More than a century after the Synod of Whitby (664) ostensibly resolved various conflicts between Celtic and the Roman Christianity, the two churches continued to grow apart.The Celtic Church, with its strong tradition of monastic schools, missionary outreach, and ascetic self-denial, remained at odds with the hierarchical, urban-based, and materialistic Roman church.
Ireland´s geographical isolation had allowed it to sustain a separate religious existence, even as it sent holy men and women to spread the faith in Europe. Oddly enough, the end began when the Vikings invaded Ireland at the beginning of the 9th Century.
When the Nordic raiders plundered the monasteries at Glendalough, Bangor, Moville, Clonfert, Clonmacnois, and Kildare, they caused many monks to move to safer settlements inland, and others to flee to mainland Europe. Viking coastal communities would eventually grow into the cities of Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick and Cork.
During the 10th and 11th centuries, Scandanavia was converted to Roman Christianity, and many Nordic Christians settled in the cities founded by the Vikings. These became centers of Roman Christian belief, while the countryside, where the majority of native Irish lived, remained largely Celtic Christian.
The Roman Christians in Ireland, like their brethren in Europe, were becoming "increasingly intolerant of all other beliefs, whether pagan or alternative versions of Christianity", and they acted to ensure that their brand of Christianity triumphed over all others. The Irish called these intolerant Christians "Romani".
One of these was Malachy, Bishop of Armagh (1095-1148). He reorganized the Irish church into a territorial hierarchy, following the example of the church in England. He traveled to Rome to seek the pallium, a papal vestment, for newly created Irish archbishops.
Malachy wrote that Irish Celtic Christians were, "so profligate in their morals, so uncouth in their ceremonies, so impious in faith, so barbarous in laws, so rebellious to discipline, so filthy in life, Christian in name, but Pagans in reality." (Nothing But the Same Old Story, Liz Curtis, p.8)
Malachy had been born the same year in which Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade (1095-99) to recover the Holy land from infidels, and he died during the Second Crusade, (1147-49) which was led by Holy Roman Emperor Conrad III. Throughout Malachy´s life, the Roman church actively encouraged temporal war against unbelievers on another continent.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Pope Adrian IV, (1154-59) would grant King Henry II authority to curb the practices of Irish Christians which did not conform to Roman Christian doctrine. Pope Adrian was an Englishman named Nicholas Breakspear, and the only Englishman who ever became Bishop of Rome. He issued a bull, Laudabiliter, which gave Henry II, full permission and support to "enter the island of Ireland in order to subject its people to law and root out from them the weeds of vice."
Henry agreed to pay in return an annual tribute to Rome of one penny for every house in Ireland. This tax became known as "Peter´s pence" because the money went to St. Peter´s successor, the Pope.
In the bull, Pope Adrian addresses Henry as "the most dear son in Christ" and as "a Catholic prince", saying: "It is not to be doubted, that the kingdom of Ireland, and every island upon which Christ the sun of justice hath shone, and which has received the principles of Christian faith, belong of right to St. Peter and to the holy Roman church…"
This same Henry II, a "Catholic prince" and "most dear son in Christ", had St. Thomas a´ Becket murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29th, 1170.
Peter Berresford Ellis, a contemporary Celtic scholar, says: "many Irish Catholics (today) find it hard to accept that the Church of Rome, as a temporal and feudal institution, was not a friend to the Irish nation. It is hard to accept that there was something other to the Church of Rome than its professed spirituality. The Popes regarded themselves as temporal princes, with more feudal power than most emperors, and they often led their own armies into battle to assert that power and reap tribute from those they subjected."
In 1172, Pope Alexander III wrote that he had heard how Henry II had conquered "with God´s aid, that Irish people, who put aside the fear of God and wander unbridled through the rough and dangerous ways of vice," and urged Henry "to recall the Irish, through your power, to the observance of the Christian faith."
"When the militarily powerful Anglo-Normans arrived ostensibly on a mission from the Pope, the "Romani" – who were Roman Christians – seized the opportunity to attack Celtic Christian practice and beliefs." (Wandering, p.101)
Gerald of Wales, a Norman-Welsh churchman whose family was deeply involved in the invasion of Ireland, wrote a History and Topography of Ireland and dedicated it to Henry II. Echoing Malachy, he wrote:
"This is a filthy people wallowing in vice. Of all peoples it is the least instructed in the rudiments of faith. They do not pay tithes or first fruits or contract marriages. They do not avoid incest." (Celtic laws allowed a man to marry his deceased brother´s wife, which was regarded as incest by Rome.)
About Gerald, Liz Curtis wrote: "His ferocity was probably in part explained by his need to undermine the widespread view of Ireland as a center of Christianity and civilization."
The Anglo-Norman Roman Christians viewed the religious practices of the native Irish as potentially deviant - even the rituals and beliefs of those who claimed to be Roman Christian. "In the eyes of the Anglo-Norman clergy, it mattered little which sect a priest or monk adhered to if the blood flowing though his veins was Celtic Irish." (Wandering, p.101)
In the parts of Ireland under English control, the Anglo-Norman Roman Christians established a diocese system, which placed all clergy and religious institutions under a bishop appointed by the Pope.
They also invited the newly-formed Dominican and Franciscan orders, who were directly under Papal authority, to come to Ireland to replace the monks of local Celtic monasteries.
In 1321, an English-born Franciscan monk, Richard de Ledrede, was appointed bishop of the Ossory Diocese near Kildare, by Pope John XXII. In an earlier bull, Pope John equated heresy with witchcraft. Because witch hysteria was sweeping across Europe at the time, Bishop De Ledrede was led to accuse Celtic Christians of being witches.
The first person targeted was Alice Kyteller, who was accused of being the leader of a group of heretics, and "consorting with a demon incubus named Robin mac Art, who was in fact probably her Celtic Irish lover by that name." Her real crime was her open practice of Celtic Christian customs and beliefs.
Fortunately for Alice, she was the daughter of a prominent Anglo-Norman knight, and she was related by marriage to the Viceroy of Ireland, appointed by King Edward II of England. She fled to the Viceroy´s protection in Dublin.
Undeterred, de Ledrede tried to prosecute Alice´s son in her place. This landed him in jail for violating due process of civil law. However, when he was released from jail he prosecuted Alice´s maid, Petronilla of Meath. "The hapless maid was the first person burned at the stake for witchcraft in Ireland.
The Anglo-Norman civil authorities refused to share power with de Ledrede, and he found no support among the Irish who accepted Roman Christianity. He still sent Adam Dubh, a Dubliner, to the stake in 1327, "for denying the doctrine of the Trinity and the authority of the Pope." (Wandering, p.104)
The few public burnings did not amount to a pogrom, but the open persecutions forced Celtic Christians to practice their religion in the privacy of their own homes.
Eventually, the Anglo-Norman clergy´s repeated denunciations of their faith, underscored by civil and cannon laws favoring Roman Christianity, brought a 1,000 years of Celtic Christianity to an end in all of Ireland.
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