MUSING DURING the week about what it means to be Irish, I thought
that being able to understand the slogans on Hairy Baby T-shirts would
be a reasonable demonstration of Irishness.
The Cork-based company
produces a range of T-shirts using Irish catchphrases.
They even have
one featuring Vincent instructing people not to harangue Joan.
But the
ones that struck me most were, “No, yer grand, I’m off it for Lent”, and
“Who said Mass?”
“Who said Mass?” was a question favoured by
Irish mammies to ferret out whether the teenage offspring had actually
attended mass.
It won’t be long before that one is incomprehensible to
younger Irish people, if trends continue.
It rests on a number of
assumptions that will soon no longer apply – more than one priest in a
parish, knowing the names of priests, and teenagers attending Mass
because mammies want them to.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin might not
pass the Hairy Baby test given his long service abroad, but he is a
sharp observer of Irish society, nonetheless.
Naturally he is primarily
concerned with the Roman Catholic Church, and to state the obvious, the
sometimes sectarian assumption that to be Irish is to be Catholic is
long gone.
At a recent Mater Dei/DCU Institute of Ethics event,
speaking about church and State, his
talk centred less on the
differences between the previous and current governments, than on the
role of a church in a modern State.
He cautioned against the
church becoming so much part of the culture that it is no longer able to
challenge it.
He said the church had to avoid both the conformism of a
narrow conservatism, and a stance that sees itself as truly progressive,
but is in fact giving yesterday’s answers to yesterday’s questions.
The
church has to offer something different – a Christian perspective,
which acknowledges the unique dignity of every human being, and reaches
out to them in service and love.
Echoing Pope Benedict, he also
called for a younger generation of Catholics to become active in
politics, and to attempt to achieve a long-term vision for society.
He
named some of the many ways in which the church is robust and thriving,
including many vibrant parishes where lay people and ordained ministers
work collaboratively.
Reiterating that he favoured pluralism in
Irish education, he made some astringent comments about the state of
Irish prison services, solely the preserve of the Irish State, and the
health services, to make the point that “exclusive and direct State
provision of services is no guarantee of their quality”.
He
cautioned about abandoning a Constitution that is “remarkably modern”
and against eroding the protection of marriage between a man and a woman
as a fundamental good.
Even more pointedly, he quoted Bill Clinton, who
said it was not the job of the state to bring up children but the job
of parents.
Perhaps because he is seen as having been absent from
Ireland at the height of the scandals, and because he has acknowledged
profound flaws in the Irish church, Archbishop Martin can say things
which would cause showers of verbal abuse for others.
Yet his attempts
at instigating a dialogue on issues such as the future of education, the
shape of Irish society, and the nature of a church that is true to its
founder have not received an adequate response.
It may well be
connected to the streak of anti-intellectualism, or the dearth within
the church of what John Henry Newman called “keen intellects and
prolific pens addressing the pressing subjects of the day”.
However, the
Catholic Church in Ireland has never invested properly in
communication.
Nor is it very supportive of any organisation that
attempts to fill the gap.
The National Forum on School Patronage
will be an important moment, when people will get a chance to debate the
nature of education, the needs of children, the wishes of parents, and
the nature of pluralism.
The reform that Archbishop Martin so
clearly wishes for will only come about when a spiritual reform happens.
There are so many people today, young and not so young, who have never
heard a coherent Christian vision, one that embraces the body, mind and
spirit, and which presents a challenge for family, community and
national life.
Maybe we need to heed GK Chesterton’s recommendation, “Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair”.
Hairy
Baby has another T-shirt, called Hosanna In The Hiace, which shows
Jesus driving a van.
The explanation reads, “It was fun to change the
words a little when we were kids, wasn’t it? Just don’t wear this one to
Mass!”
If we are not careful, we will be at a cultural level of
“Hosanna in the Hiace”, without even the comfort of anyone knowing what
the words originally were, and why anyone should care.