Catholic Ethos.
I couldn’t invent this, but the Irish Government is to reward The same Sisters of Charity who ran the scandalous Magdalene Laundries, and Orphanages in Ireland, in which thousand of women and children were murdered, many forceable raped, all enslaved, many died in the Magdalene Laundries and their battered bodies were dumped into mass pits, behind the Sisters of Charity convents. Now the Nuns, The Sisters of Charity are been rewarded with ownership of a new €300 million State-funded Hospital, a new National Maternity Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. What a reward the Irish Government is to give to The Murderous and Rapists, Sisters of Charity, gifted a €300 million State-funded Hospital. This same religious congregation of the Sisters of Charity which has failed to date to provide its share of funds to an agreed Redress Scheme for institutional abuse victims, in its care. The Sisters of Charity is one of 18 Religious Congregations which ran the Magdalene Laundries, and Orphanages in Ireland, for unwed Mothers and their Children, which was investigated by The Ryan Commission The Sisters of Charity agreed to pay €128-million indemnity to the Irish State, for their sins, following publication of the Ryan Report. The Sisters of Charity offered to contribute a further €5 million towards the €1.5 billion Redress Scheme costs incurred by the State involving former Residents of the Institutions. To date the vile and lying Sisters of Charity have only contributed just €2 million to date. The Sisters of Charity, along with the three other criminal Religious Orders which managed Magdalene Laundries, and Orphanages In Ireland, have now said, that they would not be making any more contribution to the State Redress Scheme for women who were enslaved in their Magdalene Laundries. Sister Agnes Reynolds of the Sisters of Charity says: the new 'Maternity Hospital in Dublin to respect rights of mother and baby’…that is new… what happened to the 800 plus babies flushed down the toilet and into a septic tank at the back of a Mother and Baby Home and Convent in Tuam, that was also run by the Good Nuns, The Bon Secures who ran that Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, also runs hospitals worldwide. I wonder where their Catholic Ethos was then.? Yes Catholic Ethos or an intangible “spirit”, so this Catholic Ethos is to be, unable to be touched; not having physical presence, difficult or impossible to define or understand; vague and abstract, what in heaven does that mean. To the Catholic Church and its followers, its the traditions and teachings of the Catholic Church and be obedient always, and unquestionable slave to the Catholic Church. With over 200 Mother and Baby Home, Orphanages and Industrial Schools the Religious Orders ran in Ireland in which thousands of women and children, were enslaved with many losing their lives because of Irish Catholic Ethos. And this from their own website The Sisters of Charity… Now I’m sorry none of that Catholic Ethos was every used when they ran the Magdalene Laundries, 1. Human Dignity Respecting the sacredness of human life and the dignity and uniqueness of each person. 2. Compassion Accepting people as they are, bringing Christian love, empathy and caring to all. 3. Justice Acting with righteousness and integrity which respects the rights of all 4. Quality Seeking excellence in all aspects of care. 5. Advocacy Speaking for the voiceless, acting with and for them to achieve a reasonable quality of care. Now I’m sorry but none of that Catholic Ethos was every used when they ran the Magdalene Laundries, or Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland. Where was the respect for and sacredness of human life and the dignity and uniqueness of each person” as they butchered babies and children and their mothers in their care, flushing the babies down the loo. Another quote they use on their website is “to bring the healing love of Christ to all we serve” George Santayana, the Poet, Philosopher, Essayist, and novelist, wrote, “ Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them. Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them.The Mission Statement of The Sisters of Charity, also from their website, again the irony Our Mission "To bring the healing love of Christ to all we serve” Our concern for others, especially those in need permeates every aspect of the life and work of our service. We are dedicated to providing the best possible health care, drawing on the talents and creativity of all our staff.” This is like the German Government given to what is left of the Gestapo a free State funded Prison to run as they, the Gestapo see fit, where again Gestapo ethos which was Catholic Church ethos, were the same, unbelievable. The Magdalene Laundries, or Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland, were run by The Sisters of Charity and the Mercy Nuns who could disguise their violent nature simply because they wore a Nun’s Habit and a holy cross.The flogging and rape of children and their mothers in their care was the norm, flogging was common practice in these Institutions with the Nuns, both on the children and their mothers and the amenities were very basic and sparse. Any slight abuse of the holy rules imposed by the Nuns by both the children and their mothers would lead to floggings. Proper soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes etc were unheard of in the Magdalene Laundries, or Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland, which held thousands of children and their mothers. Food and drink were minimal and the women and children had half the rations to live on, many died from malnutrition and daily floggings. The good Nuns set their own Law, which meant that the activities of the Nuns were free from any review by secular courts in Ireland. This effectively meant that the Nuns and Religious Orders became a law unto themselves. So now the Good Irish Government wants to give the very same Nuns a free gift of a €300 million State-funded Hospital to run and own, now thats progress, isn’t ?.
0 Comments
Erosion of the Human Spirit
The Irish Catholic Church’s lack of moral compass destroys faith in Christianity, this rottenness at the heart of the Catholic Church is like a cancer that is at the heart of Irish Life. The inner rottenness and decay that is the Irish Catholic Church . The ideology espoused by the Irish Catholic Church through its clerics and enforced by Irish Political Parties, such as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, emphasised a twisted Irish vision of catholic purity with total loyalty and obedience to the Irish Catholic Hierarchy. Irish people at large were indoctrinated with the belief they were members of the true church, the church of holy Rome. The ideology of the Irish Catholic Church was built on the belief in a superior Catholic Religion. This led to the Irish Clerics playing the main role in political violence and crimes against the Irish people and the Irish State. In recent years the Irish Catholic Church were found to be a criminal organisation, look no further then the many Religious Institutions they ran for children throughout Ireland. Yet there was no consequences for their criminal actions. Wearing a collar, and calling yourself Reverend was and is a license to commit any crime you like in Ireland and you will get away with it, even murder. In the eyes of most superstitious Irish People, the title Reverend is a holy title, bestow by God, a form of address or title of great respect, "to respect; to revere” meaning "[one who is] to be revered/must be respected". The Reverend is therefore equivalent to The Honourable or The Venerable, or Lord, Highness, Holy..etc… Archbishops and all Roman Catholic Bishops are usually styled The Most Reverend; also all Roman Catholic bishops are styled The Right Reverend. Religious Sisters are styled as Reverend Sister, they are addressed as Sister. Priests are called The Reverend or The Reverend Father. Whereas Monsignor or Reverend Monsignor is an honorific form of address for those members of the clergy like Bishops, honorary Prelates and Canons. In some cases, these ecclesiastical honorific titles derive from the Pope, but in other cases it is simply a customary or honorary style belonging to a Prelate or honorary Prelate. These are granted to individuals who have rendered valuable service to the Catholic Church, or who provide some special function in Church governance. Priests with various grades of jurisdiction above pastor, for example Vicars general, Judicial Vicars, Ecclesiastical Judges, Episcopal Vicars Provincials of religious orders of priests, Rectors or Presidents of colleges and universities, Priors of monasteries, Deans, Vicars Forane, Archpriests all use the title The Very Reverend. Abbots of monasteries: The Right Reverend, Abbesses of Convents, The Reverend Mother Superior, or simply as Mother Superior. Bishops and Archbishops, The Most Reverend, or are addressed as “Your Grace”. Cardinals are styled as His Eminence and the Pope as “His Holiness” and the Pope have many other titles form heaven, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province; Bishop of Rome; Domnus Apostolicus; Fisher of Men; His Holiness; Patriarch of the West; Pontifex Maximus; Servant of the servants of God; Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City; Sovereign Pontiff; Successor of the Prince of the Apostles; Supreme Pontiff;- Vicar of Christ. And boy do they love their titles, it puts them above their peers and then they all have and love their drag Dresses, very colourful Ecclesiastical Dresses, to go with each of their titles. A drag Priest, always male, dresses in Ecclesiastical drag dresses, and often acts with exaggerated femininity. Often, they will exaggerate certain characteristics such as outlandish cloaks and hats, sometimes to comic, dramatic, and satirical effect. The Roman Catholic Church has a very long tradition of dressing in drag, going back nearly 2,000 years, the sensation of caricature older men in long skirts, wide rim colourful hats and equally colourful flowing cloaks trailing on marble floors, like some drag queen is a sight of amusement to many, after all, most Bishops live in Baroque grand houses called Palaces in keeping with their image as drag queens. Sexualised tradition of drag or cross-dressing elements of performance traditions of The Roman Catholic Church are widespread and acceptable cultural phenomena. Catholic Priests are now stereotypically viewed to be deviant men, whose actions are beyond most human comprehension or worse, that still dresses in colourful drag clothing, either as part of the church’s performance and for their own personal fulfilment. Dressing up in colourful church drag here, often includes wearing dramatically heavy makeup, wigs and prosthetic devices as part of the church’s costume. Within the all male-dominated priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church where all active roles are reserved for the men, these men emerged as one of the great, idiosyncratic misfits of last few years. Women play little or no role, except as cleaners, or domestics, house keepers, cooks, or submissive Nuns, etc..In these Roman Catholic societies, a Priest's position is always above a woman's, women are in their eyes inferior. So this all male-dominated priesthood causes a rising action that suits itself to a hidden tragedy, a comedy of manners that involves confused sexual identities and dressing up in high drag as part of the magical illusion created by man to sustain a belief in a imaginary God, using the many tricks of colourful drag clothing, mirrors, lights, and face-paint” Virginal Men suffering from schizophrenia and delusional paranoia, speaking to an invisible man in the clouds or burning bushes. After all what is religion but organised schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is really hearing things without a source, hearing say a God, whereas organised psychosis is a better evaluation of religion, because schizophrenia does not necessarily require hallucinations and/ or delusions for diagnosis, although it usually includes it. The Catholic Church loves its grand titles, but really they are irreverence for empty sad humans, seeking to put themselves about their fellow man. Their clerical white collars and titles allowed them to commit any atrocity they want and yes be totally immune to any consequences, remember wearing the clerical collar, the Priest knows it a sign that he is married to the Lord, as a wedding ring distinguishes husband and wife and symbolises the union. As Frederick Nietzsche, the great German Philosopher, said about priests, These "orgies of feeling" are found in the concepts of sin, guilt, bad conscience and the like, and they are "guilty" means because they ultimately serve to make the sick sicker. The ascetic priest convinces the sick to find the cause of their suffering in themselves, to see their suffering as punishment.” Owen Felix O'Neill Stolen Irish Identities
The human right to know your identity and who your mother or father was is a very strong human instinct. The right to personal identity is recognised in International Law through a range of declarations and conventions. From as early as birth, an individual’s identity is formed and preserved by registration or being bestowed with a family name. The right to personal identity begins with the Right to Life. It is only through existing can individuals cultivate their identity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created to preserve the biological and philosophical elements of human beings since its establishment in 1948, and one of the basic right, is the right to know your biological origin. This basic right was denied to most of the children of the Irish State Orphanages, Mother and Baby Homes, and Industrial Schools in Ireland. Listening to painful testimonies from many of these Survivors today, there is the outrage by many of the Survivors of the wilful destruction of many official documentations kept by the Irish Religious Orders, pertaining to the Survivors identity, Identities of their families, their Mothers, siblings etc…and their correct date of birth, it’s a known fact that many of the Children in the Irish State Orphanages, Mother and Baby Homes, and Industrial Schools in Ireland had their date of birth and family names criminally altered, as was the case with nearly all adopted children stolen and sold to other families throughout the world, by the Irish Religious Orders. The Religious Orders in Ireland were meticulous record-keepers and would be loathe to destroy any documents, but once the sexual scandals broke the Religious Orders in Ireland were hell bent on destroying as many original documents as possible to hide their criminal misdeeds. The danger of the documents became apparent to the The Religious Orders in Ireland when Survivors of the Irish Religious Institutions started to ask for any documentations pertained to their identities and The Religious Orders fear of The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, and the much vaulted report that followed, The Ryan Report. The abuse of the children of the Irish Religious Institutions has been described by some as Ireland's Holocaust. The abuse was said to be “endemic" in the these Religious Institutions that dealt with boys. The Religious Orders in Ireland saw no value in keeping their trove of documentation of living or dead Survivors, especially when they realised that their own handwritten documents would condemn them. For the first time in Irish history, the powerful Irish Catholic Church was now to face wrongful lawsuits, and moral outrage with many of their own documentations, which could and would be used in Irish courts of law against the Religious Orders in Ireland, accusing them of criminal acts, systematic rape, murder, drug experiment of orphan children, illegal adoptions, etc..etc… destroying the Religious Orders documentational evidence was the only option left open to them, and destroying such documentation was easy for the heartless Religious Orders in Ireland, hence denying both the Survivors any direct link to their families history, and destroying the many criminal acts committed against vulnerable children in their care, forever. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child stresses the value and importance of a child’s identity. Under Article 7, a child has a right to have a "Legal" Identity by being registered, and has a right to a name and a nationality. These protect mainly the static aspects of identity. However, Article 8 protects and encourages the child’s dynamic aspects of identity through preserving his or her identity in relation to nationality, name and family relations. Article 8 illustrates the Member State’s duty to protect this Right, both passively and actively, all these conventions established by The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was broken and misused by the Religious Orders in Ireland. Articles 7 and 8 The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was developed to confront the issues of Children in disappearances, we known that tens of thousands of Irish Children disappeared through illegal adoptions in Ireland, their identities were stolen as were their childhoods. Ireland been one of the earliest signature to the UN Convention, which was part of the most-ratified Convention in human history, The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Sadly Ireland broke this,UN Convention, and all the rules pertaining to Child Protection from the very beginning. When countries ratify an international treaty or convention, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, they enter a binding agreement to meet its provisions and obligations. Ireland signed the UN Convention on 30 September 1990, and ratified it on 28 September 1992. In reality, the Irish Catholic Church expressed its determination to clean up the single mother and their children pitilessly, by demonising the unwed mother and their children. The Irish Catholic Church stated, there must be no squeamish sentimentalism about our duty to preserve the purity of Irish motherhood through the sanctity of holy matrimony, according to the rites and traditions of the Irish Catholic Church, this was said at the time in the late 1940s. The Irish Bishops also said, that, “We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness.” in eliminating this scourge from our pure Irish society, these unwed women, and their filth, their offsprings. From the 1930s onwards The Irish Catholic Church persecution of unwed women and their children were common knowledge in Ireland. The Irish Catholic Church tried to keep the extermination of unwed women and their children a secret. While ordinary Irish people knew that the unwed women and their children had been put into Religious prisons, such as Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, and Industrial Schools, large segments of the Irish population were unaware or didn’t want to know what was taken place in these Irish Catholic Church sanctioned gulags and that many of the unwed Mothers and their Children were been raped, murdered, experimented on and many other horrors all in the name of a purer Ireland run by the Irish Catholic Church for the good of Irish Society. You may ask “What is the evidence for say, my use of the word, “murder” of unwed mother and their children by the Irish Religious Orders? There are numerous pieces of evidence proving that thousands of unwed mothers and their children were killed by the Irish Religious Orders? We have many hand written Records left on the number of people sent to the Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, and Industrial Schools, in Ireland, which were built and used primarily for unwed mothers and their children; And most damning of all, recent evidence that has come to light, two weeks ago for example, as a result of official Government excavation of mass graves (septic tank) under a Mother and Baby Home of over 800 children in a convent in the rural town of Tuam in County Galway, in the West of Ireland, (and there will be officially 17 more Irish Institutions out of a total of 200 run by the Irish Religious Orders throughout Ireland, still ongoing, as I write this article). Sadly the numbers of buried children and their mothers in other septic tanks and mass pits will run into the tens of thousands. The attitude of the Irish local population vis-a-vis the persecution and destruction and demonising of unwed mothers and their children, ranged from zealous collaboration with the Irish Catholic Church, to indifference to unwed mothers and their children. There was much more knowledge of the "Final Solution" of unwed mothers and their children by the Irish Catholic Church, because it was implemented in every county of Ireland with the full participation of the local Irish population. The response of the Irish Government at the time to the persecution and destruction of unwed mothers and their children was inadequate and the strongest moral voice that of the President of Ireland Éamon de Valera was forever, to remain silent. silent. Owen Felix O'Neill Gratuitous Sins
The Republic of Ireland at one time was a total Catholic Church dictatorship. The only opinion that was tolerated was the opinion of the Irish Catholic Church. All organs of the Irish State organisations which did not support the Irish Catholic Church view of hating single women and their offsprings were banished and hated rhetoric stemmed from the many Catholic Church altars throughout Ireland, which were used effectually to bind Irish State organisations into fear and disquiet. Essentially all Irish State organisations in the Republic of Ireland were now linked directly to the Irish Catholic Church. Everyone in the Republic of Ireland was captured into fear of some kind, many of their jobs depended on their loyalty to the Irish clerics. During the rise to power of the powerful Irish Catholic Church Clerics, erosion of freedom in Irish society was factual. Laws were incrementally amended. Unwed women and their children were legally not considered human so it was not possible to be charged with crimes against these women nor their children. In the Republic of Ireland at the time there was severe poverty, millions of Irish families were living in abject destitution, depending on the merger handouts of the controlling Irish Catholic Church. The great slums of central Dublin with their large families, some families having upward of eighteen or more children all living in one or two rooms, was the norm. Dublin had the worst housing conditions with its extensive slums which were not limited to the back-streets of the capital city or to impoverished ghettos. The rundown tenements in inner-city of Dublin were filthy, overcrowded, disease-ridden, overrun and teeming with malnourished children. The decay of Dublin was epitomised by the many streets in and around the city centre which was overflowing with poverty and death. Very large families was the norm then, in some houses in the centre of Dublin there were 10 or 15 families living in just one house, that was over 100 people, men, women and children. Their were no indoor toilets or bathrooms, the back lanes to many of the houses, was the toilet, life in the Dublin slums was raw and desperate. Death emphasised the precariousness of life for the poor, Dublin tenement dwellers died very young, many died more often from tuberculosis, many children died in childhood, in all this horror the Irish Catholic Church thrived and profited. The poor of Dublin were also failed by the Irish Catholic Church, which had a conservative approach to state relief of poverty, no Irish State intervention, despite the fact that all that lived in the slums were Catholics. Poverty was the preserve of Irish Catholic Church creed. The Irish Catholic Church was only concerned with saving souls, and all must be baptised into the Catholic Religion, then if they died they would be saved into another and better life elsewhere. Many of these children of the slums of Dublin, themselves, ended up in confinement. There were several penitentiaries for children across the city, including High Park Reformatory for Girls, most of whom were committed for having sex outside Catholic marriage, and for all manner of reasons, like stealing food to fed their hungry children. Boys could also be sent to prison for petty misdemeanours, like begging in the streets or to Industrial Schools, brutal prisons for children run by the Religious Orders, the Christian Brothers, such as the one in Artane, in Dublin. Some children were forced to turn to prostitution to survive on the streets or in brothels, and if caught they, too, ended up in the Industrial Schools in Ireland. One of the key methods that the Irish Catholic Church used successfully, was the new medium of Irish Radio broadcasting. Strange as it may seem today, but a priest or bishop speaking at the time on the radio was taken as gospel, why to many Irish people listening, a very holy man was speaking, and would never twist the truth, so it must be true. Irish people were gullible and believed everything that they heard on the Irish radio. Some of the Irish Catholic Church’s disgustingly deceptive hate propagandising was very effective, especially against unwed mothers and their children. Unwed Mothers and their Children had been escalating to murderous levels by the many clerics of the Irish Catholic Church.This unnatural hatred of unwed Mothers and their Children that was seething for decades in Catholic Ireland was really about controlling a woman’s body, how, why and when to have sex in the Catholic way. This hatred of unwed Mothers and their Children that was already deeply ingrained into the Irish public psyche. Most Irish people had embraced Irish Christian doctrine without protest, because throughout most of Ireland’s history, Irish Catholic religion and the rule of secular Law were inseparable and the Irish Catholic Church rulers often appealed to their ignorant believers by using Roman Catholic Church doctrine to demonise unwed mothers and their children. The Irish Clerics justify what they were doing as God's will to eliminate or contain the unwed mothers and their children. As for the unwed women and their children they must be persecuted for their gratuitous sins often with direct violence by the Irish Catholic Church rulers. Owen Felix O’Neill The Acquiescent Irish Press
Two questions often asked of me by friends, did the Irish Press enable the atrocities of the Irish Catholic Church? and two, did the Irish Catholic Church thrive and flourish on fear?. At the time of the founding of the Irish State, the Irish Newspapers were greatly used by the Irish Catholic Church, with the direct support of the Irish newspapers, themselves, speaking for the Irish Catholic Church through propaganda. The Irish Catholic Church’s misanthropes, controlled the media through the power of the pulpit, like the Irish national newspapers, the regional newspapers, even the cinema and especially the radio and early RTE television. The Irish broadcaster organisation called RTE which was the primary sources of spreading the Irish Catholic Church’s propaganda, was in fact the propaganda arm of the Irish Catholic Church in which strict censorship and controls was asserted by the Irish Catholic Church. The receptive mind of the superstitious Irish was very limited, their intelligence at that time was small, but their power of forgetting and feeling ashamed were enormous. The real medium of direct communication was the Church’s pulpit, used locally and not the newspapers or other media outlets. The Irish Catholic Church reckless disregard for truth, they organised a rigid, disciplined crew of sociopaths on a mission to rebuild a Catholic Ireland to their image, the anger and incitement to hatred, of sin, sex in general, having a good time, unwed mothers, their children, Irish writers, trade unions, the left in general the declamations that they the Irish Catholic Church would usher in a glorious reign of the Catholic Church to a young free Ireland, instead we had their disdain for democracy we saw in all of these things incipient fascism by the ultra right wing Irish Catholic Church, many of the Irish Bishops flaunting haughtiness with their lackeys and themselves displaying open authoritarian temperaments. This Church's pulpit was a very effective propaganda tool for the Irish Catholic Church, after all, over 96% of the Irish people attended mass. Control of all the Irish newspapers was through the appointments of its editors which was put into the hands of Irish Catholic Church. They alone choose the editors with strong Catholic ethos and they the editors would blindly follow the Irish Catholic Church’s diktats. One of the secret head’s of the Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda at the time was one Archbishop John Charles McQuaid a secret solipsistic anarchist, who set up a secret department within the Bishop’s Palace that dealt solely with Irish newspapers. The Irish newspapers had to spread the same message omitting from the Bishop’s Palace in Dublin. Archbishop John Charles McQuaid coordinated the whole of Irish Society so that it acted and read from the same hymn book as the holy mother church. Therefore Irish people could only read the slanted news as it was presented to them by the Irish Catholic Church. Since the founding of the Irish Free State, the Irish Catholic Church established control or exerted direct influence over independent press organs. The President Eamon de Valera felt that the arts in Ireland were to be encouraged when they observed the "holiest traditions", but should be censored when they failed to live up to this ideal. The Irish Catholic Church regime was delighted by the President de Valera and they deployed the radio, press, and newsreels to stoke fears of a pending Communist uprising, criminal sins, been committed by unwed mothers and their children, with others, even the rise of the liberal intellectuals, like the great Irish Writers, (over 1,600 books were banned), like Liam O’Flaherty, Sean O’Faolain, Oliver S. Gogarty, Walter Macken, Frank O’Connor, Benedict Kiely and many other famous International writers. Contrary to popular belief, James Joyce’s Ulysses was technically never banned in Ireland, but this was because it was never imported and offered for sale. In the eyes of the Irish Catholic Church these writers were corrupting the morals of Irish youth. The Irish Catholic Church then channeled popular anxieties into political measures that almost eradicated civil liberties with a direct threat to the young Irish democracy. Irish Catholic Church thugs broke into opposing political party offices, trade union offices, and any left wing group that opposed the ruling Irish Catholic Church, by destroying printing presses and their newspapers. According to Anthony Keating, Senior Lecturer at Edge Hill University in Lancashire, UK. The Catholic Church in Ireland was particularly authoritarian and pessimistic about the Irish people’s ability to play out what it viewed to be their Irish Catholic mission, namely, to offer an Irish Catholic beacon of purity to a world otherwise sullied by sin. Ireland’s population was believed, by religio-nationalist ideologues, to have been partially corrupted by centuries of imperial domination and the temptations of modernity. It was reasoned therefore, that if Ireland was to achieve its potential of true Irish Catholic nationhood, its people required an unquestioned faith in the spiritual and moral leadership of the Catholic Church and the riddance from Ireland of spiritual and intellectual contaminants from within and without its borders. In reality the Irish Catholic Church understood the power and attraction of emerging technologies, such as film, loudspeakers, radio, and television, in the service of their propaganda. These new technologies offered the Irish Catholic Church leadership a means for mass dissemination of their ideological Irish Catholic messages. Guided by fears that the liberal left and their intellectuals, were eroded Irish Catholic morale and encouraging unrest, through union strife. The Irish Catholic Church authorities with their enablers in Irish Government Departments hoped that the threat of severe punishment and excommunications would reinforce efforts to insulate the Irish population from the Irish Catholic Church perceived enemies and their lies. Yet it’s the Irish Catholic Church who were the destabilisers, of the young Irish Free State, the ones operating in a nefarious ways to undermine the Irish State hoping to turn the young Irish State into a theoretical Catholic State and have been doing so in Ireland for a few hundred years. The enemy is invisible and omnipresent, said the Bishops of Ireland at the time. Central to this protection of the youth and people of Ireland was the importance of censorship of newspapers, periodicals and novels that were viewed by the Irish Catholic Church as carriers of sexual immorality and blasphemy. These publications were viewed by The Irish Catholic Church as insidious vehicles of mortal sin and corruption, that the vast majority of Ireland’s citizenry were too unsophisticated to resist. A concern alluded to by the Editor of the Catholic Bulletin, who observed, “the mind of England has been trained to criticise and think for itself; that of Ireland to believe and accept what it is taught” (Catholic Bulletin, 2,1928: 124). |
Archives
May 2022
|