The Irish Church and Its Critics

[Padua_Minded]

The Church And Its Critics
Church & State - Editorial

“The Age Of My Craven Deference Is Finally Over”. That was the headline on Professor Ronan Fanning’s article on the Murphy Report (Sun. Independent 6 Dec.). Well, it was almost the headline. Fanning used the collective “our” rather than the personal “my”. But in the case of the Professor of Modern History at the chief College of the National University the personal and the collective merge. The Professor (singular) determines in great part what characterised the plurality of those who went through the educational system to its highest level.

It became well known to us long ago that the paid intelligentsia of the state were craven in their attitude towards the Church.  They were sceptics in private but were cynically respectful in public, because they were craven.

When we set out 36 years ago to reduce the role of the Church in the State, and to establish a viable national culture independent of the Church, and therefore necessarily in conflict with the Church, at least in the first instance, we met with very few amongst the official intelligentsia who were in private disagreement with us, but not one of them was willing to say in public what they said in private.

They were cynical participants in the status quo.  They functioned by mental reservation.

Because their scepticism was not deployed against the Church in the public sphere, it remained primitive and undeveloped.  They were private Know-alls, who in fact knew nothing because what they thought they knew could not be articulated in public.

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Read more : url.ie/5zrc

 

[OriginalJS]

This is a relatively lengthy rant I couldn’t finish. I have not seriously studied the Irish situation.

 

[Yellow_Belle]

This is a relatively lengthy rant I couldn’t finish. I have not seriously studied the Irish situation.

Not just lengthy but impenetrable - and I would consider myself reasonably well-informed on the Irish situation.

It also fails the requirement of being an actual NEWS story.

 

[Yellow_Belle]

I should also point out that Church & State magazine, to which the OP linked, was the organ of the old Campaign to Separate Church & State. This campaign group was a front for the British and Irish Communist Organization, a Maoist group back in the 70s and 80s that staunchly supported Ulster Unionism.

Formerly, Church & State magazine published rabid denunciations of the Catholic Church and its role in Irish society.Nowadays it argues - ostensibly, anyway - in defence of Catholicism from a secularist viewpoint.

Your enemy’s enemy is rarely your friend.