There are far worse offenses for a Bishop than falling in love and having a baby as Galway’s Eamonn Casey did. Far less forgivable is the appropriation of diocesan funds for child support payments.
Whatever the ultimate truth of the matter, Casey’s ordeal cast Ireland into the world headlines in a manner unseen in recent times. That, combined with the recent splurge of coverage surrounding the case of the 14-year-old girl refused permission to travel to Britain to have an abortion after she had allegedly been raped, has Ireland in uproar.
It is now clear with these latest scandals, that Ireland has emerged with a vengeance from the hermetically sealed society that it was until the early 1960s.
Stories of Bishops with babies or young girls having abortions would never have seen the light of day back then.
Instead, the mantra of Eamonn de Valera, a founding father, whose vision of Ireland was comely maidens dancing at crossroads held sway for generations.
Rather like Albania, orthodoxy ruled and the church and state conspired to make everyone as orthodox as possible.
There was an ethos of deep rural conservatism, allied with a natural xenophobia for anything foreign which many equated with the hated British who had just departed the 26 counties.
So into that sealed society little penetrated. When the information explosion fueled by satellite television and foreign influences occurred, Ireland would soon find itself with defenders galore on its ramparts, seeking to hold back the flood of onrushing strangeness.
“There was no sex in Ireland before television” was perhaps the most famous commentary on the situation, uttered by a man who went on to become a cabinet minister.
It was Charles Darwin who noted that it was not the strongest but those who adapted the best who survived. The two great institutions in Irish life the Catholic church and the Fianna Fail party, the latter forming most of the governments, were faced with huge challenges in the new information age.
They reacted very differently.
Fianna Fail, like chameleon politicians everywhere, have adapted very well, to the point where it seems unlikely they will be displaced in government in the foreseeable future. Despite rampant emigration, joblessness and the continuing situation in the North of Ireland they have tacked to the liberal side on many issues, the conservative on others and held their middle ground.
The church however, has failed to adapt as well to the modern era. The irony is that bishops such as Eamon Casey, a doughty fighter for emigrants and the homeless and the late Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich were much closer and beloved by their flock than any of the John Paul II-appointed deeply conservative prelates and had the key to adapting far more than the men left behind.
The church fought and won two major battles in Ireland in the mid 1980s, against divorce and on a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion forever.
Following the Bishop Casey and the 14-year-old girl stories, both may have proved to be pyrrhic victories. Future divisive referendums on both issues now seem certain.
By continuing an irredentist, hard-line conservative approach the church in Ireland has lost countless thousands of young people who feel little room to breathe in what they regard as a religious straitjacket.
The pity is that on matters such as emigration and concern for the poor, the church has been to the forefront both in formulating and implementing policies to ease the plight of those in need.
Now, in the wake of Casey and the 14-year old rape victim they face the most serious crisis perhaps since the Pamell divorce set Irishman against Irishman in the name of religion. The times they are a changing in Ireland and the Church is desperately trying to catch the changing winds.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the June 1992 issue of Irish America. ♦
Leave a Reply