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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jul 27, 2009 10:42:28 GMT
I came across this while surfing. It is an excerpt from the Galway Augustinian parish newsletter from years back, penned by Very Rev Dick 'Ding-a-ling' Lyng, the PP after Christian Unity Week. I'll give it in blue:
AS I WAS SAYING... You probably didn't notice, but last Sunday was Church Unity Sunday. Or was it? Actually, it no longer merits mention in the official Liturgical Calendar of the Church. Have we called off the search? Have we settled down with our comforting certainties, leaving the search for Christian integrity to more adventuring spirits?
Archbishop Michael Ramsey forecast in the early 1970s that the Anglican and Catholic Churches would have achieved full union within ten years. He had the good fortune to be dead before his deadline transpired. His optimism proved to be naive. The movement soon lost its original impetus and enthusiasm. The conferences and seminars soon fizzled out. Letters to The Irish Times on the subject dried up, in both senses! The annual prayer gathering for Christian unity receded to tokenism. Now motley crews of bloodied but unbowed enthusiasts huddle in cold Churches on a weeknight in January, the only bit of colour provided by the gaudy gear of the fur-lined vicars and bishops. Tea and biscuits helps to wash it all down very gently!
Presumably, in the days following, the local bishop sits at his desk and reports the gathering to Rome, the sub-text being: "We have once more done our bit for Christian unity." Some bureaucrat in the Vatican will enter this in a log, and, when all the reports had come in, the universal picture will look rosy indeed. It matters little that real ecumenism is dead in the water for all practical purposes. To the mind of the bureaucrat and the book-keeper, ecumenism is still alive and kicking gloriously.
But this bleak picture is a generalisation. Ecumenism has fared better in other places. In Britain, Northern Europe and the United States, inter-church relations have gone beyond the stage of politeness to a meaningful exchange of services and, in the case of hospital chaplains for example, to one of mutual supply. Significantly, ecumenism seems to fare better where the Roman Catholic Church is the minority church. And a generosity given from a position of strength is far more impressive than a generosity extracted from a position of weakness.
Church Unity Week this year yielded one solitary letter to The Irish Times, written by a priest in his early 30s, one David O'Hanlon. It was as breath taking in its arrogance as it was withering in its mean-mindedness. He left very few parties 'un-insulted'! He judged Ecumenism to be a 'dead duck' because:
(a) The vast majority of Irish lay Catholics are profoundly ignorant of what the Church actually stands for. These favour ecumenism for socio-political rather than religions reasons.
(b) Ecumenism can only ultimately mean substantial conversion to Catholicism.
(c) Anglicanism is in ideological meltdown, incapable of sincere dialogue with a Church it seems to envy, and yet despise.
In his student days, apparently, O'Hanlon affected the pose of an exotic gadfly, remaining afloat only through the fevered flapping of an overactive right wing. He landed only to sting, specialising in soft targets. Today, targets don't come much softer than Ecumenism. Opportunist that he is, he saw his chance, and pounced. The fact that there was no reaction from the victims can mean one of two things: either they have thrown in the towel, or they recognise that gadflies are irritating rather than dangerous. With no great confidence, I pray that the latter is the case.
-Dick Lyng.
Seems to me ding-a-ling was sore at something and used David O'Hanlon to vent his rage. However, one of the problems with ecumenism is that for a lot of these guys, it is about morning coffee with the local vicaress. I suspect this was written before the influx of Eastern European Christians into Ireland which put a different complexion on the subject. Any opinions?
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 27, 2009 11:46:09 GMT
It is trivialising it a bit to say that for most of these guys it's all about morning coffee with the local vicaress. For some of them it's about reunion with the Anglican Communion on the Anglican Communion's (or rather the American Episcopal Church's) own terms and on the principle that the magisterium followed by the Irish Church should no longer be located in Rome but in a nice new shiny office block a few hundred yards from D'Olier Street.
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Post by guillaume on Jul 28, 2009 7:52:59 GMT
It is trivialising it a bit to say that for most of these guys it's all about morning coffee with the local vicaress. For some of them it's about reunion with the Anglican Communion on the Anglican Communion's (or rather the American Episcopal Church's) own terms and on the principle that the magisterium followed by the Irish Church should no longer be located in Rome but in a nice new shiny office block a few hundred yards from D'Olier Street. Ecumenism a lost cause ? Certainly. While some of the Anglican communion, especially the so-called traditional anglican, would had been the closest to the catholic spirituality than other religion (except the Orthodox), it is not the same religion. Or separated brothers do not worship the same way we do. I personally think ecumenism is dangerous. The question is : who has the Truth, where is the Truth and who is spreading the Truth, taught by the Lord ? I believe that only the catholic church does, not only because she has received the spiritual heritage from Jesus and his apostles, but also with the tradition. Jesus only formed one church with Peter at the head. Like there is only one God and obviously one Truth, there is only one way and one church. "We believe in one catholic, apostolic church", says the Credo. If there is only one church, we have to admit that the "other" "churches" are wrong and not part of the Church of Jesus, but sects. So the role, the mission of the church should remind our separated brothers that they do not worship according to the Father's will because they deny the apostolic authority given by His son to his unique Church. Yes, protestantism is spreading errors and create many confusion.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 28, 2009 15:13:12 GMT
On the substantive quote, Ding-a-ling (I hope you are reading, Father Richard Lyng - I would say this to your face as quick) is hypocritical. He accuses David O'Hanlon of attacking soft targets. Like Mary Robinson at the height of her popularity? Come off it. Father Lyng attacking soft targets would be more to the point as Father O'Hanlon is unlikely to have hit back. But that's a side issue. BTW, any chance of bringing Father O'Hanlon on to this forum - he would liven it up.
With regards to ecumenism - the most important ecumenical outreach is to the Orthodox Churches. I mean to address this on the 'vocations' thread as this has relevance on the topic of clerical marriage which Harris has raised. This has been prioritised in B16's pontificate and I believe it is of key importance in the Pope's liturgical policy including Summorum Pontificum. In fact I think this is more important than any other reason behind it (sorry, pixies, you are not the centre of the universe you imagine yourselves to be).
When we get onto relations with the Protestant ecclesial communions, the most constructive dialogue is with the Lutherans. The Lutheran Church has the same wings as the Anglicans with 'Evangelical Catholics' (from which Father Richard Neuhaus was drawn) correspond with Anglo-Catholics amongs Anglicans. Lutherans tend to be more serious about doctrine than Anglicans and they tend to mean what they say more (generalisations here). So, the Anglican Church is not the centre of the world from Rome's point of view.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 28, 2009 15:55:42 GMT
Indeed, the most important outreach is to the Orthodox Churches and I can see why the Lutherans might come next. (I don't know enough about Lutherans to know how accurate the description is - the ones in the US have split into the Evangelical Lutheran Church who are as heterodox as the Episcopalians, and the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod who are Protestant fundamentalists.) The thing is that, unlike America, we have very few of either in Ireland so the principal ecumenical outreach is going to be to the Church of Ireland and the other mainline Protestant denominations - and for a variety of reasons the overall effect seems to be that significant sections of the Church here wish to be as much like the C of I as possible, and there have actually been significant defections - from priests wanting to get married and a certain type of upper-middle-class liberal. I was at an Irish Studies Conference in Galway last month where Cardinal Daly was interviewed by video-link. When he was grilled on ecumenism and doctrinal matters (including celibacy) and pointed out that some of the demands made would hinder relations with the Orthodox, sections of the audience started to barrack him in a most disgusting manner. The Cardinal has his limitations, but seeing a 90-year-old man treated like that was like seeing Jesus mocked again.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 29, 2009 15:35:49 GMT
I am surprised that academics at an Irish Studies Conference could be both so insular and so uncouth.
Fact is that the Anglican Church doesn't count for much in Rome's estimation - it is small and so factionalised that Rome can't believe it has the coherence to deliver on any committment. The C of I here has impressive PR within Ireland, but within the Anglican Communion it is seen as petty and sniping. Anyway, the American Episcopal Church has decided unilaterally to pursue a policy which will undermine the world communion - and make it less attractive. The Catholic Church is picking highly articulate converts up along the way.
In Ireland, there is a social cachet attaching to Anglicanism which is unknown elsewhere - even an ex-Loreto nun was ordained to the C of I ministry in recent weeks. But this bucks against the international trend. However, all the C of I fans in the Catholic Church would make a better contribution to move their way - otherwise the relationship between the Catholic Church and the C of I is analogous to the relationship between a huge multinational and a chain of corner-shops in a small country with a history of bad relations among employees - it is not worth troubing over.
Incidentally - there is a general problem in dealing with Protestants in that their leadership is not in a position to deliver the type of committments the Catholic Church can do, so the dialogue can be pointless. Father Lyng quotes Archbishop Ramsay - but he has nothing to say about the issues in which the world Anglican Communion moved in the opposite direction to Catholicism. Nobody can say otherwise.
I think, however, all the Protestant Churches need to look at the bigger picture. Even to take a reality check. I recall reading the volume in the Pelican series on religion about Methodism by a Methodist minister and theologian named Rupert Davies. Professor Davies concluded by saying that if the Canterbury claimed they were mid way between Rome and Geneva, they should recall Methodism was mid way between Rome and the Society of Friends and was therefore a better source of unity. In fact both statements, which could well be true in themselves, misss an important point - that Rome could be described as mid way between the Assyrian Church of the East and the Society of Friends. That when the Churches of the East are brought into the equation, Christianity looks much, much different.
Can our homegrown liberals see beyond D'Olier St to these realities? Or do upper middle class liberal Anglicans make more of an impression than Eastern European Orthodox doing menial jobs?
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 29, 2009 16:02:47 GMT
Alasdair shouldn't be so surprised. Academics can be very petty and spiteful and there is a strong liberal/feminist "party line" in certain humanities subjects. The extent to which the "eight hundred years of British oppression ending in the Glories of 1916" template has been replaced by the "two centuries of Catholic oppression ending with the glories of James Joyce/Mary Robinson/" in certain Humanities subjects is quite noticeable.
This, I think, is relevant to the attitude of ecumenism with the C of I. Some of the more outrageous examples of anti-Protestant prejudice in the first decades of the independent state clearly reflected a historical perception of Protestants as relics of colonial privilege, with the implication that anything they had they had stolen from Catholics and that making any special consideration for them amounted to bringing back the Penal Laws. (For example, the recent book THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE MAYO LIBRARIAN has extensive quotes from the local clerics and County Councillors involved in which the appointment of Letitia Dunbar-Harrison is equated - of course wrongly and outrageously - with nineteenth-century landlords' attempts to pressurise tenants into sending their children to Protestant schools.)
This image, whose dispersal is certainly a change for the better, has died away through various reasons (including the passage of time and the breakdown of the Protestant-Catholic divide in business and the professions which was still visible up to the early 1960s). It has been replaced in the South (the North is different for various reasons) with an image of Protestants as a harmless and genteel minority persecuted in the past by Catholic yahoos and bigots, for whose treatment reparation must be made.
Furthermore, historically-Protestant institutions which secularised earlier and more gradually than their Catholic equivalents seem to maintain a certain pride in their historic identity in a way that the Catholic ones do not, and are seen as classier - TCD is definitely seen as a cut above UCD.
There is a sense in which some of the most self-consciously "modern" parts of modern Ireland have "not being Catholic" as a central part of their self-definition, in the same way that their grandparents saw themselves as centrally "not British".
The activities of Protestant evangelicals among the working and lower-middle classes are another matter; that's a question of zeal for what they believe to be true being preached to people who are searching for truth and who no longer have the sort of self-confidence that it's good to be Catholic found among previous generations - for example in the founding generation of the Legion of Mary, whose evangelising zeal seems quite incredible now. (The role/influence of American Evangelicalism probably helps).
I think quite a few of the ecumenists probably do despise the Orthodox because they see the central issue for religion as being the encounter with modernity (defined in terms of consumer capitalism) and they believe the Protestant denominations have had this experience and the Orthodox have not. (I remember attending a talk many years ago by Fr. Jerome Murphy O'Connor the biblical scholar at which he scouted talk of prioritising reunion with the Orthodox on these grounds and also because of Orthodox intransigence.)
There is a certain irony to this given that these people speak so much of Vatican II and the "nouvelle theologie" which so influenced that Council had at its best the aim of moving away from the scholastic to the patristic approach and as a consequence getting closer to the Orthodox.
By the way, one factor which should not be overlooked in discussing the forms ecumenism has taken in Ireland is the Northern conflict. The sight of Christians professing the strongest zeal and orthodoxy killing one another in view of the world fed into a sense that the maintenance of denominational boundaries and doctrinal orthodoxy contributed to this, and almost anything must be acceptable to stop it.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 29, 2009 16:05:50 GMT
By the way, it was an international conference and quite a few of the booers were American. One explanation sometimes offered for the growth of "Irish Studies" as a discipline in Britain, North America and Australasia is that as historically Catholic educational institutions secularise they pick up on ethnic "studies" disciplines as a replacement for Catholicism in order to find a new selling-point and maintain a sense of continuity with past generations.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 30, 2009 10:02:17 GMT
I don't know if Hazelireland or another atheist might come in on this issue, but let's stress we are discussing principally the religious phenonomen of ecumenism and not the origins of the Northern Ireland conflict per se.
Hibernicus is quite correct to say that the conflict fuels ecumenism in Ireland, and that this means the Irish Catholic Church has to engage constructively with bodies which do not register greatly in the world Catholic Church'es scheme of thing - like the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Methodist Church in Ireland (these are small enough - the other bodies are progressively smaller). The past couple of papal nuncios are men who served in conflict zones before coming to Ireland - which indicates that the secretariat of state sees the Peace Process as the most important consideration in appointing a nuncio to Ireland. Mrs McAleese's hyperactive interest in visiting Benedict XVI seems to be advancing this sort of mentality - topic for separate discussion. (In another context, I have argued any petition to Rome regarding the EF Mass would have to be based on an absolute water tight case, particularly in relation to dioceses like Down & Connor or Dromore, because a different set of priorities in ecumencal policy to the Church'es universal norm would influence adjudication on the petition). But the fundamental here is the origin of the Northern conflict. It is perceived to at base a religious issue. I am blue in the face telling Britons, continentals and Americans that that is far from absolute and that is is fundamentally a political issue, with economic, cultural and even ethnic causes. British propaganda would like the world to think that the North was about two tribes of mad Irishmen killing each other over religion with them acting as the honest broker, but that is far from the case and no explanation is proffered as to why one of those mad tribes see themselves as British rather than Irish and why they seem to be treated differently by the 'honest broker' than the other. I know I am grossly over simplifying a highly complex issue here.
I am totally with Hibernicus on the incorrectness of the über-nationalist education in the 26 counties from independence to the outbreak of the troubles; but the pendulum has swung in another direction which is equally problematic and it has even affected the way many Catholic priests look at ecumenism.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 30, 2009 11:19:08 GMT
I entirely agree with alasdair that the Northern conflict is not primarily religious, but religion has historically served as a tribal "marker".
The liberal line is that a strong emphasis on separate religious identities is one of the things that helps to perpetuate the divide and the view that it is important to be a Catholic rather than a Protestant should therefore be minimised if not abolished altogether, and anyone who emphasises what separates Catholicism from Protestantism is denounced as wishing to keep the conflict going.
This contains a certain amount of truth - there are quite a few people on both sides who exalt Catholicism or Protestantism as a marker of cultural identity. Some of these people have genuine religious commitments (this is less common nowadays, as both sides have worked out that emphasising secularity gets you more brownie points with the outside world and the culture has become more secularised overall) while others see religion in tribal terms. I know quite a few Orangemen who have no particular religious beliefs and regard the Order as their "real" religion, and the rhetoric of liberation theology blended in some cases with traditional Catholic defenderism to produce a very nasty mix.
Nevertheless there are real political and cultural issues which can't be wished away (or forcibly abolished) and have to be addressed. I don't minimise my criticism of certain types of uber-nationalist or uber-Catholic mindset in the Republic in the past, but I was also making the point that this was often a response to real oppression carried out by Protestants and Unionists in the past, and that we tend to lose awareness of this in the Republic because we are no longer so aware of that past oppression. John Charles McQuaid saw himself as repairing the ravages of Penal Days, and it's not possible to fully appreciate his attitude to Protestants/Protestantism unless you understand that. It's harder to forget that in the North for obvious reasons.
There has incidentally been a pretty steep decline in religious observance in Catholic working-class areas since the end of the Troubles - a combination of the wider secularising trend (including the scandals) with a decline in the sense of communal solidarity which reinforced Catholic identity. I remember reading sometime ago that in some of the newer estates [Twinbrook and Poleglass] on the outskirts of West Belfast Mass attendance was 60% in 1990 and is now down to 5%. Extended family structures, which were very important in West Belfast, have also come under strain. There's a real fear among a lot of republicans that the sort of social collapse seen in certain poorer areas of Dublin might happen a few years down the line as paramilitary vigilantism becomes less effective (or less centralised).
BTW Tim Pat Coogan's MEMOIR is a good example of using religion as a scapegoat to avoid addressing the real differences. Coogan is/was quite outspoken in attacking the role of the Church in the Republic and is prepared to make all the concessions in that regard that Ulster Protestants could want (since he doesn't believe in it anyway); but when it comes to the political objectives of Unionism he denounces these as demented bigotry and declares they should be given no consideration at all but be overruled by force.
Steve Bruce the sociologist has a recent book on Paisley which is quite good in discussing the difference between even the most fundamentalist Ulster Protestants and groups like Islamic fundamentalists who are primarily religiously-motivated. Bruce is very soft on Paisley, partly because he relies a lot on interviews with Paisley and his activists, but he does have a good understanding of how a conservative religious believer thinks even though he is fundamentally secularist himself.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 30, 2009 11:40:07 GMT
I recall something the late Cardinal Ó Fiaich said about the Northern situation: '90% of the religious bigotry is on the Protestant side, but 90% of the political bigotry is on the Catholic side'. This was confirmed when Ken McGuinness was asked by a southern interview if he got any adverse reaction from his supporters for attending Mary Robinson's inauguration. He said he didn't, but he got negative feedback for attending the enthronement of (then) Archbishop Cahal Daly as Archbishop of Armagh in St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh. Had someone like John Hume or Séamus Mallon gone to Robin Eames enthronement in Armagh's other St Patrick's Cathedral, no one would have commented - but they would have commented if either went to some significant royal function in London.
Tim Pat Coogan's attitude mirrors this - he has no bone to pick on the religious issue, but he is not about to compromise on political issues. It seems to me, too, that the Church is loosing the urban working classes at an alarmingly fast rate on both sides of the border.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 30, 2009 12:29:40 GMT
To be fair to the Protestants, this difference in attitudes towards attending church services is a relatively recent development. Up until the 60s, even later in some dioceses, Catholics were forbidden to attend Protestant services, on the grounds that joining with them in prayer would lead to the growth of indifference to the distinction between us.
This was a general Church-wide ban, but I think it was enforced more rigidly in Ireland than elsewhere (possibly for historical reasons, such as fear in the nineteenth century that if socially ambitious Catholics were allowed to attend Protestant services on official occasions this might encourage them to turn, and provide a precedent for, say, Protestant householders trying to coerce their servants' religious practice, which was a fairly common practice at one stage).
The classic example is the way in which, when Douglas Hyde died, the members of both Dail front-benches remained outside St. Patrick's Cathedral during the funeral service and then joined the procession afterwards. I would have thought there couldn't be a clearer case for a dispensation than when attending, in one's official capacity, the State funeral of a former President; yet a dispensation was not given and perhaps not asked for.
As usual we have gone from being over-strict to over-lax, because I don't think the fears about indifference were altogether unfounded. I might add that I don't think Protestants who refuse to attend Mass are necessarily bigots. A strict Evangelical who really believes that to attend Mass is to participate in, or at least countenance, the idolatrous worship of a piece of bread, is IMHO quite right to follow his conscience, however misguided it may be. I prefer to reserve the name of bigot for people's behaviour in everyday transactions, or for those driven by gross and flagrant delusions (e.g. those who credulously accept the fantasies of such works as Alexander Hislop's THE TWO BABYLONS: THE ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION PROVED TO BE THE WORSHIP OF NIMROD AND HIS WIFE, a nineteenth-century work that is still reprinted in America and sold here).
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Aug 5, 2009 12:28:44 GMT
Yes - the episode at Dr Hyde's funeral was deeply shameful and a poor reflection on both bishops and political leaders, but one wonders if dispensations were sought? When one considers Mary McAleese set off a Church-State conflict by taking communion in Christchurch (an action never repeated).
I recall something I regard as an urban legend, if ye regard Galway as 'urban'. It goes back to the time that Michael Browne DD, DCL was Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh and Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora. When the bikini first became a feature of beach culture, I think in the 1950s, the bishop forbade women in his diocese to wear it. One summer's day, while driving along the coast road in Salthill he saw a defiant bikini-clad Galwegian sunbathing on the beach. He stopped his car and sent his flunkey down with the message:
"Madam, His Lordship, the Bishop of Galway, has requested me to inform you that two-piece bathing costumes are prohibited in this diocese"
The woman took a look at the flunkey and coolly replied:
"Will you go up and ask His Lordship what piece he suggests I take off?"
This anectdote came to my mind several years ago when Bishop Browne's successor the late Bishop McLoughlin was compelled to withdraw permission he had given to one of his younger priests to appear in a charity calender, when he discovered the priest would be photographed wearing nothing except his clerical stock and collar and keeping 'decent' by concealing his private parts with an altar missal. What the young priest was thinking of when he did the photo shoot is anybody's guess.
Whatever about the former story, the latter story is true. The contrast, like the two incidents above, reflects the perceived swing in the Church between then and now. It is not a symthom of a healthy situation. If anything, it must spur more and more reflection among clergy and laity, all over Ireland.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 7, 2009 16:55:35 GMT
Askel's last post has perhaps strayed a bit from the topic of ecumenism. One possible explanation that might be made in connection with the young priest's exhibitionism is that he simply saw it as being one of the lads, and that society's idea of what is tolerable in being one of the lads has changed so much in recent decades that everyone's disoriented.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Aug 9, 2009 16:46:25 GMT
I think Askel wanted to illustrate the extremes in which the Irish Church has swung between in recent decades. The later anectdote, which I remember - it involved a Father Olan Rynne of the Galway diocese - is best dealt with in the ignorance of Catholic doctrine thread. I think it a misapplication of 'Charity covers a multitude' (no pun intended).
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