Irish Catholic Church Disappears Down Political Correctness Boghole

Ireland, that plucky little island on the NE rim of the growling Atlantic, used to be known the world over for rain, writers, rebellion and religion. Now, climate can change, writing talent can dry up, rebellion either triumphs or fizzles out but it was ever the conventional wisdom that the Gaels would never forsake the Faith of their Fathers for which so many of them down the cruel centuries suffered and died.

So much for conventional wisdom! The gradual erosion of traditional values, encouraged by a secularized liberal elite as smug, shallow and repugnant as any in the Western world, became a landslide with the revelations of clerical pedophilia and the squalid attempts by the ecclesiastical authorities to cover up the scandal by shuttling the ordained predators from one unknowing parish to another. Such an abdication of responsibility, of course, turned isolated outbreaks of evil which could have been contained by forceful and forthright intervention into a loathsome epidemic. Yet this was a crisis, not yet a catastrophe. The Faith of the majority was shaken, not destroyed. The Irish Church from its tiny island home had sent missionaries to spread the Gospel and give witness to Christ even in the remotest corners of the globe. It now needed to concentrate these Apostolic energies in its native land and fight back against an imminent collapse.

And is the Church fighting back? Is it, hell! While the Irish clergy have always been noted more for the rigor than the vigor of their intellectual accomplishments, their flock had neither. Their faith was strong but unreflective and essentially static, grounded in history, culture and group identity. Personal conviction stood at the apex of this process not at its base. This left the Church Militant in Ireland with neither the weapons, armor or morale to withstand the extended Tet Offensive launched by the secular left whose march through the institutions - media, political parties, courts, local and governmental bureaucracies, schools and universities - is now complete. Outflanked, fifth-columned, sniped at and then defeated in one pitched battle after the other, the Church, tactically inept and strategically bereft, retreated in confused rout to sanctuary, presbytery and episcopal palace. Now and then an eminent emissary emerges with yet another white flag masquerading as a brave banner of defiance to signal that the capitulation is complete.

A recent case in point is the Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, Dr. Diarmuid Martin. Ireland is struggling with the same severe problems of mass illegal immigration that confronts the rest of the West. Who are those exacerbating these difficulties according to this polemical prelate? The media shills, craven politicians, smug bureaucrats and jejune judges who have conspired to thwart at every turn the democratically elected Government's muddled efforts to deal with the crisis in accordance with the people's wishes? Not even close!

The object of this pastor's righteous wrath is his own flock. They are , apparently, hell-bent on sending their children to, get this, Catholic schools. This causes the Archbishop considerable anguish. The Irish Examiner tells us that "[h]e criticized parents who deliberately opt out of diversification" by refusing to send their children to schools with large cohorts of (mostly) illegal immigrants who are neither Catholic nor English-speaking. By avoiding participation in such schools they are, he lectures, "putting their [children's] education above the 'common good'”! Among the many horrors that will result from parents discharging their God-given duty to ensure those in their care get a decent education the doughty Diarmuid declares that Catholic schools will commit the gravest of the many post-modern mortal sins and become "elitist"and "not open to diversity".

Thus the Primate of Ireland hectors his flock to sacrifice their children's future on the oh so secular altar of politically correct multiculturalism, a thoroughly discredited tin-god whose devotees have caused havoc everywhere they've practised their voodoo social engineering. Was it for this that Saint Patrick labored so mightily! The right-thinking reverend hasn't quite got around to advocating the adoption of Sharia Law but he's well on the way.

Meanwhile, in what Catholic progressives would insist is a completely different development, Holy Mass has been canceled in the County Donegal parish of Kilcar this Sunday because they have no priests to say it! A spokesman for the local bishop observed that "[w]e need to prepare our parishioners and explain to them what will happen in the future, because there are so few new priests".

His hand-wringing may prove unnecessary in the near future. If the clergy continue to follow Archbishop Martin's lead - and the vast majority of them do - they will end up in short order with as few in the congregation as they have at the altar.