Recently headstones in the Catholic cemetery in Ballymena were wilfully damaged. This criminal action followed protests about the implementation of Brexit and was preceded by politicians’ impassioned speeches against alleged constitutional defects of the protocol. Were these actions connected? Who knows? From discussions with clergy from across the community I think that Protestantism and Catholicism may have something valuable to contribute to improving the fraught atmosphere. I suggest that students in our schools might be able to help their elders to avoid making the same old mistakes by following the religious insights available to them.
One obstacle to progress is the prejudice that faith practice is necessarily a private emotional attachment best kept out of formal education. Yet Christian leaders provide many resources to assist the rational and reasonable student to be healthy in mind, body and soul. In Laudato Si’, his lengthy reflection on our Common Home, Pope Francis reminds us that we are all interconnected, that economic progress should benefit the poor as well as the rich, that free market capitalism can and must be improved, that there are humane ways of doing business for the benefit and inclusion of all, that exploiting our planet greedily will be to our lasting detriment. Such ideas should broaden perspectives and influence career choices that will benefit all.
Many scripture texts offer a prophetic call to cross-community cooperation, welcoming the stranger especially the refugee, caring for the disadvantaged. The prevailing mindset rejects religion and promises a release from old restrictions and prejudices and immediately reveals its own prejudices. Power is sought by many as a means to get their own rights irrespective of the common good. It is accepted fatalistically that each person basically wants to do his or her own thing and therefore ‘might is right’ and nothing in law will be guaranteed and promises are there to be broken. The Christian way offers a different perspective. Healing means loss of prejudice and arrogance. Power is freedom to help those most in need. Transformation is possible eventually and can begin here and now as people try to build God’s kingdom with the help of the Risen Lord.
Destroy prejudice not gravestones, speak with enlightened leadership, not with a sense of hopelessness which stokes up fear of the worst by the worst, consider the insights of the Christian religious tradition as a rational and inspirational guide to cooperation in the community and plan together to take down walls and roll back the barbed wire.
FR P DELARGY
PP All Saints, Ballymena, Co Antrim
Catholic association with Irishness built on myth
The juxtaposition of Irishness and Catholic is highly problematic. It is both historically inaccurate and profoundly sectarian. Those who promote this alignment should consider a more balanced, as distinct from selective, analysis of our history, but also the impact such an association has on the oft stated nationalist claim of all inclusiveness. Our local historian, and one time director of Irish Studies at Liverpool University, Marianne Elliot, has noted that the Catholic Church was not always a supporter of the Irish language. As the language transitioned from the oral tradition, spoken by an illiterate population, to the written version, the Gaelic scribe translators disproportionately selected Catholicism as the true religion of Ireland. In these translations, Protestantism was associated with England and foreign ways. In essence the origin myth of the Catholic association with Irishness was created and has endured and continues to cause division in Northern Ireland.
Modern Irish nationalism is also built on an inclusive myth, an inclusiveness articulated by Wolfe Tone, himself Church of Ireland, where all religious groups were merged under the general heading of ‘Irishman’.So long as Irishness remains identified with Catholicism, Tone’s ideal is unachievable.
Aidan Gribbin’s belief (November 18) that the two are “inseparable” ignores our full history, lays waste to Tone’s ideal of equality, and is an affront to the many people in Ireland who consider themselves Irish, but not Catholic.
Any inability, or unwillingness, to critically analyse our shared history, when allied to religious fervour, is a toxic mix which tends to impair rationality. This duality has inevitably led to a crisis of conscience where his religion and politics have come into conflict. Looking for a political party that mirrors one person’s religious beliefs is an absurdity, while his recommendation to vote for a party, historically antagonistic towards the two things be claims are “of great significance” to him, is illogical.
The use of atavistic language with a clarion call to ‘fight’ is anachronistic and serves as a paradigm of the soap box rhetoric used by those opposed to any reconciliation.
DANNY TREACY
Templepatrick, Co Antrim
‘Catholic Church not a Christian Church’
In a statement issued recently in the wake of Paul Givan’s resignation, the Free Presbyterian Church says: “... thousands of Ulster Protestants do not accept the Roman Catholic Church as a Christian Church... Its dogmas, among other things The Mass and Mariolatry, are unscriptural and therefore heretical.”
A quick check into the internet reveals that there are 1.2 billion Catholics in the world, all of whom consider themselves Christian. A similar check reveals that the members of the Free Presbyterian Church (which is separated from the Presbyterian Church in Ireland) are to be found mostly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, with a few in England as well. The total membership of this Church, according to Wikipedia, is 15,000.
Am I alone in wondering (in the context of the Free Presbyterian comments above) if there might just be a modicum of irony in these figures?
BRIAN O’HARE
Newry, Co Down
There’s many a slip between cup and lip
Mary Lou McDonald hiking off to America to court old friends and making new ones – to her own mind – could well be in the ‘chickens before hatched’ territory.
There is no guarantee her Sinn Féin outfit will form the next government at home. There’s many the slip between cup and lip, so she might be well advised to take heed. It’s the votes that count before her own political party may go the way of Democratic Left and The Workers’ Party in this established democracy.
ROBERT SULLIVAN
Bantry, Co Cork
