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 ?