ISIS, is a religiously motivated extremist group, spreading a very radical form sharia law across foreign lands, not just its own, seizing territories, and subjugating its people to their ideologies that are based on their interpretation of the Qu’ran. And the Cardinal making these two groups analogous is nonsense.
True, the IRA was mainly full of Catholics, but it’s motivations were not to spread Catholic ideas and doctrines through terror; it was to bring about a free and independent state for all of Ireland, regardless of one’s religion.
Again, so nobody mistakes me. I am not condoning the acts of the provisional and continuity IRA during “the troubles.”*
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oldcatholicguy
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All very nice, but you’ve seem to have avoided actually answering my question. The IRA- a legit part of the Republic of Ireland’s military? You know, the ones that went around murdering people. The IRA the good Cardinal was actually referring to.
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Aslan10
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Indeed, I thought I did. The disagreement with Cardinal Dolan is him associating the IRA’s actions with religiously motivated actions. Instead, these were purely political acts, heinous no doubt, but done to bring about a unified Ireland, which to me is political, not religious. I’m actually standing up for Catholicism here. I’m showing the difference between the IRA (most specifically the continuity and provisional) and ISIS. And I think the Cardinal was giving in to a modern idea, that to criticize the actions of one religious group, you must show the moral equivalence of your own faith’s past. I don’t think he has to do that.
Apparently, my criticism has been seen as slander, but that is not my intention ,and I apologize for previous posts that may have seemed inappropriate. As I wrote earlier, I see him as a good leader.
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Son_of_Niall
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I still await your answer.
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Son_of_Niall
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Bumped for an answer.
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eddie_too
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the cardinal (indeed any one with the knowledge) could help us all immensely by pointing us to where we can find the true and authentic teachings and practices of islam.
where did the cardinal, in an intellectual respect, encounter these true and authentic teachings, that is all I am asking? making them up on his own based on his own knowledge, spirituality and understanding is not the source I want to examine.
I want the source muslims can rely upon to learn, know and understand true and authentic islam.
where did the cardinal, in an intellectual respect, encounter these true and authentic teachings, that is all I am asking? making them up on his own based on his own knowledge, spirituality and understanding is not the source I want to examine.
I want the source muslims can rely upon to learn, know and understand true and authentic islam.
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Randy_Carson
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I was always under the impression that the IRA was not fighting for a particular interpretation of Christianity, namely, Catholicism; it was fighting against the political and economic repression of Ireland by the British. Thus, to attempt to compare the IRA with ISIS on religious grounds fails miserably.
So, if the subject line of the OP is correct, what is being said, in effect, is, “Oh, well, ISIS isn’t really doing anything all that unusual…this sort of thing is rather common among religious groups.”
*Really? * :nope:
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LongingSoul
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Can I just throw light on something I’m noticing on this thread. The Irish Catholic diaspora fairly thoroughly infused us, their descendants with the true sense of what happened to our ancestors. The likes of Oliver Cromwell and the English Protestant monarchy, were hellbent and destroying Catholicism in Ireland for a very long time. The IRA is 2000% a response to a long history of Catholic oppression by Protestant English.
I’ve noticed the ‘convert’ status of many of those who feel offended by the comparison of ISIS and IRA as ‘religious’ extremists. Well the IRA were most certainly in every way religious extremists. It is just obscured a little bit by the political boundaries involved. Someone not brought up in the Irish Catholic tradition or was in fact brought up in Protestant tradition… is going to have received a very different interpretation of that history.
I’m of a generation, hopefully the last to experience this feeling, but I have a soft spot for the IRA in my Catholic heart. Intellectually I know how atrocious their acts have been, but perhaps among the Muslim community there is still the same kind of strange sense of historical persecution that is represented by these diabolical extremist Islamic groups.
Card. Dolan is actually quite astute in his reading of the similarities in how terrorism can thrive where religious loyalties are involved.
I’ve noticed the ‘convert’ status of many of those who feel offended by the comparison of ISIS and IRA as ‘religious’ extremists. Well the IRA were most certainly in every way religious extremists. It is just obscured a little bit by the political boundaries involved. Someone not brought up in the Irish Catholic tradition or was in fact brought up in Protestant tradition… is going to have received a very different interpretation of that history.
I’m of a generation, hopefully the last to experience this feeling, but I have a soft spot for the IRA in my Catholic heart. Intellectually I know how atrocious their acts have been, but perhaps among the Muslim community there is still the same kind of strange sense of historical persecution that is represented by these diabolical extremist Islamic groups.
Card. Dolan is actually quite astute in his reading of the similarities in how terrorism can thrive where religious loyalties are involved.
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FollowChrist34
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I, too, have a soft spot for the IRA. I put it in the historical context that you describe above; we all do. And we are taught it (I am only half Irish). But for me anyway, it was in the late 80s, early 90s that I started to re-evaluate the narrative. I did a lot of reading and was in Britain and Ireland (never been to Northern Ireland though) during this time, just visiting, but I did learn about this from people.
There is a Protestant side to the story too. Don’t get me wrong; I am not a loyalist; most Protestants aren’t, any more than Catholic nationalists are republicans. The bottom line is that a LOT of people suffered; a LOT of people died horribly violent deaths. The more I learned about the whole thing the more sickening it got. I couldn’t just stick to one side or the other. I think a lot of people were actually following that same trajectory, consciously or unconsciously around the same time. Violence had run its course as the primary means to deal with the conflict.
But I would never argue that the IRA was a consciously Catholic organization. They did separate themselves from the Church, at least officially. I remember reading somewhere about some IRA volunteer (half Irish/half English) who was a Manchester United supporter; he was blown up with his scarf on which was completely drenched in blood. He had grown up in England. I identified with him because he was of split nationality. People were in the IRA with a wide variety of backgrounds. I think if you pressed him, Cardinal Dolan would admit this. It is an important distinction to understand.
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LongingSoul
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It would be interesting to have some of the Irish and English CAF members chime in with perspective. I was in the UK in the early 80’s and remember the in the Catholic clubs in England how towards the end of the evening, a cap was passed around on the down low for the IRA collection. It would happen every single night. Not sure if it still happens now though. They may not have identified themselves as the Catholic Republican Army or such, but it was Catholics in Ireland and around the world definitely represented their loyalty base.
I believe Card. Dolan is himself and Irish Catholic so he must have some insight into that Catholic loyalty and its fundamental misguided-ness.
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