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 ?
