Editorial / Summer 2006

The currently fashionable attempt to return to things Celtic and pre-Christian, is based on the fallacy that Ireland before the 5^th Century can be seen through anything except the Christian mirror by which the earliest Irish Christians interpreted all of their past.

When we speak about secularism in an Irish context, we do not mean atheism, which, especially in its humanist form, is yet another belief system. We mean people who are nominally Christian, but whose beliefs do not impinge on their daily lives. In that context, it would be interesting to know how many of the malefactors whose misdeeds are being uncovered by our tribunals were, or are, church-going Christians, who somehow did not realise that the principles of their faith were intended for application in every aspect of their lives. It can be said that effective secularism began in Ireland long before the 1990s. Loyalties to a political party, patriotism (true or false) and greed have long been the foundation of many lives. Their contemporaries have often uncritically celebrated those with such priorities. The severe and sustained criticism which is now the norm in commentaries on the majority Church is a shock to an institution which was once almost universally esteemed, but criticism has now extended to almost every national institution, including the police and the judiciary.

Some commentators, particularly in Britain, rejoice in the decline of Western Christianity, but overlook the growth of Christianity everywhere else and forget, or are perhaps a bit embarrassed by, the most spectacular collapse of a Western belief system in the 20^th Century: Marxism, which is the most remarkable example of the “god that failed”.

Christians in Muslim lands suffer harassment and persecution as part of their daily lives, but their sufferings (from Egypt to Indonesia) are rarely reported. Our very small Irish Muslim population is, however, reported out of all proportion to its numbers. We can expect soft-focussed articles every Ramadan. Christianity is excoriated for its “patriarchy”, but little is said about the subordinate role of women in Islam; the murder of Dutch film producer Theo van Gogh, in November 2004, has had a salutary effect on anybody who might voice such criticism.

It is socially and intellectually respectable to declare that “I have complete antipathy to Catholicism”, but impossible to imagine a situation in which the latter noun could be replaced by “Anglicanism”, “Methodism”, “Judaism” or even “Zoroastrianism”. So the beliefs of millions of Irish Catholics, who attend Mass every Sunday, can be excoriated, but no other faith may be criticised. This very Irish example of skewed political correctness unbalances all reasoned debated about religion and society.

Omitting the religious element leads to a misunderstanding of the past and a misinterpretation of the present. A sense of moral vacuum results in serious alienation, which is most noticeable among young men. In a current British bestseller, subtitled The Encyclopedia of Modern Life, the two authors simply rant against everything and affirm nothing.

The viewpoint of immigrants is refreshing and startling, as in the pity that African Pentecostals feel for young Irish people in what is seen as their loose behaviour and religious illiteracy. African Christians in Ireland feel that their religion involves them, builds community and empowers women, all of which used to be characteristic of the traditional churches.

Immigration has, in two years, already so transformed the religious and social feel of the country that comments and predictions made only three years ago are already out of date. Very recent immigration is reducing rather than increasing religious diversification, because many of the immigrants are Catholics. Religious and racial diversity are, however, permanent features of our country. Women will continue to be the principal transmitters of belief to the next generation.

Ireland is not well equipped to produce a nation of Nietzschean supermen, living without the comfort of religion and sustained by self-belief alone. An alternative, which now worries many leading Irish people, is a nation without principles and without order.

Christianity offers a moral rather than a strategic approach to solving problems and helps our country and our society to self-understanding. This will happen, however, only when the Churches agree that they have now apologised sufficiently for past sins and rediscover their mission to the West.