BBC Report on the Secularisation of Ireland

[William T Riker]

On the substantial issues of the moral status of the human person, of life itself, you will find the Church Rock solid as it has been on marriage, contraception, theft, killing, lying, calumny, whatever, but then again those who have a perverse understanding of human freedom don't like to be told that they are not free to have a licence to do as they please or satisfy their every whim so it is more convenient to throw out the old chestnuts about witches and Gallileo and get off the hook.

Let me try to rectify my "perverse understanding" in that case. Alas, when I examine again, I find that the Church supported the burning of people at the stake for a wide variety of reasons (not just witchcraft), and such barbarisms as the wholescale slaughter of the Cathars in Southern France. Indeed, the Pope of the time advocated their suppression and the wholescale expropriation of their lands by his aristocratic allies; all this was actively supported by other Church leaders. The abbot commander of that appalling enterprise infamously said in relation to the Cathars, "Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own."

That is glossing over more modern barbarisms, such as the official opposition to birth control and divorce, which consigns vast sections of humanity to a life of poverty, degradation and mutual unhappiness for no other reason other than "X says so". Paying heed to such a musty Moloch seems the very antithesis of a compassionate, moral outlook on life.

The Catholic Church's stance on "moral" actions has changed with the times, and doesn't appear to me to be very moral at all in many instances, so far as modern standards are concerned. Doubtless, church propagandists will not agree.

[Gurdiev]

No offence but the attempt at a middle ground and the pelagian reasonableness of some of this thread is a symptom of why I believe Western Civilisation is facing a serious crisis. On the one hand, for example Gurdiev acknowledges that the Catholic Church or at least it's dogma was one of the anchors of Western Civliisation or at least the history of Western Civliisation and acknowledges the importance of the Abrahamic tradition, (which links the three great monotheistic faiths), yet he seems to wish for it to be surgically removed from our 'psyche', among his reasons the subservience and slavish attitude of the Irish people.

Do remember the cultural submission as opposed to intellectual consent to what the Church taught/teaches would be the case of most agrarian and semi literate peoples and one cannot ignore the cultural context of the time.

Certainly G is right about the over emotional reaction to the abuse scandals, but I would hold that it is nigh impossible to develop an ethic outside of the Chrisitian, Judaic, Athenian one which is the basis of what Catholics call the natural, eternal and divine law and that such an ethic is the only sure guarantor to the protection of the human person and human liberty. Anything that deviates from it, where man becomes the measure of all things, literally makes anything permissable, to parphrase Dostoyevsky,and we end up with a utilitarian classification of human beings.

On a more personal level, I studied in depth on the subject of bio ethics, especially in relation to embryo research I began before I had fully returned to the Catholic Faith, having been through at first an Agnostic phase, and then a tepid indifference with occasional reception of the Sacraments. By the time I had finished I not only knew with absolutely certainty, having looked at the Scientific, Philosophical and Theological arguments on both sides, that the teaching authority of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, had the truth in regard to it's moral teaching on the respect due to the tiniest of human beings. In discovering that I plunged into other areas, and the more I study, the more I am thankful for the Rock, which is my Church.

Finally, the saving of the Church will not be in it's institutions, which reflect human imperfection, rather it will be in her Saints. Think of people like Maximillian Kolbe and you will get my drift.

Wests'awake, you have taken a different slant on my comment - I did not say I wished for the Church's influence to be surgically removed from our psyche, I said it could NOT be removed, and was part of our roots.

I agree with you fully about the dominant influence of the Church on agrarian and semi literate people , peasants, throughout Europe. This was usual. My point about the Irish situation us that we allowed that unquestioned dominance to prevail right up to the twenty first century.
Countries like France maintain strong Catholic lnks, but separated religion from state in the nineteenth century, as did the US? Even Spain did so as soon as it shook off an totalitarian regime in the seventies.
THE Northern European countries had their reformation centuries before, they had questioned the RCC s dominance and found it unacceptable, and open to corruption. These countries all maintain a strong christian ethos, and probably have moderate church attendance.

I don't know why we ,as a people are very slow to analyse and confront the status quo, and modify and modernise as necessary.
You have done your own personal journey which has taken you back to the RCC. But the majority in Ireland have not, and have accorded the Church,s authority the position of a parent.
We have a responsibility to live like adults , constantly reevaluating the social structures we create.

[Gurdiev]

Finally, the saving of the Church will not be in it's institutions, which reflect human imperfection, rather it will be in her Saints. Think of people like Maximillian Kolbe and you will get my drift.

now you're talking . The Church ,imo, needs to retract is areas of activities , certainly in respect of this country , and concentrate instead on its core theological principles , as you put it in another post "Theological or revealed truths "
To me this is what the Christiam message is all about, personal contemplation, personal accountability, and it is within this realm that the RCC should concentrate its activity, whilst drawing on the it's vast record of philosophical and theological discourse.

This is where people need help and support in their lives, and I believe that more and more people will be drawn back to religion and spirituality. Some to the more traditional institutions , many to forms of Buddhism and mindfulness, which are equally effective in generating codes of ethical behaviour.

[west'sawake]

Let me try to rectify my "perverse understanding" in that case. Alas, when I examine again, I find that the Church supported the burning of people at the stake for a wide variety of reasons (not just witchcraft), and such barbarisms as the wholescale slaughter of the Cathars in Southern France. Indeed, the Pope of the time advocated their suppression and the wholescale expropriation of their lands by his aristocratic allies; all this was actively supported by other Church leaders. The abbot commander of that appalling enterprise infamously said in relation to the Cathars, "Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own."

That is glossing over more modern barbarisms, such as the official opposition to birth control and divorce, which consigns vast sections of humanity to a life of poverty, degradation and mutual unhappiness for no other reason other than "X says so". Paying heed to such a musty Moloch seems the very antithesis of a compassionate, moral outlook on life.

The Catholic Church's stance on "moral" actions has changed with the times, and doesn't appear to me to be very moral at all in many instances, so far as modern standards are concerned. Doubtless, church propagandists will not agree.

Riker,

As Reagan said to Mondale, 'There you go again' with some rather selective views of what is barbarous, more barbarous I would say is wanting to eleminate poverty by having less children in the developed World so that the rich west can continue to gorge itself at their expense. That is not to say the Church has been without its own barbarians and corrputed, Church history especially of recent decades in relation to child abuse has plenty examples of evil warts of men who despite their corrupting influence can never change what is for all time the truth in terms of dogma and moral absolutes, ilf anything they were the worst examples of what happens when
something is seriously disordered, in this case their sexuality.

Regarding contraception, you might as well condemn all of Christiandom because up to 1931 all denominations were united on the immorality of artificial contraception, that is until the the Anglican Communion under the malign influence of 'modernists' and eugenicists went with the spirit of the age, the Agnostic Huxley ridiculing them for same in his prophetic work 'Brave New World'.

Later Paul VI echoed the warnings of Huxley, the Agnostic, and C.S. Lewis an Anglican when he wrote the encyclical Humanae Vitae, another prophetic piece of work in that many of it's warning have now come to pass what with the increased objectificiaton and commodification of the human person, the psychological havoc and wounds wrought on multitudes, all having it's roots in the sexual revolution but I doubt you can see that, with some of those anti Catholic knee jerk reactions.

As Spock might put it, you really are not being very logical. As you seem psychologically negatively disposed to the Catholic Church, for perhaps the obvious 'populist' reasons, I include the link to a Huxley article or two, which appeals to the light of reason engraved on all human hearts, atheist, agnostic, theist. Enjoy, "Little Lost Lambeth," What Christian Tradition, Lambeth Conference & Aldous Huxley have in common.
Also, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley : Barron's Notes. When you have read one or other you might then be open minded enough to look at what Paul VI wrote.

Live long and prosper.

Westy