My people come from Ireland, but we’ve been here in the states since the colonial days. We even fought in the Revolutionary War. I grew up thinking that my family had immigrated in the 1880s or 90s, but recently found out that my family has deep roots. There are no famous people in my family, and thankfully, no pastors either. I would have been the first if I had followed my calling. I took another path. We are farmers. I am a two generations off the farm. It might as well be a thousand years though. I know nothing of farming.
Ireland intrigues me. I’ve visited in 1999. My memories are a drunken haze of pubs, good beer, and whisky. I came away with a taste for Bushmills and Guinness. I felt completely out of touch with Ireland when I visited. It did not feel like home. It felt oddly friendly, yet distant at the same time. Part of my problem was it’s overt religiosity. I was living in France at the time of my visit, and could not believe how little religion mattered to the natives. Yet in Ireland it’s presence was everywhere. It was even represented in your choice of whisky. Were you a Bushmills man, or a Jameson man? Bloody hell. The fucking answer mattered. In truth, I preferred Clontaf (I’m looking at a bottle now). Religion ruins everything.
Ireland has a law that I cannot abide. The Defamation Act of 2009. It states that “a person who publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion”. I’ve been told a number of times by Irish friends, that if I were a Irish national, my blog would be reported and I could face prosecution. It’s a horrifying thought. Free speech is a right we should not take for granted least it be taken from us.
This work of art is called Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mexican artist Alma Lopez was speaking at a conference on Chicano culture. This work was displayed as part of an exhibit. It pissed off the local Catholics, who reported it to the authorities as offensive.
The Catholic Lawyers Blog has posted an update claiming that “a senior Garda in Cork has confirmed that a file will be sent to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions regarding the exhibition of material which is insulting and offensive to Catholics”.
The Catholics are dead serious. They claim the following on their blog.
This exhibition was closed down in Santa Fe due to public outrage. Catholics are aware of the gravity of blasphemies against Our Lady, which, as Our Lord revealed to Sister Lucy, fall into five kinds:
There are five types of offences and blasphemies committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary :
1 – Blasphemies against the Immaculate Conception;
2 – Blasphemies against Her Virginity;
3 – Blasphemies against Her Divine Maternity, in refusing at the same time to recognise Her as the Mother of men;
4 – The blasphemies of those who publicly seek to sow in the hearts of children, indifference or scorn or even hatred of this Immaculate Mother;
5 – The offences of those who outrage Her directly in Her holy images. Here, my daughter, is the reason why the Immaculate Heart of Mary inspired Me to ask for this little act of reparation . . (May 29,1930)
In Ireland, you cannot speak your mind or express ideas that may threaten a religious institution. I’m glad my ancestors left. To an American, the notion of censorship and repression demonstrated in this process border on insanity. How did a civilized European country adopt such a repressive and wrong headed law? What happened to my Ireland?
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AndrewHall 95p · 721 weeks ago
That's what happens when the Church is off its leash. We're fortunate here in America to have a constitution with a Bill of Rights.
Pete O'Brien · 721 weeks ago
Yesterday 25,000 people held a Gay Pride parade in Dublin . At the same time 13,000 people held a Eucharistic(religious) conference at a Marian centre in Knock.
Ireland is a far more diverse place than you think. We have Civil Partnership bill which protects same sex couples' rights(though it falls short of marriage).
Most people here wear their religion as an ethnic badge rather than faith one. If you were to ask any nominally Catholic person here under 50 if they believe in all the catholic doctrine very few would say yes.
The church ruled the roost here for long enough to show clearly to the ordinary people that they have feet of clay. The strong consensus here is that they should never be given power over anyone ever again. The older generation may still attend Mass on Sundays, but there is no generation following behind.
The younger generation's interaction with the church is limited to Baptisms, First Communion, Confirmation, Weddings and Funerals. These are the Rites of Passage that the clergy still cling to to justify their position/existence in Irish society. The Marian devotees who used to make up a huge section of Catholicism are just a fringe group here today.
I'm not saying that the Irish are perfect specimens of modern people, we have no shortage of faults and shortcomings. Please judge us by how we are today, not how we were 40 or 50 years ago.
ChristopherTK 81p · 721 weeks ago
It is noteworthy that the June 3rd World Atheist Conference in Dublin was sold out. But as we know here in the U.S., division among citizens doesn't protect sensible people from outrageous laws.
http://www.atheist.ie/
Pete O'Brien · 721 weeks ago
I was born in the 1950s and have lived through the transition of Irish society's relationship to the church from thoroughly submissive to present day cynical/hostile. I do know a few people from my generation who still feel some reverence to church authority, but even they will accept that the old attitudes were wrong and harmful, to put it mildly.
The recent atheist convention adapted the Dublin Declaration on Secularism and the Place of Religion in Public Life.(terrible title!) This was a document I had not heard of before but one which seems to represent my attitudes on the subject perfectly.
I cannot be certain but in my opinion this document would not meet with opposition from modern Irish people. I think they would be quite happy to have religion as an extra-curricular subject in schools. It allows for preparing children for Communion and Confirmation, (which are important to all Irish Catholics) but without compulsion.
There is currently a government move to re-assign patronage of primary(elementary) schools away from the Catholic Church and very few people are opposing it.
As for the blasphemy law, I think it is a misguided attempt to stop hate speech rather than a sop to the religious. Any politician who plays the religious card in Ireland today would not get elected. The few political parties that stood on the religious “Family Values” type platforms in this year's elections all failed miserably.
So yes I am optimistic that Irish society is moving away from religious domination and have already gone beyond the point where religious can ever recover. I don't think that we will move to an atheistic culture any time soon, but, as long as people are happy and are free from the guilt and fear that religion demands then we must be doing something right.
deleted8470268 143p · 721 weeks ago