BACKWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS

2015 coming into 2016 ………we wish each other a Happy Christmas, Happy Festive Season, Happy Holiday, whatever way we say it, it means the same, sharing our good will and good wishes with  all our Neighbours and our Neighbours are everybody……

We have an unending stream of good will and good wishes but there are  many governments and mighty people  who muddy our stream, who almost succeed in making hypocrites of us because we have let them off with so much humbug, lying, eviction and killing, as they  wish their victims salvation even as the swords  fall and the bombs explode……..  

…..to think that we have allowed them to soil Christmas by singing  about it when Christmas for them is at best a reluctant pause from  spoiling our dreams and lives …..the drones , probably the most cowardly weapons ever invented…..millions of people made hopeless , wet,  hungry,  stretching long lines with the sound of Jingle Bells in their ears and the hymns of people sad at the homelessness of Christ and complacent  about the homelessness of  millions of refugees present and to come ---…..  ghosts of Christmas Present, the Ghosts of Christmas Past,  Ghosts of Christmas inevitably  to come………why do we let them do it ?

Come Easter and we will celebrate ….celebrate …..the great trek of the ancient Israelites to their promised land and wonder about  what their descendants  are doing with it…..

….. a sad  woman or a sad man will stand in our court listening to people swearing by Almighty God that they will tell the truth about what other  sad poor ones  did….. what a good thing it would be  to make governments and  powerful people stand and swear by Almighty God that they will never allow such people to be either sad  or penniless again…….

Hopes, we are great people for hoping and without our hoping the world would be even more dismal than the war-makers are making it…………they who cannot think even of the great miracle of  Space  without making war in it , Star Wars  if you please, Space the Magnificent is without meaning unless they make  a battlefield of it,   Heaven held  no  satisfaction for them so they invented  a War of the Angels……..can evolution  mean that human beings will eventually shed their warrior brains just like they shed their tails…………..?

Let’s wish each other a Happy Christmas ………..knowing that our humblest wish will do more good to the world than all the  richest missiles of the President and his allies……..who so clearly are thinking  in pseudo-biblical terms  of Armageddon and  the final battle between good and evil ………in which they must win because it is they and not us , or even God, who decide who is evil and who is ……who is…..well, who  is the opposite of evil, for they seem not to have discovered  yet what is actually good……

May human beauty and all of Nature’s other beauties prevail…….even through 2016 and beyond………………

PEACE OR WAR - YOU CHOOSE.......

The recent terrible killings in Paris should not have happened, need not have happened, must not happen again  - millons of horrified people must have thought that. We would be hard-hearted and cruel  if we didn’t.

Perhaps then the cruelties  may  have  awakened or strengthened our determination to oppose war  more  strongly than ever?

But opposing war is deadly  difficult.

Unnecessary wars have produced chaos and destruction , millions of people dead, physically  and spiritually maimed, millions homeless, and yet  the  war cries are going out  stronger than ever : “We will hunt down …we will pursue  to the outer reaches of the planet ….we are at war with terrorism….we will increase our bombing missions….we will wipe  out …….” , the language is as old as humankind and as deadly.  In the midst of  real sorrow for the dead and miserable  came the sounds of verbal war dances  from  governments and politicians determined  to wrench the progress  of our evolution back into primitive warrior mode lest  we might be in  danger of  evolving into  rational beings who solve problems by thinking and talking rather than  by clubbing each other to death. Even the ones who celebrate Christmas with  songs of peace  joined  the ones who celebrate “the festive season” with cries of profit,  happily returning  war for  war, death for  death, eye for eye , tooth for tooth while even the loudest of cries for mercy,  peace and dignity were drowned out by the quiet hum of their drones.   

And so ,  children  will go  on being trained to hold weapons from the age of three, joyfully  undoing their parcels of toy guns under the Christmas tree.

After the massacres  there were still some few voices daring to ask   the real reasons for them :   did European and American governments really believe they could forever  wage war comfortably on an enemy  a thousand miles away whom they would not even dignify by looking at them while they killed them? One more despairing, tattered decency thrown to the wind.

Having successfully reversed whatever success we had in outlawing terror by torture, governments have now made  torture and terror respectable again; they have thrown the principle of “innocent until proved guilty” to the winds ; they have exiled politics from the forum and dug it deep into the market place where those who pay win ; most of  the decencies  we gained or thought we gained after the second world war have not just disappeared but have been stolen from us by people who wanted too much for themselves at whatever cost but  whom we trusted. The atrocities in Paris and so many other places should not have happened, and neither should the wanton wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Lebanon and a host of other places. Those wars  happened because so many people really believed they could steal  at a distance and  kill at a distance while the  fellow citizens of  those they killed and cheated would be unable to hit back.

But people do  hit back, even if they have no greater weapon than  a brick to hurl though a tormentor’s window. The  arrogant invasions which were  carefully designed – as their  perpetrators clearly said – to create awe and wonder and terror  are being answered by people who had no terror weapons then  but have them now.

Whether we are on the way, as some people say, to world war three it is impossible to say. We may be , unless  perhaps there is  still some rationality lurking somewhere among the richly greedy  of this world.  

We need to stop them  whether there is or not.

“Dis paides oi gerontes …” (Menander of Greece).

As leader of the British Labour Party Mr Jeremy Corbyn will have a difficult job but it will be one of those curious jobs that, whether he wins or loses, he  can  come out of it with more dignity than any number of winners. We have seen the steady dismantling of almost everything we thought we had won since the end of the second world war. Torture now  made respectable by governments, in America and Britain for instance, who are saying openly and almost without opposition that torture is all right if it produces results. It produces horrible results but one of the things we have lost is that comforting pretence governments used to make of being appalled by such violence. Now they admit they are not.

And death as a solution to problems, that idea has flourished while public declarations of respect for life fade further and further out of our public conscience.

Jeremy Corbyn says  nuclear weapons do not solve problems and therefore we should stop having them.  If governments believe death solves problems then presumably they think the more deaths the better to solve each particular problem. The only solution to nuclear mass destruction is to stop producing nuclear weapons and get rid of those we have. We humans never created a weapon yet that we did not use, ever since we discovered how to put a sharp edge on a stone. So we have to tell governments, As long as you have them you’ll use them, so stop collecting them.

People used to fall out about such things – famously, Bruce Kent in London fell out with his Archbishop, Cardinal Hume. Bruce who had been in  the British Navy did  not want nuclear weapons at any price, while Hume , one time member of St Benedict’s peaceful religious order, approved of them as, he said , a deterrent. A deterrent to wipe out whole populations. Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn will start people arguing about that again.

The Churches were and still are split on this, as on most other issues of public safety and dignity, so effective leadership is desperately needed there –  but churches tend to join in our disputes rather  than heal them.

What Pope Francis said recently in America was interesting. Interesting because he dared to address  the very problems political assemblies over there are presenting to mankind – continuous war as government policy, war as a business, destruction of the environment as a way of making not money but more money, creating  hunger for profit, reducing respect for life and for what sustains it.

That the Pope addressed these things knowing that he was putting a needle into the heart of the lion was refreshing for  us Ancients who realise that just because an institution is two thousand years old  that does not mean it will dispense two thousand years of wisdom.  We Ancients  though can  hope that a pope even as Ancient as Francis has a lot of wise things to say to new generations who think  old fellows are just children twice over ,”dis paides oi gerontes”.  People who listen to John Kerry , President Obama and other powerful people may well reflect that the Pope may not have any battalions behind him  but he has  millions of people behind him and the multitudes  people saw on  the streets of America gave  them a demonstration of how large their number may be. With as many people as that going in one direction governments cannot afford to be seen going in the other.

Government and people in the USA obviously want the Pope to be on their side. One way to achieve that is for them to get on his side on these issues of life and death.   Sooner or later the millions on the streets will send the message: governments come and governments go, but the human will to be free, secure  and full of dignity will last – literally – for ever.

And if they think the multitudes in the streets and in the hills don’t matter, they  may be reminded that it was the multitudes, the people, the people of God who were given  the Christ message of justice, dignity  and life in the first place. So Pope Francis seems to know where to find it now.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

In the nineteen thirties the Pope did not wear a crown, he wore three.

The most interesting thing  is not that he wore three crowns but that he wore any crown at all.

The Catholic Church looked on itself as a monarchy, that was its official view of itself. Easy to understand: in those days monarchy was looked upon  as the most noble form of government although sometimes, even in Julius Caesar’s time,  there were lively discussions and even fights  about whether monarchy was even safe and whether  perhaps  republican  power-sharing might  be better. But monarchy spoke to monarchy and that helped when monarchies were in fashion. 

In the nineteen thirties the pope was carried on a special chair on the shoulders of special people. That and the papal tiara signalled  not only spiritual power but worldly power as well – it was not many decades beforehand   that people including Irish soldiers had  fought a war to help the reigning pope to keep his papal states which Garibaldi wanted to take off him. 

In the nineteen sixties things changed and by now the three crowns are gone  and  the pope is going around in, what is it, a Fiat?   He is also paying at the counter for his breakfast – gone is the convention of royalty not having to carry money;  as he  waves to the crowds he can if he wants to glance at his wrist watch to see what time it is - gone is the convention that royalty don’t have to bother about such things. And the everyday garb of a pope looks remarkably like that of the missionary  priest in North Africa we read about the other day. Gentle small changes.

A pope nowadays behaves in public  more like the  president of a modern republic than a king. People don’t have to bow and scrape, walk away backwards, have to wait until spoken to before saying anything. The difference between a picture of the Pope in the nineteen thirties and one of the Pope now can be quite startling to us Ancients.  Is it simply  a recognition that in the modern world republics rather than monarchies  will appeal to more people?  After all, the word republic is based on the word for people, the word monarch  is based  on the word for just one person ruling them. Republic, public-rule by the people , monarchy mono-rule by one of the people.

That is not to say that the Catholic  church is becoming republican in sentiment ,  governance or religion. That should be surprising, because one of its beliefs is  that all its members are at some time touched by the Holy Spirit of God  and in that case you would think it should be the most active, best equipped democracy – or republic  if we like the word – in the world.

Of course it is changing. The change from a triple-crowned  leader carried in splendour  to a white-clad breakfaster in a respectable Roman hostel is the outward sign of a new and intriguing inward grace. Like all signs it is on the outside telling you what to expect inside.

What is changed inside is hopeful for some , upsetting for others, intriguing for most of us.

When for example an archbishop when pressed on the radio to say whether hell exists or not says, hesitatingly, Well, hell is possible………When an  expert in Theology remarks cautiously that after the death of Jesus Christ his followers then “experienced his presence among them in a new way”… When there appears first a new tolerance and then a new acceptance of people who in the past might have been told they were no longer wanted in the church …. it is clear that the sign outside means the changes inside could be worth having a closer look at.  Real changes  in behaviour ? Real changes in teaching ? Real changes in belief ?  Some say it  means the Pope is giving a new lead;  some say it means the Pope is rapidly catching up with us.

Changes can refresh , irritate, alienate. They may cause conflict and sourness. But it helps our sense of dignity if important institutions, governments, political parties, churches, do not either take us by surprise or take us for granted. If they change their minds or find  a fresh  explanation for   what they believe, do or think others should do or think , let them say so and respect our dignity by telling us the reasons why. One mark of the intellectually self-confident is their willingness to change their minds; a mark of their respect for our dignity is to tell us they are doing it. 

Long ago during the great Catholic revolt now known as the Protestant Reformation  people might go  to church  this Sunday and find the message from the pulpit strangely different from the message last Sunday; even longer ago when the Christians in Ireland took over from the druids a king in Tara named Diarmait Mac Cearbaill ( one of the Ó Neills by the way) performed his pagan rituals in Tara and still presented  land to the Christians to build the Monastery of Clonmacnoise. In Ireland we are reasonably good at understanding even the most startling of changes.

It’s a matter of experience really

PLACE OF REFUGE

In deciding who shall take care of refugees  flooding into Europe there has been remarkably little talk about those primarily responsible, namely, those who created the present state of continuous war from which so many of the people are  fleeing.  .  Surely the first responsibility should lie there.

If so, this  leaves all  members of the European Union with  a problem ; we may not have caused the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and many other places but we did give our consent to them. Now we all have to pay the price of what we consented to.

Those who create war know there will be  refugees fleeing from it; they do not create war in the naïve belief that it will be nice and clean and people will  go back home when it is over. War is about displacing governments and people.

European governments, and the American government still to an extent, could in the past direct  wars  fought on someone else’s territory, they need not even see refugees. 

Now all that is different and the results of our wars – our wars  because  apart from a minority we either consented to them  or condoned them – have arrived on our European doorsteps.

The image of a small boy dead aroused  both horror and generosity, but we had had the cold knowledge of what was happening  to people like him for years before that  heartbreak happened and  governments, media,  universities  looked on  as cold as an item in yesterdays newspapers.

Then discussion revolved around what could be done  to limit the damage rather than to recognise the causes of it and  prevent it happening again. 

Whether we like it or not we are “the West”. So it  is immaterial whether we personally approve of NATO or not, it is immaterial whether we approve the renewal of a cold war with Russia, it is immaterial if  the government that manages our affairs and our wealth  spends  more than enough on  nuclear and other weapons and less than enough on nursing care , it is immaterial because we can do nothing  either to prevent  one or help another. Eventually of course we will be required to undo  resulting damage but we shall be given  little part in preventing it. 

And there lies one of the many tragedies of governments  to whom we give our consent, or whose actions we condone : what should  create  the greatest benefit for the most people becomes a means of channelling the greatest benefit towards the few who are powerful enough to  corral it for their own advantage.  And so war becomes  not a painful necessity but a business like any other.

Many refugees are coming from countries whose borders were drawn up without respect for already existing tribal and other boundaries and to meet  the demands  of   European governments who had  the power to do it. That has caused  problems  ever since.  In Northern Ireland we can understand that.  Northern Ireland is a  political unit  drawn up with great deliberation so that for all time it could be governed only  by a single unchangeable political party. At the time, the first decades of the twentieth century, this was  not considered unusual. Internationally it was tragically usual.

Our own experience – and history – should  certainly help us to be  generous in   relieving the distress of refugees  especially if we insist  that governments  admit the real reasons for it.

But those who want to reject a great flow of people into European countries say it will mean that rates of pay will fall, because immigrants will be willing to work for little because they have to live. It is also very attractive for governments to welcome an inflow of people from abroad who are well or highly qualified in medicine, law, teaching , engineering and much else.  If immigrants are filtered through because of their relative value to the host countries’ economy what will become of the rest ? This is one of the questions that could become more prominent soon .

There was always a tradition of immigrant workers into European countries.  Countries  enjoyed the benefit of an influx of workers when their  economy needed it, and they could tell them to go home when they were no longer wanted. Because of this it was possible for a country  to boast  it had a  low unemployment rate. It did, partly because once the migrant workers had fulfilled their purpose they went home. Meanwhile  working conditions and lack of dignified living conditions gave  many immigrants a very poor life . It was hoped that the European Union would remedy some of this, there would be free movement of labour and goods but decent living conditions.  But now international aggression in which Europe is involved, whether Europeans like it or nor, is  creating  immigrants of a quite new kind some of whom will fare better than others, often for domestic political and economic reasons .

Those who are concerned about human rights and dignity will be watching to see whether generosity and intelli

OUT WITH THEM ALL !

Two recent  events have shown  Britain and Ireland  overwhelmed by the idea that democratic politics is about  excluding  large sections of our populations rather than including  as many of them as possible in our political processes . In the heat of argument many politicians  even forgot to praise themselves  under the burning necessity of condemning others.

Jeremy Corbin  could , it was said, cause the terminal decline of a labour party simply by being elected  head of it;  in Ireland Sinn Fein could cause the downfall of everybody  not because of what they might do  but because of what they might have been.

Curiously, an argument was implicit that Tony Blair who had led people  into war was more acceptable than Jeremy Corbin who hadn’t, while in Ireland republicans who had led people out of war were less acceptable than anybody at all.

Such clear evidence of the awe-inspiring decline of rational discourse in our politics may well be the only advantage we get from either of these two events.

A curious element in the Irish situation is , we now accept that the police can pronounce judgement on the character and  possible actions of a group of citizens, cast a pall of doubt and suspicion on them regarding particular crimes while  still only  gathering evidence, evidence whose disclosure could prejudice a court case. What effect  may this have on future court cases ?

We may feel the same unease  reading that  police have opposed bail in court because of “fear of further offences being committed”  when a defendant has not been proved to have  committed this one. We may have thought the function of police is to guard people and property, help prevent crime and find evidence or opinion to offer  not  in a  BBC radio programme but in a court of law approved by the people. A statement by a policeman, however senior, can  cause political unrest in an already  delicate situation and a threat of  breaking down  an administration which many people worked very hard to create and whose fall  many more people believe could be followed by something worse.

We may also feel unease that more academic lawyers who are educating young people to act justly in courts that are just do not discuss critically and publicly whether  police and courts  should be allowed to pronounce moral judgments as well as administering the law. Referring to identifiable people as criminals, thugs ,people unworthy of full citizenship – as  members of government for example –without due process should  be , one would think,  an item for discussion.

Doubtless many voices may be raised to say that  uncomfortable things are required “for the common good”. Or, as we say now when we redact this or keep quiet about that, “in the public interest”, phrases  conveniently vague that they reassure some of us, frightening  the others.

It is refreshing to remember that in the long run it is only the democratic votes of dignified people that will decide who shall govern  and who shall not ; and that elections are about identifying the best, not  arguing about who is worst.  

Not refreshing however is the thought that in the United States of America politics seems like a game for the super-rich more than a life-enhancement for the rest.

The most grim indication that we share an international aim of politics by exclusion is the millions of people turned out of their own countries by unnecessary wars and kept out of other peoples’ countries by concrete and barbed wire.

Ah yes, but that could never happen here.

Extremism

Addressing very important people at a recent very important meeting of representatives of very important nations Mr Barack Obama said, among other important things, that  national governments should unite in opposing militant extremism and Russian aggression.

This was curious because he did not explain what either of these two things really are.

Militant extremism - does this include starting wars in one country after another, choosing allies and enemies as casually as  important people  choose golf clubs between casual conversations at the fifteenth hole ? Does it include managing the flight of drones from somewhere in your own country whose course is  programmed   in a little room  hundreds of miles away to fall  - killing whomever may be around –  thousands of miles away?  

It is  surprising that  learned – important - ethical bodies seem to define violence and extremism as what is done by little people, and have been  effectively silent about militant extremism by important ones.   In fact there is simply no body on earth with the ethical knowledge and commitment, the courage and the generosity to stand up clearly and speak loudly against  important people in important governments   making unimportant people kill each other for a living. Armies need arms, the arms industries need armies and  all of them need unimportant people to work in  them and even to give their lives showing how effective the latest deadly models are.  Mass  killing is not now a matter for horrified amazement , it is an everyday  business strategy.

War-for-business is a strategy ,  deployment of troops and drones is a tactic.

It  works.

And  is profitable.

Profit  is the most important test  of the ethical  goodness  of what  important people do nowadays.  

A golf competition under the shadow of the beautiful Mourne Mountains in Ireland ? How much money will it generate for the economy?

An Italian cycle race  playing away from home ?

How much will it  generate for the local economy ?

FIFA ?  FAI ?    True lovers of football may think longingly of the days when loyalty to their team involved  loyalty to almost next-door neighbours and   now  be   uneasy because like the war business  the soccer business  has become globalised and at the matches  the fans just  get  more comfortable seats  to make more fortunes for the Board. .

Religious people sometimes – not so often now as in the past  – point to their sacred writings, the distilled, preserved remnants of  their ancestors’ insights into the meaning of life ,  and quote , “The love of money is the root of all evil”.  If therefore our wars and our drones and our policy of continuous war-for-profit are  evil –although  governments do not agree that they are – then one would expect religious people to say No to them all. Or have the churches, the humanitarian associations, the peace people, the universities  and suchlike all been created in vain because the original reason for their existence has been forgotten ? Are we evolving voluntarily backwards  to a nature red in tooth and claw ?

Governments  who are  setting each other up for war incessantly  will continue doing it.  An  obvious present target is Russia, with a  struggle for power  along the line  separating Russia from those countries that  reason says should  be their allies for the common good.

Then there is China . Indeed there is also whoever else is a threat in world trade and commerce and  a competitor – not enemy, just competitor – in gathering  and storing and dispensing  wealth.

Calling for  united  international help against militant extremism seems  a good idea.

It’s a pity though  that the wrong people are asking for it.

Baltimore

The city of Baltimore has been convulsed in recent days and news reports in Ireland and  Britain seem intent on  insisting   this is an isolated incident – a black US citizen died while in police custody and this sparked off riots and looting and the National Guard is restoring order and peace – that is the story we hear.

But that is not the story at all. In the USA as well as in other countries  there is a shocking and  dangerous situation in which racism, inequality and dying cities , waste of public money in fighting lost wars, refusal of adequate education and health systems all go along with the expenditure of  billions of dollars  donated by individuals and  corporations to have their chosen candidates elected to presidency and other public offices. Those who adversely criticise Washington policies  or practices are brushed off as anti-American. The opposite is the truth – those who reveal what is happening and the extent of physical and cultural poverty being created – not just happening - in the Unites States of America, arguably the richest  country in the world and where great riches have been narrowly accumulated rather than evenly shared, these are friends of America, and best friends at that. It is sad and frightening to think that  a nation  hailed as a land of freedom and justice can be  forced into creating  extreme wealth for a few and poverty for many with, increasingly,  little in between. This is a situation, ironically, from which the ancestors of  many present-day Americans fled when they left Europe to escape injustice and the selfish corralling of wealth.

If we continue to pretend that riots or disturbances or trouble – whichever  term we like to apply to them – are isolated responses caused by isolated incidents, and if we continue the pretence that such incidents are caused by “ a few bad apples” rather than by systemic lack of discipline in dealing with power and wealth we will never  solve the national and  international problems of how we  suffer from each others’ rampant ambitions. Our persistent and increasing worry has to be that since all political unions are certain to break up eventually, the USA cannot be an exception. All political unions break. At   present Europe is in a delicate uniting  mode after centuries of division and turmoil  while the USA takes union for granted. But union , a united people, a nation with one central power and allegiance is never forever. A  combination of extreme wealth, increasing poverty, racism, under-valuing  one’s own citizens  in cities losing their sense of purpose this and much more means the corroding of what held the USA together , what we have   called the American dream but is in fact a dream of humanity which we believed had found a realisation in America. Such corrosion can lead  individual states to believe they could do better for themselves.  No-one is likely now to wish for that. But better not to foster the angers which make it possible.

Meanwhile people are grieving not just because of the pain but because they worked so hard to make sure the pain  need not happen. Our friends in the Catholic Worker  houses ,  the peace groups,  all  the companions  working for justice and recognition of the people’s dignity , these are keeping alive – however difficult and lacking in resources they may be  – keeping alive the idea and the ideal of a better way of life for all .  If they stop in despair through lack of public conscience  and through the unwillingness of powerful people to enrich themselves by enriching their fellow citizens there are no voices left.

We  dare not and need not  let that happen…….

Power Struggle

Angry criticism of politicians, political parties and  politics is increasing.  

One trouble with this is that as people become convinced  not only that individual politicians or political parties are no good , but the political system is no good and politics is no good either , the next thing is  a demand for firm, sure, and strong  government. And that, unfortunately can mean a dictatorship. Or a government  formed without   being selected by those whom it governs. Such a government may do things good, bad or indifferent  but it will certainly be hard to  shift. 

People say , Oh, that could not happen here, wherever here happens to be, but it can happen anywhere. In Britain during the Wilson years it may  have come  near to it . What you need to get that result   is a strong and growing public distaste for politics , enough people able and willing to pose as a ruling class and enough military and police support to make the coup  successful at first stroke. That is a lot to require but it has happened and what has happened can happen. In Ireland and Britain there is outspoken and cultivated disdain not just for politicians and political parties but for politics. Strangely, some of this is cultivated by media who could be the first to suffer in an authoritarian regime.

In every system there are struggles for power, media strength against political  party strength, religious power against secular power,  impatience among the military and police about their hands being tied , between commercial interests and human rights interests and many  more.  Such struggles for power and influence go on all the time with one section becoming uppermost then another. And in  vast countries like the USA  or India  the visible power of money is almost beyond belief as  billions, not  mere millions, are demanded – and made available – to gain political power in  societies where millions of people are in poverty and cities are dying. Strangely, while such power groups are battling it out for supremacy, commentators may still be writing about national conflicts as if they were contests between religions or the result of people not being able to live together in peace if they are left alone. As  present and future elections  in Britain and Ireland proceed  political commentators have to decide  whether they will give us their own opinions which they are entitled to have, or critical analyses which we are entitled to have, whether they will look  at situations professionally and analyse whose   military, financial, religious, strategic interest is involved.

In Ireland this   was often avoided  by dividing the population notionally into Catholic and Protestant and describing the political situation as the result of this division, while all the time   strategic military issues, financial issues, control of economies and much else were at issue in Ireland. This  time round opinions  may become  stronger and analysis weaker as passions rise and sides are taken. That is not going to help anyone. It will not help even the writers who do it  because one day they may find they need to say No to a demand for an  authoritarian regime and will find that having neglected to analyse what was happening to themselves and their readers their only developed weapon is satire or insult which now they dare not use. At the beginning and end of it all, perhaps  safest for us to remember is that whatever we may  think of politicians or political parties they are entitled to respect, as people first and  foremost and as elected or possible elected representatives of the people after that. That is a formidable claim to courtesy. And it still leaves us plenty of room for being  as critical  of policies and promises as we want to be.  Strong, sure, firm government is what we want but we have to be careful about how we try to get it.  

Cardinal

Cardinal Timothy Dolan  Archbishop of New York recently said in a  TV interview that the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, was similar to ISIS. That is, that the IRA was fighting a religious war.

His statement has  considerable nuisance value – it reveals  a lack of information and lack of  analysis of what has happened in Ireland. But it has a positive value too, it draws attention to the appalling mis-information being sent from Ireland to people in countries like the United States of America.

The IRA  was consistently opposed by leaders in the Catholic  and other churches. Not only the IRA but Republican  leaders and policies were condemned again and again by them  although the republican movement in Ireland has always proclaimed itself as struggling for an independent Ireland that is secular,  republican and socialist.

Why  did Cardinal Dolan make the statement ?

Possibly he may have got  false information from Ireland. Possibly because of briefing from Irish diplomats abroad,  possibly because of briefing from British officials. There is no shortage of possibilities.

Vatican authorities are content with British government control of part of Ireland, they are willing to help ensure it continues. Information about Ireland goes to Rome through Ireland’s bishops and  Irish diplomats who  traditionally have had a fear of any change of regime in Ireland.

Traditionally the Catholic church looked upon itself as a monarchy ; it felt comfortable relating to other monarchies, although historically  most of the persecutions and degradations it suffered were from monarchies of one kind or  another. Although the church is shedding its monarchical trappings  slowly but unsurely, it keeps a fear of other forms of government deeply in mind. It is hard to believe but it is true that bishops and other prominent members of the church  in France preached collaboration with Germany during the WW2 occupation in the hope  that they might  see the birth of a new world order and because they looked on the WW2 disaster as retribution for having abandoned monarchy !

The fear of socialism is great too. The horror of  Russian revolution, this time in Ireland  is as alive in some Irish minds as the abandonment of monarchy was in French ones. There has never been an official church analysis of what exactly socialism is, although there have been many condemnations of it. And Catholics used vast amount of their spiritual, intellectual and material energy struggling against communism when it was neither necessary nor profitable.

One could argue that the Church’s fear of socialism has come from a love of monarchy and perhaps this is true. It certainly comes from some irrationality which has invaded Irish minds which are usually intellectually strong enough to resist such things.

While  various factors may have influenced Cardinal Dolan  , only a person with a certain kind of rage could have suggested to him that the IRA was fighting a religious war. Fighting for a secular state , a socialist one and a republican one at that, is a bizarre way to fight a  religious war in Ireland. A rational war, yes. A relevant war, yes. But a religious war, no. And it would be interesting to canvass the response of a member of ISIS to whom you would try to  explain that the IRA attacked with bombs but  warned people where and when they were going to explode , fought wars as a last resort not as a  matter of  first principle, and  asked for peace talks as soon as the war began and went on doing so until government was forced to grant their request.

One worry is that if Cardinals think in such un-analytical  and irrational terms, what is to become of the Church ?