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Breton Humors
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THE SOCIALLY OPPRESSIVE ROLE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN IRELAND
Firstly, it should be understood that Irish Catholicism came into its inheritance only by means of the destruction of a rival world and that its first priority was to establish an efficient and disciplined Church organisation loyal to Rome. Hence, its consistent opposition to the nationalist cause throughout the latter part of the 19th century and 20th century and in the north east of Ireland to this day the church is breathtaking in its pragmatism even to the point of siding with the forces of injustice to secure its imperialistic ambitions.
The Irish Church was essentially a folk Church but he new Church (it is merely 100-150 years old - i.e. the Church we know today) forced on people a guilt based, individualising religious system, directly opposite to that to which they were used. The Irish thus became a people whose religion was used to cow and frighten them.
- Pilgrimages came to be seen as necessary to placate an angry God rather than help them as a community to develop a deep religious sense - which is what they had been used to before.
- The Church cultivated a paternalistic attitude to the poor - one which lacked any awareness of sins of injustice against them - as, indeed, it does to this day. Even today, the Church has a similar attitude on injustice in Northern Ireland. The appalling contradictions which allowed Christians to grossly exploit the poor, while thinking themselves charitable because they donated to charities, confused and confuses to this day, and was in strict contrast to the past.
- The priest began to wield fearful moral power over people?s lives. The clergy became a class apart at the expense of closeness to the people and became an efficient, and well disciplined civil service defending a powerful institution. Celibacy was enforced and they became obsessed with sexual morality - as they are to this day.
- Church teaching began to warp and repress people?s sexual and emotional lives - to the extent that men in particular became emotional cripples - unable to relate to women in anything resembling a normal relationship. The image of the ?ice cold virgin? was part and parcel of the desexualisation of women in the Irish imagination -e.g. The Great Hunger by Patrick Kavanagh.
- The ?new Church? was breathtaking in its sexism - women were accorded a subject role and, in its attitude to contraception, divorce, illegitimacy, homosexuality and abortion ignored and ignores women?s needs. Thus were laid the roots of a sexually puritanical society which has little basis in scripture. Basically, the Church from the beginning engaged in ?double speak?. It claimed to venerate the family yet denied the opportunities of establishing a family to many of its members as it presided over ?marriage? being increasingly turned into a commercial transaction and allowed an emigration rate reaching as high as 50% among its women members.
- The Church was loud in its condemnation of emigration yet she continued to cherish the system that condemned people to emigrate. The Catholic Church in Ireland taught the poor to turn the other cheek - whether it be against a brutal husband or an exploitive landlord. It preached submission to the poor whilst serving the interests of the rich.
Franz Fannon put it accurately when talking about the role of the Church in French occupied Algeria. He stated, "The Church has seen to it that the causes of poverty and misfortunes are attributed to God and not the oppressor or his agents".
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