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Post by hibernicus on Jan 20, 2009 13:00:53 GMT
Noelfitz: Wikipedia is not a reliable source. McQuaid unfortunately did not order the dissolution of Maria Duce (which ought to have been dissolved long before) though he pressurised the Holy Ghost Fathers into ordering those members who had joined it under Fahey's influence to break their ties with it, and made the group change its name to Firinne (Truth) in order to disple any impression that it was an official church organisation. Firinne/Maria Duce in fact continued to exist into the 1970s, holding regular pilgrimages to Fahey's grave and publishing a rag called FIAT which treated its readers to such profound and reliable information as the claim that Hitler was in fact a secret Jew brought to power by the Elders of Zion in order to destroy German power and bring about the subjugation of Germany to the USSR (assumed to be the seat and headquarters of the said Elders). Even when the USSR took to persecuting JEws, Fahey and the Faheyites were nt in the least perplexed and decided this was simply a cover-up for the machinations of the Elders
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 21, 2009 11:34:53 GMT
Cooney reports without comment Browne's view that reverence for virginity is a form of mental illness - in fact, he appears to share it. (At one point Cooney describes the ascetic spirituality of Fr. Liebermann, the co-founder of the Holy Ghost order, as "Jansenist"; but on the grounds which he gives for describing him thus St. Paul, the Desert Fathers, St. Columbanus and the early Irish monks, Thomas a Kempis and indeed any ascetic would all be "Jansenists.") When discussing JCM's teachings on sexuality, his statements that pre-marital sex is always wrong and that sexual intercourse should only take place between married couples are presented in such a way as to imply that they are self-evidently ridiculous (or at least on the same level as areas where JCM's views are genuinely open to debate/question, such as standards of modesty or what constitutes "evil literature"). Any comment at all by JCM on sexual ethics is presented by Cooney, implicitly or explicitly, as reflecting personal prurience rather than pastoral care, and when JCM (with his confessor's permission) acquired a collection of medical literature and confessors' manuals on sexual matters, Cooney implies - without ever saying in so many words - that he was using it as pornography for personal titillation rather than for pastoral reasons [bear in mind that certain sins in this category would be reserved to the bishop, and that he would also be expected to advise his priests on thorny cases and to draw up general guidelines for confessors in the diocese), and that JCM was hypocritical in advocating the banning of "evil literature" while possessing this material and statign it ought not to receive general circulation. The "supporting evidence" which Cooney assembles to support his belief in the story retailed by Browne can all be seen in this light; it reflects retrospective judgement by people who consulted or were talked to by JCM that he took an unhealthy interest in such matters (one might as reasonably say that because the blood transfusion service asks blood donors about their sexual history blood transfusion staff must be perverts). One example is particularly instructive. Pat Buckley (the schismatic bishop) recalls that JCM used to lecture seminarians on the facts of life, which he described in graphic detail, and presents this as evidence of peculiarity. He and Cooney do not seem to be aware that this could be seen as part of JCM's canonical duties. Vows of celibacy can be set aside if the person making the vows had no idea of what they were renouncing, and such ignorance is quite possible in a reticent society where seminary candidates were recruited young. (I know of at least one early twentieth-century English case where a Franciscan was dispensed from his vows on precisely this basis, and I would not be surprised if there were others.) It is a bishop's duty to satisfy himself that candidates for ordination are fit for priestly life, and JCM's actions here could be quite reasonably seen as part of that duty. JCM's participation in bureaucratic intrigue is also put down simply to personal ambition under a hypocritical mask of humility (and there is a nasty subterranean insinuation, which is never actually stated in so many words but which was noted by at least one contemporary reviewer, that there was something unhealthy about his relationship with various secretaries, proteges and associates). Certainly ecclesiastical intrigue and politicking is often unedifying, but Mr. Cooney's holier-than-thou air here is very amusing. His liberal heroes in politics and religion were hardly untouched by the dark arts of bureaucracy; he tends to go in for the sort of Vatican II triumphalism in which it is only the wicked conservatives who caucus and plan ahead, while the guileless progressives are presented as moved by the Holy Spirit in activities which when more closely examined amount to caucusing and planning ahead. Nor is this unreasonable of them to have done (the problem lies with the aims to which some of these were applied) - if the denunciations of intrigue and politicking which some traditionalists apply to Vatican II were applied to all the Councils of the Church, very few would be left unscathed. The fact is that just as Jesus became incarnate in a human body with all the features and limitations of a physical body, so His mystical body the Church is incarnate among other things in a very large and unwieldy bureaucracy, with all the limitations to which bureaucracies are prone, and we ought not to be shocked or surprised by its mere existence. I would add that all bureaucracies function by patron-client systems; a senior bureaucrat identifies promising juniors and works to advance their careers. Angelo Roncalli came from a grindingly poor farming family to become Pope John XXIII largely because a senior cleric identified him as a promising candidate in the seminary, recruited him to the Vatican diplomatic service, and promoted his early career. No doubt Mr. Cooney could make many insinuations about this did he so wish, and they would be entirely untrue. Another little Cooney blunder by the way is when he sneers that a statement by JCM that John XXIII reminded him of Pius X "said more about McQuaid than about John". In fact the comparison is very striking for anyone who knows anything about the two popes - both came from very poor backgrounds in Northern Italy, you have to go back to the C16 to find Popes from such poor families, and both struck those who came in contact with them as possessing deep personal warmth and friendliness (so much so that at the time of the Modernist crisis those condemned by Pius X often claimed he was a decent simple-minded man being manipulated by sinister curial bureaucrats; only when the archives were opened was it made clear how deep was Pius's personal involvement in the condemnations). Mr. Cooney is so caught up in the Pius/conservative/evil, John/progressive/good dichotomy that he fails to see this (nor does he note such details as John's personal devotion to Pius IX, who had after all been the last Pope to call a General Council, and which complicates the image of John as pure break with the past). More follows
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 21, 2009 12:01:01 GMT
A genuine fault of JCM's is identified when Cooney quotes him as forbidding Clonliffe seminarians to read most contemporary theological literature (in the pre-Vatican II era) and justifying it by saying that they ought not to pay attention to the private views of individual theologians when they can get pure doctrine from the Holy See itself. Even allowing that some of the writers whose banning Cooney condemned (such as Teilhard) richly deserved to be banned, this was a very dangerous attitude; it amounted to giving the impression that there is no place in theology at all for debate, that everything rests on pronouncements from authority, that all such pronouncements are on the same level and that to practice theology simply consists of applying precedents as laid down in the standard textbooks - what Cardinal Newman describes as overemphasising the king in the threefold role of the church authority at the expense of the prophetic (the third aspect being the priestly). Such an attiude was guaranteed to produce paralysis and worse when authority changed course or acted ambiguously as it did after Vatican II; if everything is seen as resting on authority, and if authority changes what had previously been thought unchangeable, then people get the impression that authority can change everything if they want and blame it for not doing so - authority becomes a mere arbitrary act of will (cf Richard Williamson and co). JCM was not irrationalist (Cooney ridiculously refers to the Modernists as "rationalists" - in fact they criticised Thomism for being too rationalistic and downgraded reason in favour of personal mystical experience; Cooney's expertise in this field may be shown by his reference to Henri Bergson as a Catholic philosopher) but he appears to have seen theology simply in terms of rationalising the decisions of authority rather than something which should guide and inform authority in making these decisions. I note in passing that Cooney denounces every attempt by JCM to block certain 1960s theologian from speaking in Dublin without noting that his concerns about some of them (such as Gregory Baum and Charles Davis) were amply justified by their subsequent careers. (Cooney of course may and probably does regard their open espousals of heresy and breach of their solemn vows as laudable; the point is that JCM's action against them cannot be seen as mere control freakery but represented genuine ideological difference.)
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 21, 2009 12:34:51 GMT
Cooney also takes it for granted that JCM's acquisition of a grand new episcopal residence at Kiliney complete with servants) represented pure self-indulgence and calls into question JCM's professions of asceticism. There is something to be said for this at least in terms of giving scandal, and it is reasonable to state that certain vowed religious pre-Vatican II were too ready to assume that their vows of poverty automatically placed them in a position to understand the poor (even though they were guaranteed a residence and upkeep, had a canonically assured future subject to good behaviour etc). On the other hand, it should be noted that the residence in question was paid for by private donations (not out of diocesan funds), that JCM left it to the diocese on his death (as he did with all his property), that an organisation the size of the Dublin archdiocese could hardly be run out of a monastic cell (and indeed it is not desirable that this should be the case) and that when sneering that some really juicy McQuaid papers may not have made it to the Diocesan archive because the purchaser after McQuaid's death found a good deal of correspondence, much of which related to Latin America (in which JCM had a strong pastoral interest, which is why he let the Legionaries of Christ - whom Cooney misidentifies as a Spanish rather than Mexican order -into the archdiocese, he inadvertently reveals that JCM used it as a place of business as well as a residence.) The account of JCM's last days and the way he was cast aside by Paul VI whom he had served so faithfully in the interests of a more Vatican II-friendly Irish Church make sad reading. (One notes in passing that JCM advocated that Mgr. Cremin should be Bishop of Kerry, though Cremin had oppposed his position on the Mother and Child scheme; it is apparently Cardinal Conway whom we have to thank for the appointment of Eamon Casey thereto and the resulting spiritual blessings with which we are all so familiar.) Even allowing that to some extent his mistaken views on the role of the bishop, and his inability to take even legitimate public criticism or articulate his views before a critical audience (he was much better used to bureaucratic interchange - I might add that the description of his speedy writing habits makes it clear that he was a man who emphasised making decisions and sticking to them) were not well suited to the circumstances of Dublin in the late 1960s and early 1970s qand had brought about some of his troubles and those of his successors, it is still heart-rending to read the descriptions of his fall and the evident satisfaction with which Mr. Cooney plays the role of scourger and mocker. It is a particularly charming touch that after his retirement priests who had sympathies with him were advised not to visit him lest they be seen as disloyal to the new regime, and it does not say much for them that they took the advice. Even though Cooney is evidently trying to throw what dirt he can at Dermot Ryan as well because he did not turn out to be as "liberal" as certain opponents of John Charles expected, one is still left with the impression that a fitting device for his mitre would be thirty pieces of silver. Odd, is it not, that those liberals who criticised John Paul II for "packing" the episcopate and college of cardinals with his own men as if a Pope's power of appointment was somehow illegitimate, never point out that Paul VI engaged in what could be called "packing" on a much grander scale (because he retrospectively changed the terms of appointment of officeholders who were already in place), retiring bishops at 75 and cardinals at 80, at least in part with the object of ensuring his reforms would be implemented in their full glory. (I am not saying that Paul did not have the authority to do so; merely that the results have been pretty mixed, that a good deal of cruelty was involved, and that the liberals do not criticise Paul over this as they criticise JPII because it was not their ox which Paul gored.) I remember recently coming across a press report of Archbishop Lefebvre's last visit to Ireland (c.1994) in which he said that JCM, who had been his friend, was treated abominably and died of a broken heart. In this at least I agree with Lefebvre. (Lefebvre also noted the sale of the Christian Brothers novitiate in Merrion as a sign that Ireland was experiencing the beginnings of the sort of decline the French Church had suffered. At the same time Bishop Comiskey was reassuring readers of the IRISH CATHOLIC that continuing 90% Mass attendance figures of 90% showed the Church was perfectly healthy and vindicated the record of himself and his colleagues against oracles of doom and naysayers. When these two items are compared one can see I think why so many SSPXers see themselves as having been vidicated by events and put up with the antics of Bishop Williamson in the mistaken expectation that he too may be vindicated by events.) One of my New Year's resolutions has been to try to read the Divine Office daily (though I have some difficulty navigating the book). Yesterday was the Feast of St. Sebastian but also the feast of Pope St. Fabian, martyr; and after navigating Cooney's wretched tome I found myself thinking that the Office of PAstors' texts which hail the work of saintly bishops and the Office of a Martyr's readings from the Book of Wisdom, about how the righteous dead seemed in the eyes of the wicked to die but are safe with God and receive the crown after their labours, apply to John Charles McQuaid. MAy he rest in peace.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 21, 2009 12:40:56 GMT
One last point about Mr. Cooney; in a review of the book when it first appeared (I think in the SUNDAY TRIBUNE) Eamonn McCann, writing as an atheist, pointed out that while in the interviews surrounding the appearance of the book Cooney always identified himself as a Catholic and got very cross if anyone questioned his right to the name, while denouncing JCM for exceeding his authority Cooney never says how far the authority of a Catholic bishop should extend, and when attributing all the characteristics of JCM's rule, spirituality and theology to personal mental illness Cooney never tries to suggest how any other potential successor at the time might have behaved as Archbishop if JCM's superiors had granted his requests to send him as a missionary to Kenya.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 21, 2009 18:46:47 GMT
Perhaps I should slightly qualify my comments about the way that JCM was treated concerning his dismissal - not that I don't still think it was outrageous but that it was quite closely related to what he himself had done over the years to various people wom he thought of as unsound. In one of my earlier posts on the Cooney book I spoke of the Mystical Body of Christ necessarily becoming incarnate in bureaucratic form (though not in that form alone) with all the limitations that implies. Two limitations which were very noticeable in the pre-Vatican II Irish Church and were carried over in similar form to the later period are: (a) Excessive solidarity and reluctance to reverse decisions made by a junior. We hear a great deal in praise of subsidiarity, but one of the drawbacks of this concept is that if a junior superior does something harmful the higher grades are very reluctant to step in and overrule him, both because it would cast doubt on their own competence in appointing him in the first place and because the whole system would break down if the decisions of juniors were constantly being second-guessed (both because juniors would be reluctant to make decisions and because the seniors would be swamped with micro-management). When this is combine dwith a strong belief in obedience as a religiou svirtue in itself, creating a presumption that a subordinate who quarrels with a superior must be wrong for disputing him, the way is opened to great injustice. Cf Criostoir O Floinn's autobiography CONSPLAWKUS for a description of how when he as schoolteacher refused to do menial tasks without payment for the clerical school manager, he was not only dismissed by the bishop (who never bothered to hear his side of the case) but put on a nationwide blacklist on the assumption that if he had quarreled with his manager there must be something wrong with him. He was thus deprived of a livelihood (though he was a faithful Catholci and married with six children); he only survived because a Christian Brothers school in Bray, which was independent of the bishops, employed him. I think O Floinn is a lousy writer and disagree with many of his views, but I know enough about the way the system worked to know he was telling the truth and such cases were by no means uncommon. (b) Taking subordinates for granted. Monarchs and power-holders are very susceptible to the tendency that has been called "the gratitude of the House of Hapsburg" - i.e. the assumption that in serving you the subordinate only does his duty and they do not therefore deserve or receive any gratitude or fairness at all; when they are no longer useful they are discarded without a second thought. Anyone who is familiar with the Church's history pre and post-Vatican II can think of numerous examples of this (though the divine-right arrogance of the pre-Vatican II church has been replaced in this by a mangerialist arrogance which sees the bishop or metropolitan as Chief Executive Officer who must be unhindered in making decisons for the greater good, and safeguards for the rights of priests etc as hindrances to reform which must be minimised or abolished as far as possible. The bright sparks in the IRISH CATHOLCI letters column who recently suggested the Archbishop of Armagh should be allowed to remove bishops at will, as a Taoiseach fires ministers, if he thought they were a hindrance to the Church's mission don't realise what sort of arbitrary rule this would allow). Gratitude is nice if you get it, but I wouldn't count on it here on earth; our reward is in heaven. Sorry if I have swamped this thread with John Charles McQuaid. Anyone else like to comment?
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Jan 21, 2009 19:05:40 GMT
Sorry if I have swamped this thread with John Charles McQuaid. Anyone else like to comment? Hibernicus, your posts have been fascinating and I, for one, am most grateful for them. Whenever John Cooney writes opinion pieces or analytical ones, as opposed to pure factual reporting, I sense a deep sourness in his attitude to anyone or anything that does not accord with his particular notion of the "Spirit of Vatican II". I find him so biased as to be exceptionally unreliable as a commentator.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 23, 2009 12:14:36 GMT
The account of JCM's last days and the way he was cast aside by Paul VI whom he had served so faithfully in the interests of a more Vatican II-friendly Irish Church make sad reading. (One notes in passing that JCM advocated that Mgr. Cremin should be Bishop of Kerry, though Cremin had oppposed his position on the Mother and Child scheme; it is apparently Cardinal Conway whom we have to thank for the appointment of Eamon Casey thereto and the resulting spiritual blessings with which we are all so familiar.) Even allowing that to some extent his mistaken views on the role of the bishop, and his inability to take even legitimate public criticism or articulate his views before a critical audience (he was much better used to bureaucratic interchange - I might add that the description of his speedy writing habits makes it clear that he was a man who emphasised making decisions and sticking to them) were not well suited to the circumstances of Dublin in the late 1960s and early 1970s qand had brought about some of his troubles and those of his successors, it is still heart-rending to read the descriptions of his fall and the evident satisfaction with which Mr. Cooney plays the role of scourger and mocker. It is a particularly charming touch that after his retirement priests who had sympathies with him were advised not to visit him lest they be seen as disloyal to the new regime, and it does not say much for them that they took the advice. Even though Cooney is evidently trying to throw what dirt he can at Dermot Ryan as well because he did not turn out to be as "liberal" as certain opponents of John Charles expected, one is still left with the impression that a fitting device for his mitre would be thirty pieces of silver. This says a lot. JC McQuaid's resignation was accepted immediately, to make way for a prelate more in sympathy with Paul VI. For similar reasons, PF Cremin was not made Bishop of Kerry. I'll take you back a decade before this. McQuaid took Cremin to Vatican II as a peritus when the other bishops rejected him (I suspect because of his role in the Mother and Child scheme). I heard from the late Mgr Cremin himself (I knew him) that Cardinal Conway told Bishop Casey it had taken him four years to persuade the Congregation of Bishops in Rome to take him over Mgr Cremin. At this point, I'd like to see some discussion on Cardinal Conway's role in Irish episcopal appointments at this time - my understanding is that his papers have not been released though he died in 1977. Another note comes to mind regarding the McQuaid resignation acceptance. The subsitute for General Affairs in the Vatican's Secretariat of State at the time was Archbishop Giovanni Bennelli (later Cardinal Archbishop of Florence and Prime Papabile. Paul made him a Cardinal on the same day as Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich-Freising, giving Benelli the red biretta he himself had worn). Bennelli was a protege of Paul's - and his first diplomatic posting in 1948 was in the Apostolic Nunciature in Dublin. I always wondered was Bennelli the official who twisted the knife in JC McQuaid's back. Agreed absolutely. One gets the impression Pixies look at things through a glass of gin. The Irish Church was convinced it had a lid on everything and believed the flawed statistics. Now they are paralysed. The pixies are so disaffected that I think they are numb to what Williamson is saying and doing. Well, there is no objectivity in Cooney's reflection.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 23, 2009 12:20:39 GMT
One last point about Mr. Cooney; in a review of the book when it first appeared (I think in the SUNDAY TRIBUNE) Eamonn McCann, writing as an atheist, pointed out that while in the interviews surrounding the appearance of the book Cooney always identified himself as a Catholic and got very cross if anyone questioned his right to the name, while denouncing JCM for exceeding his authority Cooney never says how far the authority of a Catholic bishop should extend, and when attributing all the characteristics of JCM's rule, spirituality and theology to personal mental illness Cooney never tries to suggest how any other potential successor at the time might have behaved as Archbishop if JCM's superiors had granted his requests to send him as a missionary to Kenya. Éamonn McCann has a detached perspective that often makes him a breath of fresh air, and he is in this case. I think Cooney belonged to an elitist clique of clerical and lay journalists who had an undue influence on the direction taken by the Irish Church since the Second Vatican Council. I would see Fr Romuald Dodd OP, Fr Austin Flannery OP, Fr Joe Dunn, Fr Peter Lemass, Fr Des Forristal, Seán MacRéamonn, Louis McRedmond, (initially) John Horgan, John Cooney and T.P. O'Mahoney as belonging to this, with others obviously too. And they had an effect on the opinions of the Faithful as well as the clergy. Maybe someone should do a study of the Post Vatican II religious media.
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Post by Noelfitz on Jan 23, 2009 16:02:12 GMT
Alaisdir6
You wrote: "I would see Fr Romuald Dodd OP, Fr Austin Flannery OP, Fr Joe Dunn, Fr Peter Lemass, Fr Des Forristal, Seán MacRéamonn, Louis McRedmond, (initially) John Horgan, John Cooney and T.P. O'Mahoney as belonging to this..."
I do not think you are being fair to the people in this list. I consider that only John Cooney was virulently anti-Catholic.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jan 27, 2009 12:08:47 GMT
Noelfitz, I didn't say any of them were virulently anti-Catholic; only that they had an undue influence on the direction Catholicism has taken (which I do not regard as good). I think, each of them, Cooney included, are/were very sincere in their views and how they were reconciled with Catholicism. But I heard the late Seán Mac Réamonn make many comments that I would regard as off the wall (on one edition of the 'The Late Late Show', he said he always detested the Roman collar, for example).
But the point is, if you read the obituaries of Father Austin Flannery and of Seán Mac Réamonn, you'll find many of the names I mentioned, including Cooney's appear as part of the same circle.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 27, 2009 23:24:36 GMT
I agree with Alasdair: it would be outrageous to describe any of these people as virulently anti-Catholic and he did not in fact do so. Noelfitz is muddying the waters as usual - the same Noelfitz who denounced us as lacking in charity when we criticised President Obama for words and actions which are matters of public record. O'Mahony, who used to report on Church matters for the CORK EXAMINER, was always pretty intellectually negligible and given to adolescent smut (witness his dreadful novels THE KLONDYKE MEMORIAL and THE TAOISEACH'S MISTRESS). I believe he has just published a momoir called HAS GOD LOGGED OUT? in which he states that he no longer regards himself as Catholic though he retains a spiritual dimension of some sort. Cooney, in my opinion, might best be described as a Neutron Bomb Catholic. Such people (the late novelist John McGahern had traces of this mindset, though he made it pretty clear he was an atheist) generally retain ethnic, cultural or emotional attachment to Catholicism while at the same time denying some/most/all of the Church's supernatural claims and rejecting Her authority to a greater or lesser extent. They therefore seek to redefine Catholicism in purely personal or cultural terms, retaining external rites of passage while trying to empty them of doctrine (as a neutron bomb kills all life in its target zone while leaving inanimate objects intact). Such people particularly hate orthodox Catholics because their existence contradicts the claim that it is no longer possible to adhere to traditional Catholicism and henceforth Catholicism can only exist in the Neutron Bomb variety.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 28, 2009 23:19:16 GMT
I am now going to start discussing a new angle on integralism - its Luddite/back to the land element. First of all, I am not sure that Alasdir is entirely correct in saying that all integrists who take this view see themselves as feudal aristocrats. Some do, but there is a tendency for some to idealise the life of self-governing peasant communities. I might add that they are not unique in this; there is quite a strong left-green strain in contemporary society which talks of abolishing industrial civilisation/ ending or reversing economic growth in order to "save the planet", and contemporary "spirituality" has a strong dose of pantheism. Some weeks ago the IRISH CATHOLIC published an article by Fr. Sean MacDonagh which along with some reasonable comments on the environment proclaimed that Christians should abandon the idea that they were superior to other life-forms and should instead accept that the Earth and its creatures were on the same level with humanity as they had been created by God. Somehow I suspect that if Fr. MacDonagh gets pneumonia he will not refuse antibiotics, although by his standard it would be wrong to kill the micro-organisms involved as his life is no more valuable than theirs.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 28, 2009 23:27:27 GMT
I think there is a strong link between this Luddism among integralists and their adherence to a form of autarkic economic nationalism which had many verbal adherents in the first decades of the Irish state. This argues that Irish sovereignty is a supreme good in itself, which must never be diminished or infringed; that it can only be secured by complete economic self-sufficiency; that it is desirable for its own sake that a large majority of the Irish people should live as small farmers who have as little contact with the market economy as possible, growing their own food, making their own clothes etc; that foreign trade is to be shunned; that ideally there should be no banking system but either gold or some form of barter; that the economic growth produced by trade and capitalism is illusory, the product of debt-creating conspirators who seek to get the people into their power to make them slaves.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 28, 2009 23:40:49 GMT
The problems with this theory are as follows: (a) A peasant society of this sort could support only a fraction of the current population and would soon be caught in the Malthusian trap. This is particularly relevant in relation to integralists, who go beyond the Catholic doctrine on birth control to argue that everyone who is not in religious life should have as many children as possible. (b) This theory basically maintains that everyone should adopt the same sort of lifestyle as the early Cistercians (with the exception of celibacy); but the monastic precepts are counsels of perfection which it has always been recognised that only a minority can practise. (c) It takes no account of how such a society, insofar as it existed in early C20 Ireland, worked out in practise. Massive emigration was required to keep it afloat; the population could not be kept from yearning after higher living standards and consumer goods; small-farm society died out because the supply of women willing to marry into a smallholding and put up with the unremitting manual labour dried up. Deirdre Manifold is a good example of this, all the more forcefully because she doesn't recognise the significance of her own experience. She never ceases to proclaim that the departure of the rural population to the cities is the product of a conspiracy because townsfolk are more easily controlled (oddly enough the real Middle Ages saw things the other way - they had a proverb "Town Air Makes Free") but when asks why she did not marry Patrick Kavanagh and settle down on his Inniskeen smallholding she says she was not cut out to be a farmer's wife.
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