Is the Faith Dead in the Ancient Land of Saints and Scholars?
e stand in great respect before
the Irish. A warm –hearted, unpretentious people, their tenacity is legendary. Against all odds, their Faith brought the light to Europe in the Dark Ages – and then spread over all the world in the 19th and 20th centuries.
But the Ireland of The Thin Man is no longer with us. The whitewashed cottages nestled in green hills are all but gone.
Modern Ireland is clean and efficient; despite the severe recession of recent years it is clear that the Celtic Tiger has prospered. Sleek German luxury cars sweep down smooth highways.
Cottages that their forebears lived in are nowadays turned into garden sheds in the back yards of American-style Mc Mansions.
Dublin is awash in young people intent on living the life of hip modern Europeans – a life that does not include their ancient Faith.
Like the proverbial canary in the mineshaft, Ireland is a harbinger for the global Church. Though the little canary is not dead, she is sorely stricken.
For underneath the veneer of glitz, a thick cloak of spiritual
darkness lies spread over Ireland today.
In the years since Vatican II, powerful prelates in the Irish Church have cruelly betrayed the trust of centuries
of Catholic civilization. Rape. Pillage.
Institutionalized corruption on a scale which staggers the imagination.
Mortal sins of enormous gravity, committed by a clergy that has all but banned talk of ‘sin’ from their progressive pulpits.
Just how deep this betrayal of the Irish people runs can only be understood against the background of what the Faith has historically meant to the Irish.
The bond between the Irish and their religious ran deep in the blood.
For it is true that Irish men would put on a priest’s cassock and undergo torture in his place during the penal times. Irish priests and nuns died in scores attending to famine and typhus-stricken Irish families.
REGINA |3
W
W
From The Editor