THERE WAS nothing particularly “courageous” about Enda Kenny’s
speech.
It might have been brave 30 or 40 years ago, when the swishing
soutanes and swinging thuribles did indeed rule the roost.
But not
now, when the rulers are the secular-atheists and pseudo-rationalists
who foist their nihilistic formulas on our children, while pretending
that John Charles McQuaid is still breathing down their necks from
Drumcondra.
The speech played that odd trick with time that has
become the hallmark of much contemporary politics and commentary:
purporting to confront some immense power in the present while
challenging only phantoms.
Anyone with the slightest grasp of reality
knows the Irish Catholic hierarchy is a sorry sight, terrified of
standing up to the new ascendancy, and that the Vatican is all but
irrelevant to the running of the Irish church.
But let us not let the
facts cramp our style.
Some elements of Enda’s speech were
welcome, mainly because the position of Taoiseach has been devoid of
rigour and inspiration for so long.
It was, fundamentally, a catch-up
speech, compensating for the silence and equivocation that has
characterised Irish politics down the years, with the crozier and Christ
treated as synonymous.
Its main strength was its sense of an
exasperated venting, which may do some good.
The Vatican does not
comprehend the extent and nature of the crisis in contemporary Irish
culture, and has been guided by the worst possible advice.
Now, perhaps,
it has awoken to the smell of coffee.
Some elements of the speech
were reprehensible, especially the attack on Pope Benedict, which
indicated gross ignorance, perhaps even malice.
It is a sad day when the
Taoiseach seems to have been trawling the internet for quotes – any
quotes, regardless of context – to undermine the spiritual leader of the
vast majority of his own people.
I merely record this as a passing
observation, having long understood that, in these matters, the truth is
irrelevant.
Everyone associated with the Taoiseach’s speech knew
that this unjust and dishonest attack would pass largely unchallenged,
for who now cares to defend the Pope?
Much has been made of the
Taoiseach’s references to the fact of his own Catholicism.
But, no more
than his predecessors who bent the knee to Rome, Kenny did not outline
what Catholicism means for him, speaking as if he regards the church
mainly as a social force, to be dealt with according to the prevailing
political climate.
He seems to think of the church in the way
shareholders regard their company’s board.
He did not resort to throwing
eggs, but it seemed a close call.
From rumblings otherwise, it
seems he is now ad idem with the atheist ayatollahs of the Labour Party,
preparing not merely to remove the right of Irish Catholic children to a
Catholic education, but, in proposing laws to override the confessional
seal, to attack the confidentiality which is at the core of pastoral
relationships.
Ostensibly, Kenny was addressing the Dáil, but his
words were directed at the invisible new regime, which has the power to
make or break him as Taoiseach.
He knows that he is in office on
sufferance and that the regime, operating through the soft tissue of the
Labour Party, will pull the plug the moment his all-hat-and-no-cattle
Government shows signs of outliving its usefulness.
Government
politicians know they must take every opportunity to do the regime’s
bidding, accumulating brownie points for the lean days to come.
Sticking
it to the Catholic Church is guaranteed to meet with the regime’s
approval.
It would be delusional to imagine that we have left
behind us the kind of Ireland in which those holding public office were
answerable to forces or interests behind the scenes.
Nowadays, power
does not vest itself in soutanes, but operates over dinner tables and
putting greens, making its imperatives known and reinforcing its world
view through a media culture as malleable and compliant as in the
allegedly dark days of the 1950s.
Power nowadays can be tracked in
the cruder levels of public sentiment, drawing close those whose
interests correspond to the objectives of the regime and banishing those
deemed to represent some outmoded form of authority.
The moral
content of this culture is overwhelmingly a matter of posture.
Facts
alone do not matter, but must be considered within the ecology of
victimhood, which decides everything in advance.
The truth is another
planet.
By claiming to represent the children of the nation, you acquire
licence to say or do what you please.
But there are many ways of
abusing children.
You can sit them in desks and subject them to the
knowing nonsense of cynics who steal their hope and joy so as to
demonstrate repugnance of some derelict or decomposed authority.
You can
sell them false versions of freedom to make yourself rich.
You can fill
their heads with nihilism and wonder why they attempt to obliterate
themselves with chemicals.
But, not to worry: the wreckage of
present-day swishing and swinging can be left for the next generation,
just as we now belatedly deal with the consequences of the sins and
abuses of a time from which we are separated by time and the collateral
innocence it has conferred on us.