How quickly we changed from rosary-whisperers to a society which blames Church for all ills
ISUPPOSE I was 16 or so when I took the only principled stand of my entire life. This would have been the early seventies, and I was going through my teenage Marxist phase. I never read ‘Das Kapital’, of course, but that didn’t stop me being an expert. I knew, though, that organised religion was the opium of the people. I had seen it scrawled on a wall.
So when we were introduced to visiting Papal Nuncio Gaetano Alibrandi on a school retreat, I felt duty bound to make some sort of a symbolic protest.
When we lined up to kiss his ring, and his hand extended like some medieval prince, I declined. I simply shook it instead. There was a little ripple in the room but nothing was said. A letter of excommunication, signed with a flourish by the Pope, didn’t follow.
I got over that disappointment but my relationship with Mother Church has always been tetchy and tenuous.
Nevertheless, I’m taken aback at how a society of ring-kissers and rosary-whisperers has, in a generation or so, transformed itself into a nation that treats the Catholic Church with such vitriolic contempt.
Take the Dáil speech by Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell, which was high on emotive triumphalism and hubris, but fairly light on analysis.
But then the narrative for a while now has been that the evil Church usurped our glorious revolution, enslaved our women and sold our children into slavery. If I was 16 again, I might even go along with it.
Any reading of 20th century Irish social history – Diarmaid Ferriter’s ‘Occasions of Sin’ is a good place to start – disembowels that lazy, convenient thesis fairly smartly.
Truth is that a rabidly conservative, morally unbending Ireland was what people wanted and what politicians legislated for with evangelical zeal. The Church was nearly always pushing an open door. It was the decent people of Ireland who filled religious houses, orphanages and laundries with the unwanted, unloved and abandoned. The brothers and nuns didn’t round them up.
And Deputy O’Connell would do well to remember that it was a leader of her own party who once declared that he was “a Catholic first, an Irishman second”. Perhaps that’s her next speech.
Man flu’s put me out in the cold
I’M not going to exaggerate. It’s not the Aussie flu. Not even the wimpy Paddy strain. Just a nasty dose of the traditional sneezeand-wheeze. But I’m feeling miserable all the same. And here’s why.
My current wife has a policy of zero tolerance when it comes to bugs, aches and general offcolouredness. So when I presented with my current symptoms I knew what to expect.
First of all, though implied rather than articulated, is the suggestion that it must be my own fault.
Like not wrapping up when I go out, or not heating the house sufficiently when I stay in.
After culpability is established (without any defence counsel), the appropriate punishment is doled out.
So I am sent to the spare room, which used to be a teenager’s and is still painted a giddy, girly purple. Here I am quarantined and cut off from all human contact for as long as it takes. And it’s taking ages.
I am allowed books, my laptop and access to Netflix. But I’ve been told I need my rest. Lights out at 11.
I’ve been fed wholesome, nourishing food, too. Such as Nutribullet soups with the consistency of estuary sludge but not as tasty.
It’s Saturday now and I can hear the clinking of wine glasses downstairs and I’m sure that ding-dong was the man from Just Eat In.
The sniffles will dry up in days. The emotional scars will last my lifetime.
Predictive text drives me mod
DEAR Microsoft Word, I’ve learned to ignore illiteracies like ‘color’, ‘realize’, and ‘center’, and have even come to terms with your contempt for anything other than dumbed-down Americanese.
But when I type ‘Diarmaid’, please don’t tell me I mean ‘Dairymaid’.
Cheers.