Editorial / Summer 2005

Another aspect of the mindset is favourable comment on other Christian traditions, but in a patronising way that suggests their virtue lies in the fact of their not being Roman Catholic. There are occasional attempts to replace references to Mass, particularly funeral Masses, with the word “service”, a usage which denies the distinct values and liturgical traditions of both the Catholic and the Reformed traditions.

The transition between the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI gave a voice to the overlooked element in Irish life: the very many to whom religion is important. RTE and the other media gave excellent coverage to the papal funeral, conclave, election and enthronement. This won great praise from the public, but could not and did not please all the columnists, so, for example, one journalist, whose brief is to write about herself, felt obliged to tell us that John Paul II meant nothing to her and then, in an obvious attempt to attract some controversy, used another column to attack his successor. Both columns were written on the presumption that her opinion about popes matters and that thousands are eager to read it.

There seems to be more comment about Christianity amongst those who have lapsed than amongst the larger group whom bishops, in a term that now appals us, used to call “the simple faithful”. Much of the commentary overlooks what is really happening in our society as we embrace the neo-liberal consensus and free-market capitalism. The quiet abandonment of Christian principles regarding the family means that a married woman who chooses not to work outside the home is regarded as an unproductive economic unit. Single fathers, who now represent 33% of first-time fathers and are older than the “irresponsible teenager” image which many of us retain, must, in this scheme of things, be forced rather than encouraged to have an involvement with their children. Punishment of the father rather than help for the whole family has become the basis of our family policy.

In much of our political discourse, self-righteousness has replaced Christian principles. Indeed, most politicians would be too embarrassed to declare that they are doing something from Christian motives. This embarrassment comes from naïve multiculturalism, because our rapidly changing and fragmented society is flooded by opinions about everything, but agreement about very little. Cultural relativism and religious relativism go hand in hand. If all opinions and belief systems are equally valid, then, anybody who proclaims one as better than the others and takes a stand on it can only be pitied, unless that person happens to be Muslim.

Multiculturalism is a response to the retreat of Western Christianity, the decline of socialism and the collapse of Marxism. Islam, in contrast to Christianity, attracts positive, and sometimes uncritical, media coverage because it is uncompromising in declaring itself to be the Truth and in its refusal, unlike Judaism and Christianity, to submit its sacred texts to modern study, research and criticism. Irish Muslims are, however, to be applauded for insisting that religion is a public rather than “a private matter”

Those who exult in the decline of Western, and especially Irish, Christianity, are mistaken in their analysis for several reasons. They ignore the “believing without belonging” that is so characteristic of British Christianity, and overlook the “believing without practising” that is characteristic of a considerable proportion of both Irish and a rather larger proportion of Continental Christianity. This leads to a great underestimation of the depth of our Christian roots.

Also omitted from this secularist analysis is the change between generations. We assume that each generation is going to become more secular, more sexually permissive, more materialistic, more hedonistic and, in sum, more selfish. Given that we live in a global culture, which is heavily influenced by the United States, we often take our image of that huge country from popular entertainment and assume that very successful programmes, such as Desperate Housewives and The OC, reflect the reality of American life.

The actual social trends in the behaviour of American youth must, therefore, come as a surprise: a drop of one-third in the rate of teenage pregnancy, abortion and birth rates over the past 15 years. American teenagers become sexually active later and prize virginity much more than the generation that preceded them. We tend to follow American trends here sooner or later. In the case of sexual behaviour, it may be later, but young people have always surprised their elders.

Unpopular words in the modern lexicon include “dogma”, “orthodox” and “authority”. Some of this unpopularity, and our current anti-institutionalism, is rooted in the late 1960s and, more fundamentally, in our reaction to the totalitarian ideologies which dominated so much of the world in the past century. These words, and the word “truth”, may be rediscovered in their original richness in a century that has hardly begun.