For over two centuries, the Catholic Church has controlled primary and secondary education in Ireland – so necessary for propagation of values from generation to generation. Up to very recently it also controlled our health system.
This control of health and education (mostly by religious orders – but also through parish priests and bishops having influential positions on the boards of schools and hospitals) began when we were still under English rule.
The ruling classes in England (and their equivalents in Ireland – the infamous landlords – with the exception of a few with a social conscience) were utterly neglectful of ordinary Irish Catholics in these two vital areas, indeed they impoverished our country to the point where we starved to death and emigrated in large numbers in the mid to late 1840’s and the decades following.
I remember a kind and compassionate Christian Brother explaining to us that when no one (and he meant no-one) educated poor Catholic Irish children, in the early 19th Century, brothers and nuns took up the challenge.
I thought, at that time, as we were young men going out into the world, that he was kind of trying to get us to understand and then forgive the hurt that his colleagues might have visited on us. The school where he was teaching, (and I was supposed to be learning) Sexton St. Christian Brothers School in Limerick, had been founded in 1816.
Many of the brothers – I am fairly sure – went into the religious life when they were very young (as teenagers) and were totally unprepared for the stresses of the religious life itself, e.g. vows of poverty, obedience, celibacy etc., not to mention the pressures that we now know come from caring for vulnerable people.
I cannot say that his explanation totally erased the memories of what was called corporal punishment, but I remember, as a young man doing the Leaving Cert, appreciating his honesty – and on reflection it was quite courageous of him to broach such subjects in those days.
We must assume that the Church was (at least initially) motivated by genuine generosity of spirit in its desire to educate and heal those who no-one else looked out for.
However over many decades the early generosity of spirit morphed into a power and control (and even economic) exercise to the extent that, after independence in 1922, the Catholic Church deemed their law (Canon Law) to be on an equal footing (if not superior) to the law of the land as determined by our democratically elected Governments.
And those Governments, national and local, at every level from the highest office down to the lowliest county councillor, were under the thumb of the Catholic Church. The same went for our principal sporting organisation, the GAA. Priests were involved in many clubs and many were managers of county teams. The Archbishop of Cashel threw in the ball on All-Ireland Final Days, (after the opposing captains kissed his ring) and the principal GAA stadium, Croke Park, is named after an Archbishop.
Our Proclamation of Independence in 1916 promised a pluralist society and equality for all, and was declared in the name of God. Our 1937 Constitution, voted for overwhelmingly by the ordinary people, also mentions God and the primacy of the protection of different aspects of family life – as I will describe in the next post. Even one of our most famous patriotic songs, The Foggy Dew – written by a priest – afforded the Angelus higher status in our fight for freedom than the pipes and drums that most armies rely on for keeping up morale!
When I was young even music/dancing and entertainment was organised by clergy, and if my memory serves me right a local (and highly successful) Limerick rock band, Reform was managed by a priest. I remember thinking, growing up, if it was named after an Irish patriot or a saint, it must be either a GAA Club or a Local Authority Housing Estate. And the Church also boosted the fishing industry as they forbade eating meat on Fridays.
Of equal interest is how the average Irish Catholic became dependent on, and indeed, clung to the Church. This dependence was, I am sure, driven by firstly the need to be educated and healed (and even fed and clothed in some cases) when no one else was doing it, and secondly (and equally importantly) the need to have a strong identity that was different to that of the perceived oppressors and their equivalents in the houses of the gentry in Ireland. The fact that we were an island also was a factor, as outside influences took a much longer time to take hold than they do nowadays.
While the Catholic Church is not as central to us Irish now, those examples are an illustration of the extent to which we saw Ireland and The Catholic Church, and being Irish and Catholic, as being one and the same, like, nowadays, Iran is an Islamic State, or Israel is a Jewish State.