No sir, we Irish are not that sort of Catholic

This post, worth reading as well, in WEIT reminded me to check out the latest Iona Institute survey. Like the 2010 Bishops Conference survey, they have no real good news if you're a Catholic leader.

I've plotted up the first table in the survey as well as total adults in Ireland by age group (blue), collated from the 2006 census figures. In red is the number of adults identifying as Catholic and in green is the number of those Catholics that attended mass in the past week.

It clearly shows that the the younger you are in Ireland, the less likely you are to call yourself a Catholic and very much more so the less likely you are to attend mass regularly. Given how fundamental mass is to the Catholic religion, I think this is a good barometer of how committed someone identifying as Catholic is to their religion. It points towards a big decline in religious Catholics even if people still consider themselves cultural Catholics.

If the trends shown extrapolate into the new generations then we might expect a ongoing but not precipitous fall in religious affiliation but I think the key thing is actually the mass going percentage - that really suggests that even if Ireland remains on paper significantly Catholic for the time being, the reality is that they are mostly cultural or plastic Catholics.

This fits with the results of the 2010 survey which found that only half of Irish Catholics believed in Hell and only three-quarters believed in Heaven, while 10% didn't believe in God. It's also reflected in the perception of their church amongst Catholics in the Iona survey:

Again the 55's and older appear to prop up the figures. So how much of the population is that cohort as a percentage? 


Looking at the CSO website in the 2006 census, they account for 20% of the total population (or 26% of everyone over 14 years old) while the 15-54 age group is 59% of the total population (or 74% of everyone over 14 years old). 


Of course, as it's actually 77% of the over 54's that are Catholic, that means the older religious group corresponds to 20% of the total adult population of Ireland.

Craig's Law

The following is a description of drowning. It seems to be a particularly disempowering, lonely way to die. To set the scene for this post, imagine 20 million young children drowning altogether like this in a great sea. I'll come back to this at the end.

Characteristics of the Instinctive Drowning Response:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary, or overlaid, function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs. 2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe. 4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment. 5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

As I said, I'll come back to this at the end of this post. The image of 20 million children dying scared, alone and unable to do anything about it should resonate through the "explanations" and "justifications" that follow.

The recent furore over William Lane Craig's comments on genocide in the Bible made me wonder is he alone in his viewpoint or is it a comment Christian view that genocide is okay as long as God told you to do it.

To recap, Richard Dawkins refused to debate Craig recently on Oxford citing his views on genocide as part of the reason. Craig managed a lot of mileage out of it by putting up an empty chair on stage during his talk for Dawkins.

Before we get on to Craig's comments, here are some examples of god-crimes in the bible:

NUMBERS 31: 7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. … 9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, … Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.  15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ... 17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

And in case you're wondering how many young innocent girls were taken forcefully by the Israelite men and presumably raped, having just seen them kill their mothers and brothers and older sisters, Numbers 35 kindly tells us:

And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him.

Another one:

Deuteronomy 20:13-15 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. ...15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

 Or:

Samuel 15:3 Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’” 

You get the idea. God is quite keen on genocide, slavery and the rape and killing of young children. Craig has written specifically about the genocide of the Canaanites:

God taught Israel that any assimilation to pagan idolatry is intolerable.  It was His way of preserving Israel’s spiritual health and posterity.  God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel.  The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God. 

Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation.  We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy.  Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites?  Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement.  Not the children, for they inherit eternal life.  

So who is wronged?  Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves.  Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children?  The brutalizing effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.

How can someone argue that we should feel pity for baby-killing fanatics and not their infant victims?  I find it astonishing that someone could write these words and mean them. There is no need to even comment further on them, is there? Words fail me. 

I had a look around the web to see if this is a common viewpoint. It seems to be amongst those that are aware of the atrocities in the bible and in true theological fashion, instead of letting the data inform the theory, tortuously reinterpret the data so as not to have to revise their theory.

A random example is a site called Rational Christianity of all things. The genocide justifications are the same as Criag's but this person has thought about it to a disturbing degree and I just could not read past this bit:

It's worth noting that being killed with a sword (perhaps beheaded) was at the time one of the quickest ways for the children to die (as opposed to suffocation/strangulation, starvation, disease or being torn apart by wild animals

When the discussion has got to the point where you are arguing that God is good because he orders foreign soldiers to kill your children with swords and not by any other brutal method, we have definitely moved into some theological variant of Godwin's Law. Craig's Law anyone?

To finish off and loop back to the bit about drowning at the start of this argument, let's look at the ne plus ultra in God's genocide oeuvre, the Great Flood. If we use Ussher as a date for this event, it apparently occurred in 2348-49BC (we'll forget about how the existing civilizations never noticed it was getting very damp). Calculations of the worlds population vary widely but an number of 66 million is one estimate. If we assume, conservatively in my opinion, that 30% of the population were children, then we have a figure of 19.8 million children killed by God when he pressed the reset button.

But hey, they were innocent so it was alright to kill them! And at least he didn't do them in with wild animals right? This is not a basis on which to build a moral or ethical system, in my opinion.

'An Unprecedented Juncture'

Enda Kenny says what needs saying (my emphasis):

"The revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the Government, Irish  Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture. It’s fair to say that after the Ryan and Murphy Reports Ireland is, perhaps, unshockable when it comes to the abuse of children. But Cloyne has proved to be of a different order.

Because for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual-abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See, to frustrate an Inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic…as little as three years ago, not three decades ago. And in doing so, the Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism....the narcissism .......that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.

The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation’. Far from listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal with St Benedict’s “ear of the heart”......the Vatican’s reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.

...

The behaviour being a case of Roma locuta est: causa finita est. Except in this instance, nothing could be further from the truth.
...

A day post-publication, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade met with the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza. The Tánaiste left the Archbishop clear on two things: The gravity of the actions and attitude of the Holy See. And Ireland’s complete rejection and abhorrence of same. The Papal Nuncio undertook to present the Cloyne Report to the Vatican. The Government awaits the considered response of the Holy See.

...this is not Rome. Nor is it industrial-school or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the Irish-Catholic world. This is the ‘Republic’ of Ireland 2011.

A Republic of laws.....of rights and responsibilities....of proper civic order..... where the delinquency and arrogance of a particular version..... of a particular kind of ‘morality’..... will no longer be tolerated or ignored.

...those who have been abused can take some small comfort in knowing that they belong to a nation...[w]here the law - their law - as citizens of this country, will always supercede canon laws that have neither legitimacy nor place in the affairs of this country....

Cardinal Josef Ratzinger said “Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.”

As the Holy See prepares its considered response to the Cloyne Report, as Taoiseach, I am making it absolutely clear, that when it comes to the protection of the children of this State, the standards of conduct which the Church deems appropriate to itself, cannot and will not, be applied to the workings of democracy and civil society in this republic.Not purely, or simply or otherwise. CHILDREN.... FIRST."

A big difference between Irish and American Religosity

A final look at the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference summary of the 2008 European Values Study shows up how religion or lack of it is not an impediment to political office in the Republic of Ireland. This contrasts with the US where presidential hopefuls seem to outvie each other in their declations of religosity (of the right sort, obviously).

The following statements and tables are taken from the summary document:
[Republic of Ireland (ROI); Nothern Ireland (NI)]

‘Politicians who do not believe in God are unfit for public office’

That is, 85% of Irish Catholics in the ROI would not have a problem with an atheist politician. Indeed nearly two-thirds would take exception to you having a problem with that.

‘Religious leaders should not influence government decisions’

 83.2% of Irish Catholics in the ROI either agree or don't have an opinion, with 60% actively believing that the Church should stay out of politics.

'I have my own way of connecting with the Divine without Churches or religious services'

[on a scale of 1 to 5]

This one should give the Church pause and should also make the Establishment realise that the Church does not have the hearts and minds of all those it claims.  Only 13% of Irish Catholics in the ROI rely on the Church for their spiritual guidance while 60% effectively bypass the Church in their relationship with God. These sound more like Protestants than Catholics!

Plastic Catholics

In a previous post I reckoned that roughly 39% of Irish Catholics attended mass weekly, a key part of being a Catholic. Looks like I wasn't too far off the mark. The Irish Catholic Bishops Conference produced in 2010 a document summarising the 2008 European Values Study as it related to the practice of Catholicism in Ireland. It is a fascinating document both for its content and its deadpan tone and the following graphs and tables are taken from it. According to the report 82% of respondents identirfied as Catholic and the stats are based on their responses.

 Some of the other stuff is very interesting. Only half of Irish Catholics believe in Hell and a quarter don't believe in Heaven! A tenth don't even believe in God. I don't remember re-incarnation being part of Catholicism but for a third of Irish Catholics it is...

So what about God? Well in the Republic of Ireland 58% believe in 'Personal God', which skewers the New Religionist claim that God is the 'ground of being' etc.

So how important is God to Irish Catholics on a scale of 1 to 10? While it is definitely skewed to the high end, you have to ask yourself, if you were a good believing Catholic, would you not go all the way to eleven on this question?

Finally, what about prayer? In the Republic, 40% pray every day while about 25% pray less than 'several times a year' or never.

So, in the Republic of Ireland, of those that self-identify as Catholic:

• Only half believe in Hell
• Only three-quarters believe in Heaven
• 10% don't even believe in God (sure that makes them atheists?)
• A quarter believe in an impersonal God (and 17% either are atheists or don't know what they think)
• Roughly half pray at least once a week, while about a third are doing well to pray once a year.

Someone with a stats background could do a proper analysis but it strikes me that about half of Irish Catholics perhaps deserve the name and the rest are Plastic Catholics, to borrow a phrase. This why it is important in any discussion on how religious Ireland is to distinguish between cultural Catholics and real Catholics.

Bikini Mary: A terrible Precedent

It is scandalous that a religion in this day and age can use the law of the state to attack freedom of speech. Absolutely scandalous. Will we ever shake off the dark shackles of this church? Will it yet take us back to the dark days of Laundries and paedophilia and nobody prepared to speak out? The all powerful bishop and kowtowing politician?

To make it worse Irish Catholic lawyers are encouraging people outside of Ireland to use the Irish Blasphemy Law to complain “to prevent a crime occurring in that Country”. They appear to actively seeking to stir up a controversy:

“The more complaints they have on record the more likely it is that they will have to act. Also the offence of blasphemy is judged by how "outraged" people really are, so complaints will be evidence of that.”

What next – Pakistan using our own blasphemy law to stifle freedom of speech in Ireland?

Fine Gael said before the election that it thought that blasphemy was not a crime. It is now time for them to put an end to this shameful state of affairs. They should revoke the 2009 law and take the opportunity of the presidential election and judges’ referendum in the autumn to have a referendum on removing the reference to blasphemy in the constitution.

Of course these Catholics still try to claim Ireland as their's. Witness Bishop Buckley’s comment:

"Respect for Mary, the mother of God, is bred in the bones of Irish people and entwined in their lives."

No, fear of the power of the parish priest and the shadow of the church-run institutions was bred into the bones of the Irish people.  Not to mention the fact that Ireland is no longer a particularly Catholic country.

Jesus - the ultimate Slum Landlord

Reading Rosita Boland’s article on childhood religious education made me wonder what the catechism looks like these days. I can remember well doing the catechism in school though I can’t remember much of the content. I decided to check it out.

Frankly skimming it was enough for me, as looking from the outside in it, it is completely loolally. However some interesting titbits jumped out at me.

According to the catechism on the Vatican’s website, Hell is a real place. I thought they’d made it all metaphorical but apparently not. God, it appears is indeed one sick vicious bastard:

1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire," and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where "men will weep and gnash their teeth."

(my highlighting)

The old Penny Catechism was more succinct:

125. Where will they go who die in mortal sin?

They who die in mortal sin will go to hell for all eternity.

134. Shall not the wicked also live for ever?

The wicked also shall live and be punished forever in the fire of hell.

I’ve no interest in trying to understand the minutiae of Catholic theology – it has as much relevance as all those backstory Middle Earth books, but I certainly come away from this excerpt below thinking that Jesus is the ultimate slum landlord. I mean, if he’s killed the Devil (eh? Has no one told the pope?) and taken over Hell, these Trinity chaps have got a nice little monopoly going on afterlife holiday destinations. 

635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." Jesus, "the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and [delivered] all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage." Henceforth the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades", so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth."

(my highlighting)

Dammed if you do and damned if you don’t.