Echo Opinion: Reform-minded pope could restore church’s influence

Its domain was the spiritual, de Valera’s the temporal, and the GAA’s was sport. There was much synergy among this threesome, prompting some to regard the relationship as akin to that of a three-legged stool. This partnership lacked balance as the tentacles of the church touched every facet of Irish life, resulting in a society that was characterized by the 3 Cs: conservatism, confessionalism, and censorship. In this era the church was king and lord, and brooked no opposition.
Perhaps the most powerful exercise of the church’s power was the scuttling of the famous Mother and Child program, proposed by Dr. Noel Browne, the minister for health, in 1951. He was greatly concerned by the high rates of infant mortality. Browne proposed free maternity care and medical attention for the child until he or she was 16 years old. The bishops were vigorously opposed to the program, claiming that such socialized medicine contravened Catholic teaching. They also feared that women’s faith could be corrupted by learning about birth control. In this battle between church and state, the church was victorious, as the program was abandoned and the government eventually fell. Critics asserted that the church was in essence the effective government, and Ireland looked like a theocracy rather than a democracy.
While society was depicted by the 3 Cs, the primary schools promoted the 4 Rs: reading, writing, ‘rithmatic, and religion. These state-sponsored but church-controlled schools were austere places with a liberal supply of corporal punishment. The teacher was subservient to the priest and had to stay within his good graces.
John McGahern, a teacher and an author, learned this the hard way. McGahern mentioned a taboo subject, a sexual act of self-gratification, in his book. He was sacked, and while it was considered bad that he wrote a dirty book, it was a bigger offense that he had married in a registry office. In the eyes of the church, he was unfit to teach. Even INTO, the Teachers’ Union, cowered before the church. In secondary education, the church had a complete monopoly, as the state had yet to realize its responsibility at this level.
During these years of church hegemony, the clergy fulfilled a variety of roles in the GAA, from referee to chairman. When the man in black had the whistle, there was no dissent. Invariably some priests progressed to county board chairmen, while higher prelates threw in the ball on all-Ireland Day. This ceremonial task was a fitting testament to their societal status. Rarely would anyone challenge the priest’s opinion; it wouldn’t be considered right or even lucky.
However, the winds of modernity were gathering force, ushering in sea changes in Irish life. De Valera’s utopia of economic nationalism, complete with comely maidens and cozy homesteads, vanished. Sean Lemass, a former taoiseach, set in motion an aggressive economic expansionistic policy that propelled Ireland into Europe. The seeds for the Celtic Tiger were sewn, and eventually Ireland went to the top of the economic chart. Donough O’Malley began another revolution in education in the late 1960s.
Today Ireland has a free, non-denominated and rigorous system through third level. Few countries can match it. The GAA shed its Anglophobia by becoming less politicized, less parochial, and more professional in outlook. The ban on playing foreign sports was revoked in 1971, and now the GAA has endorsed sporting ecumenism by allowing other sports into Croke Park.
Indeed, the winds of change appeared to sweep through the church as Vatican II evolved. The much-heralded council promised much but delivered little. Aside from introducing the vernacular, cardigan-clad, guitar-strumming priests, and singing nuns in abbreviated head gear and shortened habits, its reforms were superficial rather than substantive.
As the 20th century closed, Ireland had morphed into an industrialized, urbanized, secularized, and cosmopolitan country. Conspicuous consumption replaced the frugal comforts of the de Valera era. Catholicism and the national identity no longer fused as the special position of the church was removed from the constitution. Mary Robinson, who had championed many issues that were anathema to Catholic doctrine, became president of Ireland. The Irish had become classic cafeteria Catholics, picking what suited and ignoring the rest. Premarital sex, contraception and cohabitation were precursors to marriage. The graying of Catholic church continues, as parochial houses close, and the seminaries are deserted.
The late pope, despite enormous popularity and prestige, expedited the decline of the church in the Western world. His encyclicals widened the fissures. He left behind a highly centralized, polarized and patriarchal institution. The church’s obduracy in maintaining celibacy is no longer sustainable. This practice resulted a millennium ago from expediency rather than from divine revelation to safeguard the assets of the church. Precedents already exist for the abolition of celibacy as married clergy from denomination and the Eastern Rite have been co-opted into the Roman Rite. The removal of celibacy would end the shortage of priests and possibly eliminate pedophilia. It seems inconsistent for the church to preach equality yet deny women the right to ordination. The church’s view on contraception is logically indefensible, not to mention homosexuality.
Hopes for swift reforms are not optimistic as Benedict XVI is as doctrinaire and dogmatic as his predecessor. While the church may disavow Darwin’s ideas, organizations tend to follow Darwinian principles if they are to survive. For Benedict XVI, it can’t be business as usual. Otherwise, the Irish Catholic church will have gone from the core of society to the periphery in little over half a century.