There is an old Russian Orthodox video, called Russian Mystery which begins with one of the most powerful baptism scenes by a priest that I have ever seen. It also shows how a nation fell away from Christ but is now returning after a terrible spiritual winter. So hopeful. You can find it on Youtube.
@Bush Hermit I tried putting the search term in Youtube "Russian Mystery". Nothing with that title came up. Are you sure its actually named that in the title? I am really interested in checking it out.
My favourite parts are toward the end- When the bishop (?) speaks somewhere around 50 minutes I think... placing prayer and spiritual healing at the centre of ALL healthy social and political reform that Russians hoped for at the collapse of Soviet power.
No more finding the right solutions outside our hearts! Instead, inner spiritual healing. It's the ONLY way for the good we want outwardly, socially, politically, economically, environmentally, etc., to follow.
This is true for the West as well. What we lack, is repentance. We've taken a wrong turn. We cant just keep going. We have to humble ourselves and return to the the Source.
The Coptic Orthodox Church has long known of the historic links between the British Isles and Christian Egypt, but documentation and solid evidence is thin on the ground for these early centuries of church history. There are learned articles by Monique Blanc-Ortolan of the Musee des Arts dE9coratifs, Paris, and Pierre du Bourguet of the Louvre on ‘Coptic and Irish Art’ and by Joseph F.T. Kelly of John Carroll University, Cleveland, Ohio, on ‘Coptic Influences in the British Isles’ in the Coptic Encyclopedia which are worth consulting. Other works, like Shirley Toulson’s The Celtic Year, which asserts that “rather than adhere to the ruling of the Council [of Chalcedon], some of the most dedicated adherents of Monophysitism fled from Egypt, and some of them most surely travelled west and north to Ireland”, in their enthusiasm to establish a link, make up what is lacking in hard evidence with sheer conjecture and fantasy.
The late Archdale King noted the links between Celtic Ireland and Coptic Egypt. He suggests that much of the contact took place before the Muslim Conquest of 640. There exists evidence of a Mediterranean trade in a single passage in the life of St. John the Almsgiver (Ioannes III Eleemon), Greek Patriarch of Alexandria between 610-621, in which reference is made to a vessel sailing to Alexandria from Britain with a cargo of tin, doubtless come from Cornwall or Somerset.
King observes that the kind of asceticism associated with the Desert Fathers was especially congenial to the Irish but refers to Dom Henri Leclercq’s suggestion that Celtic monasticism was directly derived from Egypt, as an “unsubstantiated hypothesis”. No serious historian, however, would deny that first-hand knowledge of the Desert Fathers was brought directly to the South of Gaul by St. John Cassian and that the links between the British and Gallican churches were especially strong at this period. King nevertheless admits that the grouping together of several small churches within a cashel or fortified enclosure seems to support Leclercq’s view.
King mentions an Ogham inscription on a stone near St. Olan’s Well in the parish of Aghabulloge, County Cork, which scholars interpret as reading: ‘Pray for Olan the Egyptian.’ Professor Stokes tells us5 about the Irish monk Dicuil, who around 825 wrote his Liber de Mensure orbis terre describing the pyramids as well as an ancient precursor of the Suez Canal. It would seem that Egypt was often visited by pilgrims to the Holy Land. Stokes instances the Saltair Na Rann, an anthology of biblical poems attributed to Oengus the Culdee, but containing the sixth or seventh century Book of Adam and Eve, composed in Egypt and known in no other European country except Ireland.
King also notes that one of the commonest names for townlands or parishes is Disert or ‘Desert’: a solitary place in which anchorites were established. Presumably the same etymology gives us the Scottish Dysart, just north of Kirkcaldy, and the Welsh Dyserth, to the south of Prestatyn ? This would then present a consistent picture common to Celtic Christianity. The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, an early ninth century monastic bishop of Clonenagh (Co. Offaly) and later of Tallaght, has a litany invoking ‘Seven monks of Egypt in Disert Uilaig, I invoke unto my aid, through Jesus Christ.’ [Morfesseor do manchaib Egipr(e) in disiurt Uilaig]. The Antiphonary of Bangor (dating from between 680-691) also contains the text:
” … Domus deliciis plena Super petram constructa Necnon vinea vera Ex Aegypto transducta …”
which is translated as:
” … House full of delight Built on the rock And indeed true vine Translanted from Egypt …”
Providence undoubtedly put me in touch with Fr. Feargal Patrick McGrady, priest of Ballymena, County Antrim in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Down and Connor. As well as being a native of Downpatrick (the burial place of St. Patrick), Father Feargal is enthusiastic about the Eastern churches and holds His Holiness Pope Shenouda in high esteem. He was delighted to assist with my enquiries and very soon made contacts with local historians, who are the real source of the information we need.
Dr. Cahal Dallat, Genealogist and Historical Consultant, of Ballycastle, County Antrim, identified Disert Ilidh or Uilaigh with Dundesert, near Crumlin, county Antrim, which is to the north-west of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, between Belfast International Airport and Templepatrick.
Mr. Bobbie Burns, a local historian living in Crumlin, was another link in the chain. He produced a report in the Belfast Telegraph of 13th July 1936 under the headline “Unique Once Famous Ulster Church: Neglected Crumlin Ruins”, which showed the ruins of the medieval church built on the site of an earlier shrine. The local historical group is taking a renewed interest in the site and the local Protestant landowner has given permission for them to come and go freely to the site. It is hoped that they might obtain a grant to restore the dilapidated ruins but they are excited by its more ancient and possible Coptic connections. The site is approached by a path along the side of a grazing field 200-300 metres from Poplar Road. It is on the steep bank of the Crumlin River, which is a large free-flowing river, but is more than 100 metres from the water. Access is easy in dry weather, but not pleasant after heavy rain. The terrain inside the enclosure is very rough. The ground is strewn with boulders which have either fallen or been removed from the medieval walls. Parts of the medieval walls, in places three feet thick and covered in ivy, survive on the east (or gable) and south sides. The east wall contains two arched recesses or sedilia, now only about four feet in height but probably much higher if their foundations were cleared of the extensive in-fill of stones and earth. The gable rises to around thirty feet in height but a number of stones have already been removed and were any more to go it would be undermined and likely to collapse. What remains of the wall at the other end is much lower. It is likely that the whole structure would have been removed long ago but for the difficulties of dislodging stone from the walls and the problem of transportation to the road.
We are grateful for the efforts of these local enthusiasts for having preserved these ancient ruins and look forward to making further discoveries about the last resting place of the seven monks of Egypt.
Touching on the deep issues of the historical unfolding of the theological divergence between Eastern Orthodoxy (roughly, resting in the consensus of the Fathers) and Roman Catholicism (roughly, resting in exclusive reliance on the theologoumena of solitary Father Augustine- who on most key theological points struck a discordant note with his contemporaries, notably the Cappadocians):
At about the same time St Augustine was developing his doctrine of a "hell-light" for unbaptized babies- corollary to his theological doctrine of "original sin" which he held in part due to his awful mistranslation of the scriptures (not being a native Greek reader)-
We have an Eastern Christian Father, Gregory of Nyssa, thinking on the very same question-
What is the fate of deceased unbaptized babies?
Gregory's thought shows sure signs of the theological vein that will be recognized as Orthodox, and how different this Orthodox phronema, the "consensus of the Fathers," is from the theological and spiritual framework Augustine is developing and assuming.
There is no "stain" of "original sin" present in his thought on human nature. There is a therapeutic understanding of salvation- to be saved is to be healed. Sin is the symptom of an inner spiritual illness- it is contageous, and its wages are death.
But what if an infant had no oportunity to exercise it's intelligence and will toward good or evil? What is the "natural state" of the human substance upon birth?
Is human nature good? Or evil?
What happens to this "nature" in itself, if it fails to develop toward the good (sainthood) or fall away from the good (apostacy)?
In his essay, "On Infant's Early Death," writing at the end of the 4th century just like Augustine was,
Gregory's theologoumenon runs strikingly contrary to Augustine. Gregory is thinking differently than we would today about the question. His sentiments are not ours; he was familiar with ubiquitous death being faced directly by an intact society in a way we are not.
He is thinking instead in terms of just desserts for a life of hard-won repentance running the race to the end-
If an infant who dies receives the same reward as a man who must struggle through a long life of great temptations and sufferings with real peril to his soul, then wouldn't infant death be preferable to life which risks a failed outcome?
So there must be something advantageous to living a full life oriented toward God in faith. Nevertheless, what he says about the "nature" of the undeveloped prematurely deceased infant is strikingly different from Agustine's line of speculation.
Gregory writes:
"What we are to think of those who are taken prematurely, the moment of whose birth almost coincides with that of their death?..."
"as regards this question of the infants: we may say that the enjoyment of that future life does indeed belong of right to the human being ["Human Being" for Gregory isn't a species name but a goal some born of man attain to. One has to *become* human, which means arriving at the full stature of the One Human Being in whose image we are made, Jesus Christ, through the free operation of personal our rational will], but that, seeing the plague of ignorance has seized almost all now living in the flesh, he who has purged himself of it by means of the necessary courses of treatment receives the due reward of his diligence, when he enters on the life that is truly natural; while he who refuses Virtue's purgatives and renders that plague of ignorance, through the pleasures he has been entrapped by, difficult in his case to cure, gets himself into an unnatural state, and so is estranged from the truly natural life, and has no share in the existence which of right belongs to us and is congenial to us. Whereas the innocent babe has no such plague before its soul's eyes obscuring its measure of light, and so it continues to exist in that natural life; it does not need the soundness which comes from purgation, because it never admitted the plague into its soul at all. "
"the soul that has never felt the taste of virtue [i.e. infants who die upon being born, before baptism], while it may indeed remain perfectly free from the sufferings which flow from wickedness having never caught the disease of evil at all, does nevertheless in the first instance partake only so far in that life beyond (which consists, according to our previous definition, in the knowing and being in God) as this nursling can receive; until the time comes that it has thriven on the contemplation of the truly Existent as on a congenial diet, and, becoming capable of receiving more, takes at will more from that abundant supply of the truly Existent which is offered.
Having, then, all these considerations in our view, we hold that the soul of him who has reached every virtue in his course, and the soul of him whose portion of life has been simply nothing, are equally out of the reach of those sufferings which flow from wickedness. "
- St Gregory of Nyssa, "Father of Fathers" in the Eastern Orthodox Church, writing about the same time as Blessed Augustine, who would become essentially the sole early pillar of the Western Christian Tradition.
A strikingly different moral, spiritual, and theological worldview already evident.
[note: 2000 years into this game it's easy to misunderstand terms. Orthodoxy does not have a doctrine "purgatory". The "purging" St Gregory references is from St Paul, 1 Cor. 3:15: all of us will be salted with fire, "If [what we've done with our free lives] is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames."]
Just wanted to note that the Catholic concept of purgatory references 1 Corinthians 3:15 and that the teaching developed largely in connection to 2 Maccabees 12:42-46, that explicitly relates the operative principle re prayers/ offerings for the dead. Clement of Alexandria first outlines a concept in the East in the 2nd century and what St. Gregory of Nyssa states stands in no contradiction to what little St. Augustine offers on the subject. The Latin church in isolation did develop innovative applications of the principle, but an argument can be made that from the outlook of mercy, this teaching exceeds the mercy of St. John Chrysostom's principle that no penance offered toward the effect of eternal salvation is possible after death. What matters principally is what's true- there have been several efforts to reconcile the different approaches of East and West that present an apparent contradiction. Many, including myself, believe that a synthesis is possible. Anything I know of the topic is taken from Ratzinger/ Benedict XVI. l would side with the Cappadocian Fathers to the fullest extent possible, but any Catholic is free to believe that this purgation is a part of the transformative work that accompanies the resurrection of the Dead on the Day of Judgment.
As far as unbaptized infants, what has been alleged is true and that much is acknowledged by the teaching office of Rome in a link provided below. I would characterize the efforts to codify this teaching as a misunderstanding of the mission of the the Church, akin to the Reformation era tendency to teach by anathema. Regarding the variance with the East, they suggest the issue was not explicitly dealt with by the Eastern Fathers as they had no necessity to respond to a contrary teaching on baptism presented by the Pelagians. The document provides two exceptions, though: Pseudo-Athanasios says clearly that an unbaptised person cannot enter the Kingdom of God. He also asserts that unbaptised children will not enter the Kingdom, but neither will they be lost, for they have not sinned.[12] Anastasius of Sinai expresses this even more clearly: for him, unbaptised children do not go to Gehenna. But he is not able to say more; he does not express an opinion about where they do go, but leaves their destiny to God’s judgment.[13] So here at least are some Eastern theologians seeming to arrive at "limbo," because revelation provided them no ability to say else. I think it is more than likely that the Eastern Fathers would have taken a divergent view from St. Augustine. I cannot imagine St Basil in particular doing otherwise. But there is speculation here. Rome has been careful to articulate the occasions teachers have overstepped the boundaries of teaching authority in faith and morals in recent times. The formulation for this understanding is often heard along the lines: the Church holds to the teaching that she received, but admits that God is not limited and capable of effecting salvation by mysterious means. Such is the claim made in the current catechism (paragraph 1257).
I feel much kinship of course with much of traditional Roman Catholicism- and much more so with some of her dearest saints.
However there is a very different ethos to the spirituality and ecclesiology of the two Churches and traditions, East and West. How we understand and work out our salvation and spiritual lives "on the ground" has a very different quality, feeling, and praxis than it does in R. Catholicism.
For example it is right to point out that Orthodoxy "handles" the diversity among the fathers differently- on a great many matters the Orthodox Church has not pronounced dogmatically. This is often frustrating to exacting Roman Catholic scholars and pious Catholic laity, but to us Orthodox it is fitting. It gives breathing room where there should be some (for the Body *within* Orthodoxy is itself rightly diverse; very different paths for different icons of Christ to find their unique identity in Christ and expression of personal holiness.)
We Orthodox lack a robust scholastic tradition with all the complex intellectual and (from our vantage point) legalistic need to point out ways in which current Catholic ethos which has changed remarkably since Vat.2, feels and thinks and behaves so very differently... while it's still the same spiritual path? It's not like that for us as Orthodox as we reconcile ourselves with our Tradition. Generally, we dont have a need or desire to do this sort of "legal proof that technically what we're teaching and practicing now is not inconsistent with past teachings and practices in our Church".
We approach the Eastern Holy Orthodox Tradition in what I would call a less precise, spelled out way. Lots left ambiguous- on purpose, sometimes just by aparent Providential guiding of the Holy Spirit through forms of oppression (e.g. under Ottomans, under Russian Tsar since Great Peter's reforms, etc.) We have never gotten quite so organized and powerful; having a papacy making authoritative or at least very de facto persuasive dictates as to what our praxis rightly is, and reaching so deeply and powerfully into political significance (papacy as it became developed of course, the height being infallibility ex cathedra; a total impossibility in the conciliar model of hierarchical leadership in Orthodoxy).
What is going to be the Ethos of a church that has *one* "Doctor among doctors"- St Augustine, and One Bishop above all other bishops, the Pope, after many many centuries...?
It will be and in fact is a different Ethos than we have in the Orthodox Church, with many ruling Bishops- each equal and not able to direct matters in each others' parishes- who must reach something of a consensus on the grounds that Christ alone is our Head. And Many early Church Fathers in fruitful dialogue with each other, who were closer to the languages and cultures of the Scriptures and the early church?
Very different "feel" to the lived experience within the two divided, East and West.
If you find Christ in his fullness in the Roman Catholic Church, then be blessed where Christ is calling you!
I do not find it so.
I do find fullness of Christ and no impediment to the workings of Holy Sprit in the Orthodox Church. So here I remain, and I would be resistant to a "synthesis" between East and West along the lines I think you are intimating.
I am among those Orthodox- the majority I believe- who believe there is nothing lacking in the Eastern Orthodox Church. That all we need to unite ourselves perfectly with Christ is found in trusting submission to the Way outlined in our Orthodox Tradition.
I would want to add nothing to it, take nothing from it, to make it 'fit' with Rome. Though of course I grieve the divergence and schism.
I believe it is every devout Christian's business to discern the calling of Christ in his heart and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. That I see undeniable holiness among countless Roman Catholics, I only celebrate and say "amen!" where we are in agreement.
But on points of disagreement, I believe the path is for each of us to discern, "where is the fullness of Christ's truth? For His Body is One, not divided."
This means I believe Roman Catholic Church would do well to repent and return to the Orthodox Faith as it is preserved in the Orthodox Church. I do not believe this is because "the Orthodox are right"... any more than God's Chosen People the Israelites were "more right" than other traditions around them.
We are simply the unworthy Bride of the Head- who preserves His saving Way incorrupt and without blemish in the Orthodox Tradition. I- an Orthodox- am not more right than a Catholic just for my ecclesial home. Only Christ is "right". Countless Catholics are more "orthodox" than me in this respect- which is to say conformed to the Orthodox Tradition that alone perfectly unites us to Christ. Nevertheless as a whole, I believe the Roman Catholic tradition will only find wholeness through repentance and return to what is Orthodox. This would take great humility. And we Orthodox make a mess of any hopes of it because we lack such humility in our dealings with our Christian brethren outside our Church Communion. My Orthodox brothers and I are full of passions! We lash out and wound sincere-hearted Christians of other traditions all the time. We are first among sinners! No wonder Catholics and Protestants cant see the light of Christ clearly through the haze of people like me and my spiritual Orthodox siblings. Please forgive us. We are falling short of the very Tradition we exult and the Fullness of Truth.
Christ loves us first. So it's possible for each of us to discern our hearts and see where we are at home. Where we find peace and spiritual healing. The same thing I would say even to Evangelicals, and even to the best of my truly spiritual Hindu and Buddhist and Jewish, and even Muslim friends. It is ours to purify and humble our hearts, and discern where the One is calling us.
in the end, to paraphrase Father Alexander Schmemann, "True spirituality and salvation is found in *how you deal with what you've been dealt.*"
We have of course faaaaar more in common than we have in difference, Catholic and Orthodox. I count Catholics as my beloved Christian brethren, no argument.
Thanks for your response. I would respond that I also find Christ in the embrace of Peter and Paul and in the tension that exists in true paradox. I don't want Orthodox to change who they are or what they do. I recognize they have a powerful witness to provide, especially as a sign of contradiction to the West. I didn't really mean to initiate a conversation about why people are Catholic or Orthodox either. The only thing I would ask of you is to consider the evidence around which polemics circulate that we might develop a fuller understanding of our differences rather than the common attitude of "You stay in your anathema and I will stay in mine." Purgatory as a concept is not an invention of the Latins despite how much attention they have paid to it, and the unbaptized was not a non-issue in the East. St. Basil advocated for a "do-over" baptism for those who had been baptized in heretical sects, even those who employed the Trinitarian formula.
I am a Byzantine Catholic (by choice not birth) and I would only think it as absurd for me to adopt old animosities against Orthodox Christians that have spurred bloodshed and hatred in the living memory of many in my church. This is especially because what is shared between us and our Orthodox counterparts, conservatively, would account for a 90% similarity in terms of liturgy, theology, and culture. I have an answer for the issue of the Pope of Rome, but I will save that as it's not really relevant to this topic. But it's along issues like these that schism is justified and that's why I spoke. For anyone who finds no deficit in the state of the Church today, I would encourage them to consider the example of St. Anthony of Rome who considered the schism to be a wound and a scandal. You do not seem to be a polemicist to me but they are legion in both East and West.
I don't have much to offer on Augustine except to say that the Latins have always been different and that didn't start with Augustine, although he was the first to indicate those differences. "Doctor of doctors" is an honorific title meant to pay tribute to his influence. I know his ideas spawned the filioque controversy, but I don't see him as a bogeyman. If any theological tradition has been allowed to dominate in the West it is the scholastics, and that theology is innovative in the sense that it goes beyond the tradition received from the Fathers to explore theological implications in philosophy. I liked it better when Orthodox focused their ire on St. Thomas Aquinas because he is not my cup of tea.
As far as repenting and returning to Orthodoxy, I am surprised that you don't recognize the substantial movements that the Roman magisterium has made in that direction. I have indicated some ways that the Roman hierarchy has indeed repented, and many clarifications offered about old stumbling blocks that represent a desire to communicate the message closer to the manner in which you do (not exactly but closer). Orthodox leaders of the historic patriarchates have made motions as well. In the midst of these efforts there are messages that equate an embrace of schism almost as a mark of piety. So the trouble may also lie in preserving a standard for Orthodoxy that never existed in the West. So I hold out hope but I do not hold my breath. Orthodox inter-communion will have to improve before such things are discussed seriously. I wish you peace and a fruitful Nativity fast.
Would you mind directing me to Chkyssostom in this point?
As I’ve mentioned we hold many things loosely and give room for saints and fathers to err on this or that point.
But with Chrysostom in particular we Orthodox recognize him more for his tremendous oratory prowess. He is not among the finer tunings of theological thought in the same era in the east. His corpus is largely task-theology, giving his parish the teachings they need to correct their waywardness and encourage their true piety.
As such I find reading him rightly and sympathetically requires an extra dose of seeing what he’s saying in context: ie what is he arguing against? What is he trying to correct?
And then also, holding any single point of his in tension and conversation with his whole corpus- as he often says different things at different times for different needs.
All to say, for my own profit I’d like the reference for this point that I might research it a bit.
I think I posted that incorrectly? It's the homily in response to 1 Corinthians 3:12-15. Paragraphs 5 and 6 are particularly relevant. He denies the reference is to anything other than hellfire and that vain works do not deliver from this state an there is no annihilation of the soul.
perhaps it's contained in, "the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath."
When we take God's boundless generous gifts to help us toward life and union with him, instead as things without which He who is almighty cannot work his holy loving will that all be saved... we have lost the heart. the very heart.
St Isaac, writing on what he knew from direct inner experience of the warmth of our Saviour's love:
"What is a merciful heart? a heart on fire for the whole of creation, humanity, the birds, for the animals, ...and for all that exists... By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or see any injury or slight sorrow in any of creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy… because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in ...the likeness of God."
I am not sure that I believe this. "A heart on fire for the whole of creation, ...and for all that exists". On paper it sounds good, but holding that up as a social or religious ideal ? puts a very heavy weight on a creature that is already terribly frail, as Man is.
For information, in French, one of the senses of the word "merci" is to be grateful. We say "merci" when somebody gives us something, in thanks ("thanks" is in relation to the German "denken" which means "to think"...).
I am not sure that it is such a great thing to not be able to bear to hear or see any injury or slight sorrow in any of creation, either. Sometimes I wonder if in Western civilisation right now, our... squeamishness is not making us brutal in the ways we react to life's unpleasantness.
This makes me think of Wordsworth's poem : "The Ruined Cottage", written initially in 1797-1798, Manuscript D, because the poem exists in varying forms, and it is this one that I am familiar with. The poem talks about human suffering which comes about outside of the context of individual sin, much in the same way as Oedipus suffers without being greatly personally responsible for his suffering.
What can we personally do when confronted with this kind of suffering in others, considering that often this suffering is not the result of sin ? (Re, Job...)
And can we sometimes do more harm than good out of our desire to alleviate suffering ? I believe so. I believe that often our desire to alleviate suffering in others stems from our own intolerance to suffering in all forms, our own... squeamishness. Is this... godlike ? Maybe not...
I believe that some degree of suffering in the world is necessary for us creatures to fully measure that we are vibrantly alive. And this is part of living in the fallen world, which I.... love.
As for the humbleness of the heart... gotta be very careful with this one.
St Isaac was writing from as a 7th century severe desert ascetic, living in what is now Northern Iran.
He is noted especially for his *ascetical* homilies. there is nothing at all sentimental in his meaning here; that's our anachronism as Moderns. Injury, for Isaac, means strictly this: spiritual harm. Sorrow, for Isaac, means strictly this: loss of sight of the Heavenly Joy. Isaac was severe, austere... and simply brimming with lovingkindness that flowed from his direct unmediated perception of the Divine Energies. He wrote only of what he *knew*, there is no idle speculation in his writings.
If you can receive a word from this sinner so very far below this bar set by Isaac, I would gently invite you to pray to St Isaac that his meaning of "a merciful heart" be revealed to you, and perhaps in this sympathetic disposition read his works directly and more thoroughly. It is medicine, all.
Thank you, Mark, for putting these writings in context.
From what you say above, I can see that there are many ways of "knowing", and many "things" to "know"...
I am an old woman now. My perception of becoming old leads me to say that it is becoming more difficult to cultivate gentleness in myself, particularly in our global social context : so much despair, so much hardness, and seemingly deliberate, sometimes gratuitous brutality that pushes grace aside, in all its forms.
And we are increasingly pushed to lead lives that consume the time that is necessary for cultivating this gentleness ? mercy ? you and St Isaac are talking about.
At the risk of sounding proud to you, Mark, I feel as though I have been given ? the gift of seeing "mystery" around me in my daily life, and sometimes in the smallest acts and the most fleeting words. That is precious to me. It makes me appreciate it, and sometimes be able to react in such a way that others become sensitive to it too, whether explicitly or not. Why not ?
For many years, I read about others' spiritual experiences, and now... I feel like reading less about others' experiences, and putting myself in a context where... i see and live in the world. A question of balance ? This may be good.. or evil, who knows ? But THIS WORLD HERE AND NOW definitely needs our attention(s)...
I've considered getting baptised in a sort of strategic, Pascal's Wager-style effort to at least have my paperwork in order should I ever find myself at the actual pearly gates. The way this whole experience of being alive has unfolded makes it appear to me likely bureaucracy rules all realms, above and below.
If there is a hell, it seems inevitable enough I'll be cast into it simply because I can't reasonably expect such an exclusive, swanky club with those sorts of perks to lower its standards such that *I* clear the bar, but it would be lousy to find myself excluded on a technicality. That's most definitely one regret you don't want carrying with you into the fires.
Still, there's something so cynical about Pascal's Wager it makes me suspect the Lord flags any jerk using that sort of logic to get in as an automatic fail.
Trust in Jesus first as the Christ, the Son of God and Lord and add in baptism afterwards. It says ”Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” He has remarkably low standards as regards those who come to him for eternal life. Pascal Wager as the motivator not a problem, it was my motivation, it was the best this sinner was capable of. He still met me with his Spirit and revealed the Father to me.
There's no bar except perfection, which none of us have. We all rely on God's mercy, so all we can do is trust in him, and try our best. If God were a divine petty bureaucrat, that wouldn't be God but an idol.
Baptism is a door opening, not a box checked or a form filled out. It continues the work of the Holy Spirit on your heart and mind. You won't be the same person after. It'll be subtle and slow, but you'll see it. And once you have eyes to see, the real fun -- the heart change -- begins.
A poignant article about a cillini, where poor theology and poorer compassion held that those buried children's souls were lost. The reflection was introduced by a pilgrim who also appeared to some to be lost (without the benefit of smartphone nor satnav) but clearly, based on the beauty of this article, was where he should be. "Not all those who wander are lost", as JRRT wrote and as Paul has winsomely revealed.
It gets even worse. It is a little known fact that having an illegitimate child was such a heinous crime in the late 19th century in Ireland, that young women were kept out of the public eye or sent away to family elsewhere so that no none would know there was an illegitimate child. When the child was born it was secretly killed and buried. Then the misfortunate mother could return home. Women had to be perfectly pure. Like the Virgin Mary, so to speak. The number of such killings of babies was frighteningly large.
I'm sorry, but I simply don't believe this. Basically you're saying "Irish Catholics believed in sexual purity so much they murdered illegitimate children". Please can you provide some reference points, data or evidence to prove this? I have no doubt that abortion, 'partial birth' abortion and infanticide occurred in pre-modern and/or pre-industrial Ireland to some degree, because these things happened everywhere. (It's worth noting that these things almost certainly happen more now, in the post industrial, modern world: but that's another conversation).
But you appear to suggest that in Ireland this number was particularly large specifically due to Catholic belief - or superstition based on Catholic belief, if you prefer. That strikes me as an appalling slander and must not be left without response.
Have you heard of the Devotional Revolution in Ireland. Begun during the famine when the Irish were on their knees. It was due to Cardinal Paul Cullen. The idea was that the Catholic Church in Ireland, now supported by the British,wanted an Ireland of the tCatholic faith! Morally pure, more pure than Britain.
Check out stuff on the levels of infanticide in Ireland in the last half of the nineteenth century. I can get references if you want them.
I do think you would have to provide some good evidence for this claim Gayle. I've never seen any myself, and I am wary of increasingly common claims which attempt to set the Church up as homicidal. Often they are nakedly political.
I’m not saying that the Catholic Church was homicidal. But in the West the Devotionsl Revolution aimed to bring about a change in catholic practice if you like.
It had been rather slack before that. One aspect of change was in respect of women. Quite demanding.
Having an illegitimate child for example, was no real issue in the the West/ Connemara up until the 19th crntury. People still adhered roughly to the Brehon Laws which were remarkably enlightened. The woman did not have the to marry the father of her child , but he had to continue support for the child, for example.
Church going was rather slack. And so were the priests. Probably a function of living in a place that was quite remote and cut off from the mainstream culture..
But things changed. The Devotional Revolution. One of the changes concerned the role and status of women. In particular illegitimacy of children was no longer tolerated. Families were disgraced and became social pariahs if an illegitimate child was born.
Women were supposed to emulate the purity of the Virgin Mary etc etc.
Many young women had to leave home, ending up as prostitutes on the streets of Dublin, for example. . They were pariahs, as were their families.
So what happened was that the illegitimacy was hidden. Either by leaving the family home or by concealing the birth.
The other alternative was the Magdalen Laundries which were in effect, prisons. The women never left them but worked there till they died.
As a result, of these cultural changes instigated by the Catholic church, infanticide increased significantly.
The Catholic priest played a role in policing illegitimate births. They would remove the offending female to the Magdelans.
This was the way it was in Connemara. The change began during the famine and continued on. The Catholic Church received a burst of support from the British government which increased the church’s power there.
I am like Paul on this one. I am increasingly mistrustful about information that blackens the Catholic Church in a context where it seems to me that civil society is out to destroy the Church's authority right now, and has been attempting this for quite some time now.
I notice that this situation seems to be in relation to the famine ? It would be logical that the famine exacerbated people's suffering, and while exacerbating their suffering, exacerbated... social intolerance at the same time.
I think it is important to remember that the idea that women should be chaste, and not have sexual relations outside of marriage is a very old one that can be seen all around the world, and is not reserved to the Catholic Church. Woman's purity and chastity is part of an antique code of honor which involves... controlling oneself in tempting circumstances. And way before the Catholic Church was on the scene, men liked to think that their children were theirs, and not somebody else's. That's the way it goes. We may not like it, but that's the way it was, and still is, elsewhere on the earth.
'A most diabolical deed': Infanticide and Irish society, 1850–1900
Elaine Farrell
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2013, ISBN: 9780719088209; 288pp.; Price: £65.00
One aim of ‘A Most Diabolical Deed’ is to dispense with a belief commonly held by many contemporaries that infanticide occurred rarely in Ireland. Farrell argues that infant murder was sometimes cast as an English problem; as a symptom of the loose moral culture of industrialised England that could be idyllically compared to moral, chaste and virtuous rural Ireland. This claim formed part of a broader strategy, typically adopted by nationalists, of firmly distinguishing between national moral standards. In reality, this proposition was fallacious. As Farrell’s thorough statistical analysis in her first chapter establishes, infant murder and concealment of birth took place on a weekly basis in post-Famine Ireland; the typical perpetrator being an unmarried women in her 20s, Roman Catholic and poor. Infanticide was a nationwide problem that afflicted industrialised regions in the north of the country as well as the chronically poor rural west. While motivations for infant murder are notoriously difficult to fully recapture, Farrell posits that the propensity of the Catholic Church to condemn abortion may have played some part in encouraging young pregnant women to wait until birth to deal with an unwanted child. As in many other countries, mothers suffocated, strangled, drowned, poisoned and burnt their new-born, abandoned them (alive or dead) in hidden locations and, sometimes, deposited them with the local church.
Thank you for providing this information Gayle. I have just seen your comment, sorry I replied at length to another thread which had quoted the same work. I hope you don't mind if I don't reply again here! I am unable to copy and paste the comment, but if you're interested I believe the following link will take you to my reply.
Wait.. this is not what you implied in your previous post. I thought you were saying that the Catholic Church authorities were taking these babies and disposing of them, but here the author is theorizing about mothers killing their babies. There is nothing here about Church leadership doing it.
Sorry about the misunderstanding. Yes the mothers were doing it. But iit was because the social stigma and shame associated with having an illegitimate child was too much to bear. The family would be ostracised for generations as having some kind of ‘weakness’ .
. The mother would be gathered up and taken to a Magdalen laundry by a local priest. Never to leave. A prisoner there forever until she died. It simply was impossible to continue one’s life if there was an illegitimate child. Ditto for the larger family which would be ostracised as well.
So the unwed mother did away with her child. I can’t imagine the mental and emotional trauma that this engendered.
When I was 22 and a university student, I got pregnant. I was not married.
My mother was Australian, but with Irish roots. She behaved just as if she was reared and living in 19 th century Ireland.
She asked me if I was pregnant one evening. I said ‘Yes,’. Her response? ‘Leave this house and never darken the doorstep again. I don’t want the neighbours to know. ‘.
I was left to try and struggle on with no resources. I did have a partner, the father, but he was feckless and soon disappeared when the going got tough.
I was astonished at how the old way of thinking and feeling- the shame and stigma - that my mother thought would result, had survived.
She herself had experienced a similar experience with the local Roman Catholicc priest. My mother was married to a Protestant.
The priest came round one day and told my mother that all her children were illegitimate because she had married a Protestant. She left the Catholic Church but never really quite recovered her former self. She had a few breakdowns.
Neither did she ever forgive me. I had so little money when my baby was born, that I struggled to feed myself. I was seriously undernourished. I suffered malnutrition. The University stepped in and supported me till I could get on my feet and take a teaching job. But hey. Here I am . Writing about it 50 years on.
Magdalene Laundries continued in Ireland into the 1960s - a cousin of my father was sent to one after becoming pregnant in her early teens. The convention then was that the child would be adopted and the mother detained until the child’s 16th birthday. Though free to go, many were so fearful of the disapproval of their families and the community that they asked to stay on in seclusion.
By now it was about 1970. An older relative returned from England as an old bachelor and invited her to come and live with him as his housekeeper My grandmother, her aunt, was particularly outraged and the family scandal coming back to light, but they ignored her. Within a few years she was married with a new family but I don’t know if she ever contacted her first child.
So sad. My first awareness of the Magdalen laundries was in 1980. I saw a bunch of about twenty very old women shuffle into the cinema. They were led by a nun. The women were very old. Maybe 80 years or more.
I asked who they were. And my friend told me.
The women just shuffled along heads down.
I’m guessing that they had probably been in the Laundry for at least sixty years. May be more. Which means they’d been there since the turn of the century. Just because they had a baby. And weren’t married.
May the Lord God richly bless you and continue his good work in you till the end.
When my quasi-girlfriend and I got pregnant at 21, we resisted only slight pressure to abort by her parents. My parents persuaded me to adopt out. His mother in the end couldn’t do this; we raised him in separate home from the beginning outside of wedlock.
Each of us enjoyed forgiveness and embrace from most of our families and friends.
My family being liberal Mennonite, hers a bit more conservative but modern.
Our son is 22 now- embraced by both family sides. He was just baptized by free volition last year.
My mother was baptized Protestant as an adult, but was an ignorant bigot in terms of her knowledge of the Catholic Church which she professed to hate (although I still love her dearly, and she has been dead for many years now). In the 1970's I heard her express opinions about the Roman Catholic Church that you could have heard... in the 1600's.
Both my American parents were devout Protestants, and while I grew up during the sexual revolution, I knew that it would have killed them if I had become pregnant outside of marriage. Well... they would have been very very disappointed, shall we say...and knowing this contributed to my reticence to fully explore all the sexual freedom that was being preached by civil society at the time...Sexual "freedom" has some strings attached, and as far as I know, pregnancy is one of the risks involved. Acts DO have consequences...
It sounds as though your experience contributed to making you more confident in yourself, and your capacity to survive in the world. That is precious, and must serve you well.
Maybe you are correct. But I discovered how potent those cultural memes were if they survived, in respect of my mother.
She was hysterical one day. She had discovered that her beloved Irish grandmother had been illegitimate.
Turns out that her grandmother’s mother had left Ireland pregnant and arrived in Australia with a baby. She made the journey on her own.
I could not understand why my mother was so hysterical.
‘We are all illegitimate . All of us,’ she wailed. It didn’t matter that the deed happened in the 1880’s.
As I adverted to in my last post. The stigma lasted for generations, I did say ‘forever, but that was hyperbole. But if it was discovered later even eighty years on., the shame was still potent.
Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry that this happened to you. I also got pregnant out of wedlock at age 17. The father and I married, and that lasted for 3 years. Soon after I met and married the love of my life who raised both children from this first marriage and we had one of our own. My family was very forgiving of me and helped me a great deal, but this was in the 80s.
Well... thank God that somebody in my husband's family deposited a new-born on the steps of a church in the French countryside a few generations ago... because my children wouldn't be here otherwise.
I am not sure that the Church's attitude toward abortion is totally responsible for encouraging young pregnant women to wait until birth to deal with an "unwanted" child.
The abortion issue is a very explosive one, and for good reason.
In a context where the industrial revolution was steam-rolling over rural and urban communities all over the West, it is... normal for vulnerable women to "lose the North", as I like to say, and to radically negate their role as havens/refuges for the unborn. When the Machine revvs up, people suffer, and lose the North.
It is very tempting to talk about unwanted children, but giving birth is a very complicated experience that arouses many conflicting emotions. Where there is new life just on the horizon, death is never very far away.
And people lose the North... so easily.
Considering that we are talking about post-famine Ireland, isn't it possible that many people were unfortunately reduced to the belief that life was cheap at the time, and couldn't this feeling explain in part the rise ? in infanticide ?
Maybe it was t so much that life was cheap but that death by starvation was inevitable. To have to watch a baby starve to death would have been intolerable.
Sorry , I misread your last paragraph. I thought you were referring to the famine time itself.
As I understand it from my reading, the tendency to take the life of a baby was due to the strictness of the Devotional Revolution in its revision of Christian womanhood. Women were to be pure. As pure as the Virgin Mary.
Conceiving a child out of wedlock was became such a heinous crime that the entire family would conceal it by sending the girl away. Never to return if she still had the illegitimate child sans husband.
The stigma of a woman having an illegitimate child affected the entire family. They all became social pariahs, forever. Very harsh punishment if one lived in a tiny community in the West of Ireland.
So the pregnant girl often landed up in the Magdalens or left her family forever, often then ending up as a prostitution in Dublin, to try and survive.
The best conclusion was to get her married very quickly. And in the west of Ireland this often meant marrying an elderly bachelor farmer. Of whom there were many as they could not marry until they inherited the farm. But this was only possible when their own father died. The inheriting son might be in his sixties before he could marry.
And the pregnant girl might not be given any choice about it. Marriages were arranged by the relevant fathers of the couple involved. Personal feelings such as love for the proposed marriage partner played no part.
In fact this was normal for marriage making. It was never about love. For the farmer of means it was about land and dowry that was brought to the table by the girl’s father. For the tenant farmer it was about the strength and brawn of the proposed partner. The ability of the girl do the same work as a man. Such as bringing up the bags of turf from the bog.
As I have adverted to in another post, the shame that attended the family of a pregnant unmarried girl hung on down the generations. My own mother on discovering I was pregnant and not married three me out and told me to never darken the door again. She did not want the neighbours to know.
She was third generation Irish Australian. Yet the old attitudes survived along with snatches of Irish, passed down from her Gaelic speaking ancestral grandmother.
Just to conclude. It may well have been easier to do away with the baby , in the light of the consequences of producing an illegitimate child. Where would a whole family of peasant farmers go to remake their lives? They would become homeless and thus itinerants without home or income. Ireland still has the descendants of such itinerant farmers from the 19th century. . But now they have caravans and cars. They are descended from the dispossessed landless peasants that lost their once leased bits of land.
I will never forget a priest, friend of mine, explaining once during mass how that belief on Limbo had finally changed, and then bursting into tears and asking God and parents for forgiveness
There are also unmarked burial grounds in the North West of Scotland where unbaptised infants were interred. Though it did not last as long as in Ireland (dying out in the 19th century) the practice continued well after the Protestant Reformation., and for much longer than in Lowland, English speaking Scotland. In the 1800s those areas were strictly Presbyterian, and the idea of Limbo was regarded as a superstitious heresy, but still old practices survived. Those areas were Gaelic speaking until not so long ago, sharing much Celtic heritage with Ireland. Another hold over from pre-Reformation times was the treatment of the bodies of still born infants. In some areas of the Scottish Highlands they were buried separately and at night, and this continued into the early 20th century. Drowned bodies washed up on the shore were treated with fear into the mid 1800s. Burial of a suicide was surrounded by strong taboos into the 20th century. It is interesting how long some of these beliefs survived, despite the changes in the formal religion and the "banishing" of superstition.
'The holy lande of Irelande' (Anon) is not a far-off place. Takes me back to when BBC radio in the early 1950s got interested in folk song other than the bowdlerised versions we were used to in primary school. I managed to corner the family 'wireless' enough to listen in another room. I suppose it must have been early Alan Lomax, Peggy Seeger, Euan McColl and the producer whose name escapes me. Field sound recording had come on apace in the war and this early series was mostly field recording across the British Isles. They told us that the recording team had found themselves beside this song by accident and had debated their intrusion on privacy and the ethics of broadcasting it. A young woman was keening her sorrow for her dead baby to the waves alone beside the Atlantic. It is very faint now but I can still hear her.
Thank you for teaching me about the difference between Limbo and Purgatory, Paul.
You've hit on a subject this Sunday morning that is one of the hardest ones to deal with in our perception of Christianity and sin.
Ironically enough, one of the most perspicacious explorations of sin, inherited sin, comes from "Oedipus Turannos", well before the Gospels were written. (I probably have a reading of Sophocles which has been deeply influenced by Christianity in that I believe that Laïos, Oedipus's father, was guilty of a terrible breach of the antique laws of hospitality when he seduced the young son of one of his hosts, with the consequence that the young man committed suicide, and... the (pagan) gods were not at all happy that their unwritten laws had been transgressed.)
Sophocles' play explores the FACT that the sins of the fathers have consequences on their... innocent children, even their unborn children. This is a... fact, I believe, and the Bible holds this to be true also. And it caracterizes the fallen world, where acts continually have consequences that go way beyond the moment when they are committed. We may not like to recognize this... fact, and the modern world definitely does not want to recognize it at all, but missing the mark, or taking a wrong turn (sinistra ?) does have effects that go beyond the time frame of the individual. The modern world, where heredity has become a concept that is firmly attached to the realm of biology, resorts to the concept of illness to take away the idea of responsibility. But taking away responsibility also takes away the power to change... oneself, the world. If only getting rid of guilt and responsibility did not entail losing so much power...and don't try to tell me that popping pills and seeing doctors gives us a sense of power over our lives. (I am not against having a sense of power in one's life. We are not supposed to be.. worms to avoid hubris. That's leaving Scylla to embark for Charybdis.)
When we recognize and accept this, what do we, can we do with it ?
What can Oedipus do with it, Oedipus who has a certain personal responsibility in his fate, but has inherited a place, an origin that can not allow him to be upright in the world ?
When Oedipus is cast out of Thebes, and condemned to wander as an impure man, is he in limbo, purgatory... exile ? hell ?
At the end of his journey, he has become a monument, (not a well, and the place where he disappears is not a place of pilgrimage, either), and his legacy is supposed to protect the City. His personal fate is tragic, but he is transformed to protect the City. His legendary anger is a positive force that the City needs to protect it.
Reading people with mystic bents at your place reminds me, Paul, that in the fallen world, love is not an absolute good, because there are no absolute "goods" in the fallen world. In mine, at least. And what is "love" ? Can too much of a "good" thing make it evil, and turn it into something that makes you miss the mark, or the way ? That is the way I understand the fallen world, in any case.
And I am not sure that I would want to live in an unfallen world, despite all the modern enthusiasm for ersatzes of paradise here and now, no... waiting, and on credit.
I will have to get back to you on this one, Mark. I will be rather busy for the upcoming few days, and reading this comment and responding to it in a thoughtful manner will take me some time. Thank you for your understanding.
I'm glad you tackled the issue of the Killeen's Paul. You are right, they are dotted all around Ireland. For me, they are a reminder of how dark and unforgiving the Church I was brought up in could be. You are I suspect right, the phenomenally rapid collapse in the moral authority and "hold" the RC Church had on the people of Ireland is I suspect a form of "payback" for this, and I'm sorry to add, numerous other mean and unloving aspects of Roman Catholic hegemony in Ireland.
What is remarkable to me is that this change has occurred within my life time. As a child in the 1960s, staying the long summer holidays in rural Kerry at my Grandparents small farm, I remember that most of the Irish people I knew, were in thrall psychologically and emotionally to the Roman Catholic priesthood. This vanished like "snow off a dyke on a sunny morning" from the late 1980s onwards.
I have returned "home" to Ireland for the past 24 years, and in that time the RC Church has taken such a collective kicking from the new high priests of secularism in Irish cultural and political life who now determine Irish mores, that it has brought to mind the image of an aging gang boss being kicked to a pulp by a squad of tough young usurpers. Repeatedly receiving kicks to the head long after he had expired. The assailants continuing their booting and wounding of the ousted dead leader to extend the humiliation, and to emphasise to all of us watching, the fate that awaits anyone who thinks to challenge them.
For me, that's how it feels, we have a new "priesthood" here in Ireland, they pervade our media, cultural, and political life, and they possess every bit of the arrogance and rectitude of the Roman Catholic hierarchs of the 1930s or 1950s.
In the same way that poor old insecure and self doubting Ireland strove to be the most Catholic of all the Catholic nations of the earth, so too does Ireland in the 21st century take a strange pride in its "progressive" and "woke" credentials internationally, as ever, seeking verification and affirmation from those they consider to be the arbiters of all that is creditable and worthy.
Ireland in the 21st century looks to me like a nation that has "thrown the baby out with the bath water", an old and pungent saying, which is appropriate to a sense of absence and loss, which sadly has made Ireland increasingly similar in many ways to all the other cookie cutter small to medium sized secular liberal EU nations, with all the attendant dominant
'liberal values' which render them incapable of even perceiving, far less preventing, their eventual disappearance as distinct and vibrant nations.
I think you're spot on here John. This is how it looks to this Englishman living in Ireland too. The new priesthood ostentatiously burying the old one. Babies and bathwater indeed.
Seeking, I checked out both of your suggestions. I found them both very interesting, and their observations about a consensus crisis and Nagle's suggestion that Ireland's elites behave similarly to a "comprador" class, "managing" the estate on behalf of larger internationally more significant economic forces is perceptive and persuasive. Both writers correctly perceive the virtual lack of dissent in Ireland from the "everyone knows" narrative so dominant here, as an indicator of a fear of rocking the boat, since the social costs of open dissent from the left/ liberal narrative here, are relatively high in this small highly socially interconnected island society. Thank you for these suggestions, I had heard of Angela Nagle, but was not aware of her thoughts on contemporary Ireland. I had not come across Conor Fitzpatrick before, however.
Yeah, she's Irish (or at least has Irish parents and grew up here). Fitzpatrick is excellent.
I couldn't quite follow Angela's argument about the "universalist moral code" of imperial powers, can you?:-
"The motivation behind the Dublin riot is as old as collective human existence: If a male outsider hurts or kills women and children, a violent response follows. This principle is overridden by force in imperial systems, where the overarching power strategy of territorial expansion necessitates a universalist moral code. Rome had one, the Soviet Union had one, and the United States has one. For a small island nation with no imperial ambitions, this arrangement has to be awkwardly enforced by an administrative and comprador class in exchange for financial and status benefits. When those benefits are felt only by an elite, violent retaliation is the predictable result."
What does she mean there about our moral system being different to imperial ones, relative to the riots?
I'm not sure either, she seemed on firmer ground when talking about an elite in Ireland which behaves as though they were a "comprador class", and I certainly found I instinctively agreed with her on the high level of "compliance" in Irish mainstream society because of the high social costs of dissent. I listened to a couple of interviews with her last night, and I found some of her ideas rather abstract at times. I get the impression she's a left leaning intellectual at home in that sociology / cultural studies milieu, which can be ever so "theoretically" oriented. There is though, to me, an impression from her of a growing impatience with the left/intersectionalist "woke" shibboleths which she has been perhaps constrained by in the past. She seems to be moving towards a centre left critique of "open borders", and her willingness to challenge the group think on this has to be welcomed. I wonder if there will come a time, perhaps sooner than she thinks, where she will be turned on and "cancelled", the traction her writing is getting from those ideologically to her right, I suspect may speed this process. I wonder when and how she will be denounced?
Oh she's already effectively been cancelled as when she came to prominence it was for a book that the thoughtless progressives thought was a criticism of the alt right but ultimately went pretty hard on the ridiculous side of the progressive left too. She's also appeared on Tucker a few times which is complete no no in respectable media circles.
She was also effectively cancelled for writing a piece on just what you said, arguing that open borders are bad for the left as they force wages of working class people down. This is undoubtedly correct but the shibboleths fall hard among the non-thinking classes. I think I'd regard her as being left wing economically but probably right wing socially, though I'm convinced the concepts of left and right aren't really the same any more.
Either way, I find her very interesting. She's the kind of voice (like Paul's here) I'd love to see on RTE or in Irish media more, I think it would go a long way to addressing our consensus problem.
That's interesting, if sadly rather predictable. I certainly find in Ireland that the range of "acceptable opinions" is rather limited. Any other good suggestions for alternative thinkers on Ireland..
Yes, Angela Nagle is long cancelled. Like the best of us ;-) She got a good kicking from her fellow leftists in 2018, when she did indeed lay out that left critique of open borders here:
I thought it was a brilliant piece and very hard to argue with. I noticed that those who piled on to her from the left had no argument to offer as they did so. Lots of accusations of racism, etc, but I didn't see anyone taking her up on the actual points made. Probably for good reason.
Absolutely true, so tragic on all fronts. Tragic that Ireland has forsaken its own soul. But Ireland doesn’t stand alone in this phenomenon, it’s all over countries in the West ...look at the UK..
Regarding the root of the word 'sin', I don't know the details but I gather that there's also an argument that it could mean 'debt'. In which case, there's an argument to be made that Jesus was an early monetary reformer. After all, he did get angry at the money-lenders....
I'm not being flippant here. Being a promoter of the forgiveness of debt has many connotations, but even if you look at it from a purely practical level, such an attitude shows great compassion and care. And of course it's the opposite of the traditional notion of being burdened with personal guilt just for the sin of being born, as if we are automatically born into emotional debt, as well as these days often being born into financial debt and wage slavery.
I have lost friends for suggesting that Jesus was VERY INTERESTED in economic matters ; it shows up in the context of many of his parables, and I surmise that there was a banking/monetary crisis in Judea, and in the larger Roman "empire" at the time.
I believe that the monetary/banking crisis was tied to the status of work, as slavery itself went into a state of crisis with so many people being freed during Augustus' reign that he had to issue legislation to curtail, and strictly control emancipation. Slavery had the advantage of giving some people a roof over their heads, which can be helpful and desirable sometimes, contrary to modern opinions on the subject. So many freed slaves puts a tremendous burden on your society, pushing upward mobility, and Rome definitely suffered from this problem. Upward mobility is great when your Empire and its influence are expanding, but when they are declining ? Maybe the world looks like what ours looks like right now ?
Beautifully written, highly informative. I didn't know the different theories about Original Sin before! It's clear that Original Sin allowed Rome to maintain a kind of extortionate power over the people, a protection racket. The church threatened certain death unless you followed orders and paid the fees.
Somebody DID write a book about getting lost! Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost. I haven't read that one, but Solnit is a wonderful essayist and I love her book Wanderlust, which is about...walking one of my favorite things.
And just yesterday I saw one of those horrid electronic billboards, on the highway by the local mall, that reads, "Pray for the souls in purgatory." Somebody paid a bunch of money to broadcast that message. My cellphone may be Satanic, but I use it to read your Substack - and at least I can choose when to pull it out of my pocket and look at it, or not. That billboard, with its gaudy lights assaulting the eyeballs amid the beauty of the Appalachian hills, feels like the greater sin.
Many moons ago when they first cropped at the edge of the cities here I used to fantasized about placing small controlled explosives at the base of these by night and bring them down.
Back then I reasoned if I kept my mouth shut no one would ever imagine a mild mannered Kindergarten teacher was the vandal!
... I'm fine if anyone respectable out there wants to steal my idea. I'm too old now. :)
I don't know. There is a French intellectual, Jacques Le Goff, who wrote a very documented book about the Roman Catholic Church's invention of Purgatory. The invention of Purgatory bottoms out the binary system of "if you don't go to heaven, you go to hell", and the theological elaboration of Purgatory goes hand in hand with the elaboration of the modern criminal justice system, with its mitigating circumstances, for example. Roman law has had a tremendous impact on our criminal justice systems, although that might be changing now.
For sure, our modern societies are not keen on mitigating circumstances right now, I fear...
There is a church near where I live in southern Germany where they discovered the remains of so-called "Traufenkinder", lit. "eaves children" - babies who died before they could be baptised, and who were buried not in the graveyard, but where rainwater would drip down from the church eaves. This water was believed to have been sanctified by contact with the church roof and thus blessed the unbaptised children lying below. An attempt by the anguished families to provide a kind of posthumous baptism.
It's heartbreaking that it had to happen this way also so profoundly beautiful an expression of these mothers' love triumphing over all- even the moral and spiritual laws (as they would have understood it). I see here a testimony to the "inner heart" alive and beating in these anguished mothers. The true centre of our perception of God: faith and hope that pass understanding. For what "religion" did our father Abraham have to orient him? No- he had his "nous"- his inner spiritual heart/intellect, clean and perceptive to know the will of his Creator.
Likewise these bereaved mothers, that regardless the corruption of religious wolves making twice the sons of hell in false dogma, the nous that perceives God's love and energy directly- it transcended all law in the hearts of these mothers.
And they were right- the rainwater falling from the house of prayer was their loving tears baptizing their own lost infants.
That is beautiful, and a testimony to the human ability to find ways of getting around official, and institutional prohibitions in certain circumstances.
It is not slander. The Irish were being drawn away from their own ancient Coptic Christianity that was melded with pagan spirituality, toRoman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church was harsh in its efforts to convert the Irish to Roman Catholicism. The idea of purity was so demanding of the women that they killed their babies rather than suffer the consequences from the church. Of course they would have spent their lives on the Magdalen laundries as well, until they died. They were treated as hoors and the family’s name was blackened for generations.
I'm often fascinated by the continued survival of the idea that Ireland and England had some form of early Christianity that had nothing to do with Rome. I've met good and faithful Anglicans who do all sorts of gymnastics to avoid the obvious: that the Christian faith arrived in these islands effectively from the Roman empire, and the church that spread through that empire was clearly Roman. The earliest liturgies performed in these islands were in Latin, performed by people who believed what is essentially the Catholic faith: and they believed essentially in the "primacy of Peter". No-one has to like either of these things, but they're true. All of the earliest Holy books we have extant from the 'dark ages' in these countries are in Latin: the Cathach of Columba (mid 6th century) and the Book of Kells are both in Latin, and are essentially copies of the 'Vulgate bible'. The earliest missale (mass book) is the Stowe Missal: all in Latin of course, and it has a variation of the Roman canon called the 'Gelasian Canon', as far as I am aware it is so called because it is also found in the 'Gelasian Sacramentary', a book to which is attached the description Liber sacramentorum Romanae ecclesiae ("Book of Sacraments of the Church of Rome"). This all happens a couple of hundred years before the Normans enforced Roman canon law. If you would rather date the 'arrival' of Roman Catholicism to the date of the synod of Whitby then you may: but you will have to persuade sceptics like myself why the 'Celtic' church so readily agreed to change their customs - the record shows that it is because they believed already in the primacy of the Seat of Peter: Rome.
You're welcome to believe that the Roman Catholic church erred, this is standard Orthodox and Protestant belief. But believing that there was some earlier church in these isles that was not clearly Roman and Catholic in practise and belief, is contrary to all historical evidence.
Look up who is the Bishop of the Catholic church in Co Clare. (I don't have the correct ecclesiastical name of the area but I can get it.) It is the Pope that is the Bishop in Clare. And for good r reason. The locals refused to comply with the Roman calendar and continued to use the old old non Roman one.. Easter was a particular issue. So in the 19th century the Bishop had to wade in and become the bishop of the local area. A Celtic Christianity was built from Celtic spirituality and Coptic Christianity. That is not contestable.
THE QUEST FOR CELTIC CHRISTIANITY by Donald Meek (Edinburgh, 2000, reprinted 2010) is worth a look. A native Gaelic speaker and professor of Celtic Studies. Perhaps a bit dry but seems a pretty even handed look at the evidence.
He says "....neither my knowledge of the Christian faith nor my loyalty to the proper discipline of Celtic Studies will allow me to offer misleading and comforting tales of a spiritual Shangri La somewhere back in the mists of time which is overflowing with wisdom for our post modern age".
I think the last bit is a bit of a polite "dig" at what he sees as the cultural appropriation by some modern "devotees" who might not be Celtic or Christian.
I’m not sure there was a ‘quest’ for a Celtic Christianity per se, in Ireland. It just happened naturally because the Celtic culture was alive in some places such as Connemara, well into the nineteenth century. Christianity was was also ‘live ‘. The two cultural traditions sort of knitted into each other especially since the Catholic Church appropriated. Celtic spiritual practices and reinterpreted them in terms of a Christian meaning. eg., Holy wells.
I'm not sure this is true. There's a building body of evidence for the influence of Coptic Christianity in Ireland before Patrick, and I find it quite convincing. This doesn't amount to an independent 'Celtic Church' later destroyed by Rome; I think you're right to reject that notion. But I'm not sure at all that the missionaries of Rome were the first on these shores. I think that the Egyptians, with their Christianity much more influenced by the Desert Fathers, may well have arrived before them. And it is obviously true that Celtic and mainstream European spirituality differed enough for both to have to go head to head at Whitby and elsewhere.
The Roman Catholic Church really only managed to oust the older Christianity in Ireland during the famine. And I’m sure it was Irish monks that brought Christianity to Europe in the dark ages after the Romans left.
This is very interesting, thanks Paul. And as we both believe the Church was essentially united at that point (i.e. before St Patrick, if we consider him a 'Roman missionary'), then I think we can both rejoice at however the faith arrived on these shores! I found one good account of this theory online (Abba Seraphim on Britishorthodoxy.org), but if you have any further information regarding this I am certainly interested.
Incidentally, I find it more interesting that, if there was a Coptic foundation before Patrick, the tradition so quickly blended into the Latin tradition with no trace of controversy or opposition. As with the synod of Whitby, this seems to clearly demonstrate the organic continuance of a faith that was already essentially in line with Rome (or, 'the Rome of that time', if you prefer). The interesting thing is not that Celtic Christianity 'clashed' with Rome at Whitby, but rather that it peacefully agreed with Rome, as both sides shared the same first principles. In other words, that they were essentially both the same side.
It is not what everyone wants to be reading about the church in the run up to Christmas. Which is why it is a timely post.
Being indifferent to the importance of baptism is also an extreme, which is common today.
I'm sure that's true also.
There is an old Russian Orthodox video, called Russian Mystery which begins with one of the most powerful baptism scenes by a priest that I have ever seen. It also shows how a nation fell away from Christ but is now returning after a terrible spiritual winter. So hopeful. You can find it on Youtube.
@Bush Hermit I tried putting the search term in Youtube "Russian Mystery". Nothing with that title came up. Are you sure its actually named that in the title? I am really interested in checking it out.
https://www.orthodoxwitness.org/russian-mystery-video/
Yes, it is worth watching. Wrenchingly sad in parts.
My favourite parts are toward the end- When the bishop (?) speaks somewhere around 50 minutes I think... placing prayer and spiritual healing at the centre of ALL healthy social and political reform that Russians hoped for at the collapse of Soviet power.
No more finding the right solutions outside our hearts! Instead, inner spiritual healing. It's the ONLY way for the good we want outwardly, socially, politically, economically, environmentally, etc., to follow.
This is true for the West as well. What we lack, is repentance. We've taken a wrong turn. We cant just keep going. We have to humble ourselves and return to the the Source.
ON THE TRAIL OF THE SEVEN COPTIC MONKS IN IRELAND
The Coptic Orthodox Church has long known of the historic links between the British Isles and Christian Egypt, but documentation and solid evidence is thin on the ground for these early centuries of church history. There are learned articles by Monique Blanc-Ortolan of the Musee des Arts dE9coratifs, Paris, and Pierre du Bourguet of the Louvre on ‘Coptic and Irish Art’ and by Joseph F.T. Kelly of John Carroll University, Cleveland, Ohio, on ‘Coptic Influences in the British Isles’ in the Coptic Encyclopedia which are worth consulting. Other works, like Shirley Toulson’s The Celtic Year, which asserts that “rather than adhere to the ruling of the Council [of Chalcedon], some of the most dedicated adherents of Monophysitism fled from Egypt, and some of them most surely travelled west and north to Ireland”, in their enthusiasm to establish a link, make up what is lacking in hard evidence with sheer conjecture and fantasy.
The late Archdale King noted the links between Celtic Ireland and Coptic Egypt. He suggests that much of the contact took place before the Muslim Conquest of 640. There exists evidence of a Mediterranean trade in a single passage in the life of St. John the Almsgiver (Ioannes III Eleemon), Greek Patriarch of Alexandria between 610-621, in which reference is made to a vessel sailing to Alexandria from Britain with a cargo of tin, doubtless come from Cornwall or Somerset.
King observes that the kind of asceticism associated with the Desert Fathers was especially congenial to the Irish but refers to Dom Henri Leclercq’s suggestion that Celtic monasticism was directly derived from Egypt, as an “unsubstantiated hypothesis”. No serious historian, however, would deny that first-hand knowledge of the Desert Fathers was brought directly to the South of Gaul by St. John Cassian and that the links between the British and Gallican churches were especially strong at this period. King nevertheless admits that the grouping together of several small churches within a cashel or fortified enclosure seems to support Leclercq’s view.
King mentions an Ogham inscription on a stone near St. Olan’s Well in the parish of Aghabulloge, County Cork, which scholars interpret as reading: ‘Pray for Olan the Egyptian.’ Professor Stokes tells us5 about the Irish monk Dicuil, who around 825 wrote his Liber de Mensure orbis terre describing the pyramids as well as an ancient precursor of the Suez Canal. It would seem that Egypt was often visited by pilgrims to the Holy Land. Stokes instances the Saltair Na Rann, an anthology of biblical poems attributed to Oengus the Culdee, but containing the sixth or seventh century Book of Adam and Eve, composed in Egypt and known in no other European country except Ireland.
King also notes that one of the commonest names for townlands or parishes is Disert or ‘Desert’: a solitary place in which anchorites were established. Presumably the same etymology gives us the Scottish Dysart, just north of Kirkcaldy, and the Welsh Dyserth, to the south of Prestatyn ? This would then present a consistent picture common to Celtic Christianity. The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, an early ninth century monastic bishop of Clonenagh (Co. Offaly) and later of Tallaght, has a litany invoking ‘Seven monks of Egypt in Disert Uilaig, I invoke unto my aid, through Jesus Christ.’ [Morfesseor do manchaib Egipr(e) in disiurt Uilaig]. The Antiphonary of Bangor (dating from between 680-691) also contains the text:
” … Domus deliciis plena Super petram constructa Necnon vinea vera Ex Aegypto transducta …”
which is translated as:
” … House full of delight Built on the rock And indeed true vine Translanted from Egypt …”
Providence undoubtedly put me in touch with Fr. Feargal Patrick McGrady, priest of Ballymena, County Antrim in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Down and Connor. As well as being a native of Downpatrick (the burial place of St. Patrick), Father Feargal is enthusiastic about the Eastern churches and holds His Holiness Pope Shenouda in high esteem. He was delighted to assist with my enquiries and very soon made contacts with local historians, who are the real source of the information we need.
Dr. Cahal Dallat, Genealogist and Historical Consultant, of Ballycastle, County Antrim, identified Disert Ilidh or Uilaigh with Dundesert, near Crumlin, county Antrim, which is to the north-west of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, between Belfast International Airport and Templepatrick.
Mr. Bobbie Burns, a local historian living in Crumlin, was another link in the chain. He produced a report in the Belfast Telegraph of 13th July 1936 under the headline “Unique Once Famous Ulster Church: Neglected Crumlin Ruins”, which showed the ruins of the medieval church built on the site of an earlier shrine. The local historical group is taking a renewed interest in the site and the local Protestant landowner has given permission for them to come and go freely to the site. It is hoped that they might obtain a grant to restore the dilapidated ruins but they are excited by its more ancient and possible Coptic connections. The site is approached by a path along the side of a grazing field 200-300 metres from Poplar Road. It is on the steep bank of the Crumlin River, which is a large free-flowing river, but is more than 100 metres from the water. Access is easy in dry weather, but not pleasant after heavy rain. The terrain inside the enclosure is very rough. The ground is strewn with boulders which have either fallen or been removed from the medieval walls. Parts of the medieval walls, in places three feet thick and covered in ivy, survive on the east (or gable) and south sides. The east wall contains two arched recesses or sedilia, now only about four feet in height but probably much higher if their foundations were cleared of the extensive in-fill of stones and earth. The gable rises to around thirty feet in height but a number of stones have already been removed and were any more to go it would be undermined and likely to collapse. What remains of the wall at the other end is much lower. It is likely that the whole structure would have been removed long ago but for the difficulties of dislodging stone from the walls and the problem of transportation to the road.
We are grateful for the efforts of these local enthusiasts for having preserved these ancient ruins and look forward to making further discoveries about the last resting place of the seven monks of Egypt.
Abba Seraphim
For our consideration:
Touching on the deep issues of the historical unfolding of the theological divergence between Eastern Orthodoxy (roughly, resting in the consensus of the Fathers) and Roman Catholicism (roughly, resting in exclusive reliance on the theologoumena of solitary Father Augustine- who on most key theological points struck a discordant note with his contemporaries, notably the Cappadocians):
At about the same time St Augustine was developing his doctrine of a "hell-light" for unbaptized babies- corollary to his theological doctrine of "original sin" which he held in part due to his awful mistranslation of the scriptures (not being a native Greek reader)-
We have an Eastern Christian Father, Gregory of Nyssa, thinking on the very same question-
What is the fate of deceased unbaptized babies?
Gregory's thought shows sure signs of the theological vein that will be recognized as Orthodox, and how different this Orthodox phronema, the "consensus of the Fathers," is from the theological and spiritual framework Augustine is developing and assuming.
There is no "stain" of "original sin" present in his thought on human nature. There is a therapeutic understanding of salvation- to be saved is to be healed. Sin is the symptom of an inner spiritual illness- it is contageous, and its wages are death.
But what if an infant had no oportunity to exercise it's intelligence and will toward good or evil? What is the "natural state" of the human substance upon birth?
Is human nature good? Or evil?
What happens to this "nature" in itself, if it fails to develop toward the good (sainthood) or fall away from the good (apostacy)?
In his essay, "On Infant's Early Death," writing at the end of the 4th century just like Augustine was,
Gregory's theologoumenon runs strikingly contrary to Augustine. Gregory is thinking differently than we would today about the question. His sentiments are not ours; he was familiar with ubiquitous death being faced directly by an intact society in a way we are not.
He is thinking instead in terms of just desserts for a life of hard-won repentance running the race to the end-
If an infant who dies receives the same reward as a man who must struggle through a long life of great temptations and sufferings with real peril to his soul, then wouldn't infant death be preferable to life which risks a failed outcome?
So there must be something advantageous to living a full life oriented toward God in faith. Nevertheless, what he says about the "nature" of the undeveloped prematurely deceased infant is strikingly different from Agustine's line of speculation.
Gregory writes:
"What we are to think of those who are taken prematurely, the moment of whose birth almost coincides with that of their death?..."
"as regards this question of the infants: we may say that the enjoyment of that future life does indeed belong of right to the human being ["Human Being" for Gregory isn't a species name but a goal some born of man attain to. One has to *become* human, which means arriving at the full stature of the One Human Being in whose image we are made, Jesus Christ, through the free operation of personal our rational will], but that, seeing the plague of ignorance has seized almost all now living in the flesh, he who has purged himself of it by means of the necessary courses of treatment receives the due reward of his diligence, when he enters on the life that is truly natural; while he who refuses Virtue's purgatives and renders that plague of ignorance, through the pleasures he has been entrapped by, difficult in his case to cure, gets himself into an unnatural state, and so is estranged from the truly natural life, and has no share in the existence which of right belongs to us and is congenial to us. Whereas the innocent babe has no such plague before its soul's eyes obscuring its measure of light, and so it continues to exist in that natural life; it does not need the soundness which comes from purgation, because it never admitted the plague into its soul at all. "
"the soul that has never felt the taste of virtue [i.e. infants who die upon being born, before baptism], while it may indeed remain perfectly free from the sufferings which flow from wickedness having never caught the disease of evil at all, does nevertheless in the first instance partake only so far in that life beyond (which consists, according to our previous definition, in the knowing and being in God) as this nursling can receive; until the time comes that it has thriven on the contemplation of the truly Existent as on a congenial diet, and, becoming capable of receiving more, takes at will more from that abundant supply of the truly Existent which is offered.
Having, then, all these considerations in our view, we hold that the soul of him who has reached every virtue in his course, and the soul of him whose portion of life has been simply nothing, are equally out of the reach of those sufferings which flow from wickedness. "
- St Gregory of Nyssa, "Father of Fathers" in the Eastern Orthodox Church, writing about the same time as Blessed Augustine, who would become essentially the sole early pillar of the Western Christian Tradition.
A strikingly different moral, spiritual, and theological worldview already evident.
[note: 2000 years into this game it's easy to misunderstand terms. Orthodoxy does not have a doctrine "purgatory". The "purging" St Gregory references is from St Paul, 1 Cor. 3:15: all of us will be salted with fire, "If [what we've done with our free lives] is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames."]
Just wanted to note that the Catholic concept of purgatory references 1 Corinthians 3:15 and that the teaching developed largely in connection to 2 Maccabees 12:42-46, that explicitly relates the operative principle re prayers/ offerings for the dead. Clement of Alexandria first outlines a concept in the East in the 2nd century and what St. Gregory of Nyssa states stands in no contradiction to what little St. Augustine offers on the subject. The Latin church in isolation did develop innovative applications of the principle, but an argument can be made that from the outlook of mercy, this teaching exceeds the mercy of St. John Chrysostom's principle that no penance offered toward the effect of eternal salvation is possible after death. What matters principally is what's true- there have been several efforts to reconcile the different approaches of East and West that present an apparent contradiction. Many, including myself, believe that a synthesis is possible. Anything I know of the topic is taken from Ratzinger/ Benedict XVI. l would side with the Cappadocian Fathers to the fullest extent possible, but any Catholic is free to believe that this purgation is a part of the transformative work that accompanies the resurrection of the Dead on the Day of Judgment.
As far as unbaptized infants, what has been alleged is true and that much is acknowledged by the teaching office of Rome in a link provided below. I would characterize the efforts to codify this teaching as a misunderstanding of the mission of the the Church, akin to the Reformation era tendency to teach by anathema. Regarding the variance with the East, they suggest the issue was not explicitly dealt with by the Eastern Fathers as they had no necessity to respond to a contrary teaching on baptism presented by the Pelagians. The document provides two exceptions, though: Pseudo-Athanasios says clearly that an unbaptised person cannot enter the Kingdom of God. He also asserts that unbaptised children will not enter the Kingdom, but neither will they be lost, for they have not sinned.[12] Anastasius of Sinai expresses this even more clearly: for him, unbaptised children do not go to Gehenna. But he is not able to say more; he does not express an opinion about where they do go, but leaves their destiny to God’s judgment.[13] So here at least are some Eastern theologians seeming to arrive at "limbo," because revelation provided them no ability to say else. I think it is more than likely that the Eastern Fathers would have taken a divergent view from St. Augustine. I cannot imagine St Basil in particular doing otherwise. But there is speculation here. Rome has been careful to articulate the occasions teachers have overstepped the boundaries of teaching authority in faith and morals in recent times. The formulation for this understanding is often heard along the lines: the Church holds to the teaching that she received, but admits that God is not limited and capable of effecting salvation by mysterious means. Such is the claim made in the current catechism (paragraph 1257).
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html
I feel much kinship of course with much of traditional Roman Catholicism- and much more so with some of her dearest saints.
However there is a very different ethos to the spirituality and ecclesiology of the two Churches and traditions, East and West. How we understand and work out our salvation and spiritual lives "on the ground" has a very different quality, feeling, and praxis than it does in R. Catholicism.
For example it is right to point out that Orthodoxy "handles" the diversity among the fathers differently- on a great many matters the Orthodox Church has not pronounced dogmatically. This is often frustrating to exacting Roman Catholic scholars and pious Catholic laity, but to us Orthodox it is fitting. It gives breathing room where there should be some (for the Body *within* Orthodoxy is itself rightly diverse; very different paths for different icons of Christ to find their unique identity in Christ and expression of personal holiness.)
We Orthodox lack a robust scholastic tradition with all the complex intellectual and (from our vantage point) legalistic need to point out ways in which current Catholic ethos which has changed remarkably since Vat.2, feels and thinks and behaves so very differently... while it's still the same spiritual path? It's not like that for us as Orthodox as we reconcile ourselves with our Tradition. Generally, we dont have a need or desire to do this sort of "legal proof that technically what we're teaching and practicing now is not inconsistent with past teachings and practices in our Church".
We approach the Eastern Holy Orthodox Tradition in what I would call a less precise, spelled out way. Lots left ambiguous- on purpose, sometimes just by aparent Providential guiding of the Holy Spirit through forms of oppression (e.g. under Ottomans, under Russian Tsar since Great Peter's reforms, etc.) We have never gotten quite so organized and powerful; having a papacy making authoritative or at least very de facto persuasive dictates as to what our praxis rightly is, and reaching so deeply and powerfully into political significance (papacy as it became developed of course, the height being infallibility ex cathedra; a total impossibility in the conciliar model of hierarchical leadership in Orthodoxy).
What is going to be the Ethos of a church that has *one* "Doctor among doctors"- St Augustine, and One Bishop above all other bishops, the Pope, after many many centuries...?
It will be and in fact is a different Ethos than we have in the Orthodox Church, with many ruling Bishops- each equal and not able to direct matters in each others' parishes- who must reach something of a consensus on the grounds that Christ alone is our Head. And Many early Church Fathers in fruitful dialogue with each other, who were closer to the languages and cultures of the Scriptures and the early church?
Very different "feel" to the lived experience within the two divided, East and West.
If you find Christ in his fullness in the Roman Catholic Church, then be blessed where Christ is calling you!
I do not find it so.
I do find fullness of Christ and no impediment to the workings of Holy Sprit in the Orthodox Church. So here I remain, and I would be resistant to a "synthesis" between East and West along the lines I think you are intimating.
I am among those Orthodox- the majority I believe- who believe there is nothing lacking in the Eastern Orthodox Church. That all we need to unite ourselves perfectly with Christ is found in trusting submission to the Way outlined in our Orthodox Tradition.
I would want to add nothing to it, take nothing from it, to make it 'fit' with Rome. Though of course I grieve the divergence and schism.
I believe it is every devout Christian's business to discern the calling of Christ in his heart and follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. That I see undeniable holiness among countless Roman Catholics, I only celebrate and say "amen!" where we are in agreement.
But on points of disagreement, I believe the path is for each of us to discern, "where is the fullness of Christ's truth? For His Body is One, not divided."
This means I believe Roman Catholic Church would do well to repent and return to the Orthodox Faith as it is preserved in the Orthodox Church. I do not believe this is because "the Orthodox are right"... any more than God's Chosen People the Israelites were "more right" than other traditions around them.
We are simply the unworthy Bride of the Head- who preserves His saving Way incorrupt and without blemish in the Orthodox Tradition. I- an Orthodox- am not more right than a Catholic just for my ecclesial home. Only Christ is "right". Countless Catholics are more "orthodox" than me in this respect- which is to say conformed to the Orthodox Tradition that alone perfectly unites us to Christ. Nevertheless as a whole, I believe the Roman Catholic tradition will only find wholeness through repentance and return to what is Orthodox. This would take great humility. And we Orthodox make a mess of any hopes of it because we lack such humility in our dealings with our Christian brethren outside our Church Communion. My Orthodox brothers and I are full of passions! We lash out and wound sincere-hearted Christians of other traditions all the time. We are first among sinners! No wonder Catholics and Protestants cant see the light of Christ clearly through the haze of people like me and my spiritual Orthodox siblings. Please forgive us. We are falling short of the very Tradition we exult and the Fullness of Truth.
Christ loves us first. So it's possible for each of us to discern our hearts and see where we are at home. Where we find peace and spiritual healing. The same thing I would say even to Evangelicals, and even to the best of my truly spiritual Hindu and Buddhist and Jewish, and even Muslim friends. It is ours to purify and humble our hearts, and discern where the One is calling us.
in the end, to paraphrase Father Alexander Schmemann, "True spirituality and salvation is found in *how you deal with what you've been dealt.*"
We have of course faaaaar more in common than we have in difference, Catholic and Orthodox. I count Catholics as my beloved Christian brethren, no argument.
Peace, and thank you for a thoughtful response.
respectfully;
-Mark
Thanks for your response. I would respond that I also find Christ in the embrace of Peter and Paul and in the tension that exists in true paradox. I don't want Orthodox to change who they are or what they do. I recognize they have a powerful witness to provide, especially as a sign of contradiction to the West. I didn't really mean to initiate a conversation about why people are Catholic or Orthodox either. The only thing I would ask of you is to consider the evidence around which polemics circulate that we might develop a fuller understanding of our differences rather than the common attitude of "You stay in your anathema and I will stay in mine." Purgatory as a concept is not an invention of the Latins despite how much attention they have paid to it, and the unbaptized was not a non-issue in the East. St. Basil advocated for a "do-over" baptism for those who had been baptized in heretical sects, even those who employed the Trinitarian formula.
I am a Byzantine Catholic (by choice not birth) and I would only think it as absurd for me to adopt old animosities against Orthodox Christians that have spurred bloodshed and hatred in the living memory of many in my church. This is especially because what is shared between us and our Orthodox counterparts, conservatively, would account for a 90% similarity in terms of liturgy, theology, and culture. I have an answer for the issue of the Pope of Rome, but I will save that as it's not really relevant to this topic. But it's along issues like these that schism is justified and that's why I spoke. For anyone who finds no deficit in the state of the Church today, I would encourage them to consider the example of St. Anthony of Rome who considered the schism to be a wound and a scandal. You do not seem to be a polemicist to me but they are legion in both East and West.
I don't have much to offer on Augustine except to say that the Latins have always been different and that didn't start with Augustine, although he was the first to indicate those differences. "Doctor of doctors" is an honorific title meant to pay tribute to his influence. I know his ideas spawned the filioque controversy, but I don't see him as a bogeyman. If any theological tradition has been allowed to dominate in the West it is the scholastics, and that theology is innovative in the sense that it goes beyond the tradition received from the Fathers to explore theological implications in philosophy. I liked it better when Orthodox focused their ire on St. Thomas Aquinas because he is not my cup of tea.
As far as repenting and returning to Orthodoxy, I am surprised that you don't recognize the substantial movements that the Roman magisterium has made in that direction. I have indicated some ways that the Roman hierarchy has indeed repented, and many clarifications offered about old stumbling blocks that represent a desire to communicate the message closer to the manner in which you do (not exactly but closer). Orthodox leaders of the historic patriarchates have made motions as well. In the midst of these efforts there are messages that equate an embrace of schism almost as a mark of piety. So the trouble may also lie in preserving a standard for Orthodoxy that never existed in the West. So I hold out hope but I do not hold my breath. Orthodox inter-communion will have to improve before such things are discussed seriously. I wish you peace and a fruitful Nativity fast.
I see we are largely in agreement. :)
Blessings brother and a good fast to you as well!
I’m personally interested in your take on the papacy. If you’re willing please email me:
Man or they [all one word] at gmail dot com.
Warmly,
Mark Basil
Would you mind directing me to Chkyssostom in this point?
As I’ve mentioned we hold many things loosely and give room for saints and fathers to err on this or that point.
But with Chrysostom in particular we Orthodox recognize him more for his tremendous oratory prowess. He is not among the finer tunings of theological thought in the same era in the east. His corpus is largely task-theology, giving his parish the teachings they need to correct their waywardness and encourage their true piety.
As such I find reading him rightly and sympathetically requires an extra dose of seeing what he’s saying in context: ie what is he arguing against? What is he trying to correct?
And then also, holding any single point of his in tension and conversation with his whole corpus- as he often says different things at different times for different needs.
All to say, for my own profit I’d like the reference for this point that I might research it a bit.
Thank you kindly.
MB
I think I posted that incorrectly? It's the homily in response to 1 Corinthians 3:12-15. Paragraphs 5 and 6 are particularly relevant. He denies the reference is to anything other than hellfire and that vain works do not deliver from this state an there is no annihilation of the soul.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf112.iv.x.html
I wont draw out or increasingly technical theological discourse here, but if you like I could share some further reflections by email.
thank you for meeting me at the level of the heart, brother.
-Mark Basil
perhaps it's contained in, "the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath."
When we take God's boundless generous gifts to help us toward life and union with him, instead as things without which He who is almighty cannot work his holy loving will that all be saved... we have lost the heart. the very heart.
St Isaac, writing on what he knew from direct inner experience of the warmth of our Saviour's love:
"What is a merciful heart? a heart on fire for the whole of creation, humanity, the birds, for the animals, ...and for all that exists... By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or see any injury or slight sorrow in any of creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy… because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in ...the likeness of God."
– St. Isaac the Syrian, Homily 81
I am not sure that I believe this. "A heart on fire for the whole of creation, ...and for all that exists". On paper it sounds good, but holding that up as a social or religious ideal ? puts a very heavy weight on a creature that is already terribly frail, as Man is.
For information, in French, one of the senses of the word "merci" is to be grateful. We say "merci" when somebody gives us something, in thanks ("thanks" is in relation to the German "denken" which means "to think"...).
I am not sure that it is such a great thing to not be able to bear to hear or see any injury or slight sorrow in any of creation, either. Sometimes I wonder if in Western civilisation right now, our... squeamishness is not making us brutal in the ways we react to life's unpleasantness.
This makes me think of Wordsworth's poem : "The Ruined Cottage", written initially in 1797-1798, Manuscript D, because the poem exists in varying forms, and it is this one that I am familiar with. The poem talks about human suffering which comes about outside of the context of individual sin, much in the same way as Oedipus suffers without being greatly personally responsible for his suffering.
What can we personally do when confronted with this kind of suffering in others, considering that often this suffering is not the result of sin ? (Re, Job...)
And can we sometimes do more harm than good out of our desire to alleviate suffering ? I believe so. I believe that often our desire to alleviate suffering in others stems from our own intolerance to suffering in all forms, our own... squeamishness. Is this... godlike ? Maybe not...
I believe that some degree of suffering in the world is necessary for us creatures to fully measure that we are vibrantly alive. And this is part of living in the fallen world, which I.... love.
As for the humbleness of the heart... gotta be very careful with this one.
Dear Debra;
St Isaac was writing from as a 7th century severe desert ascetic, living in what is now Northern Iran.
He is noted especially for his *ascetical* homilies. there is nothing at all sentimental in his meaning here; that's our anachronism as Moderns. Injury, for Isaac, means strictly this: spiritual harm. Sorrow, for Isaac, means strictly this: loss of sight of the Heavenly Joy. Isaac was severe, austere... and simply brimming with lovingkindness that flowed from his direct unmediated perception of the Divine Energies. He wrote only of what he *knew*, there is no idle speculation in his writings.
If you can receive a word from this sinner so very far below this bar set by Isaac, I would gently invite you to pray to St Isaac that his meaning of "a merciful heart" be revealed to you, and perhaps in this sympathetic disposition read his works directly and more thoroughly. It is medicine, all.
Peace between us dear sister.
respectfully;
-Mark Basil
PS I really appreciated your reflections, en francais merci!
-mb
Thank you, Mark, for putting these writings in context.
From what you say above, I can see that there are many ways of "knowing", and many "things" to "know"...
I am an old woman now. My perception of becoming old leads me to say that it is becoming more difficult to cultivate gentleness in myself, particularly in our global social context : so much despair, so much hardness, and seemingly deliberate, sometimes gratuitous brutality that pushes grace aside, in all its forms.
And we are increasingly pushed to lead lives that consume the time that is necessary for cultivating this gentleness ? mercy ? you and St Isaac are talking about.
At the risk of sounding proud to you, Mark, I feel as though I have been given ? the gift of seeing "mystery" around me in my daily life, and sometimes in the smallest acts and the most fleeting words. That is precious to me. It makes me appreciate it, and sometimes be able to react in such a way that others become sensitive to it too, whether explicitly or not. Why not ?
For many years, I read about others' spiritual experiences, and now... I feel like reading less about others' experiences, and putting myself in a context where... i see and live in the world. A question of balance ? This may be good.. or evil, who knows ? But THIS WORLD HERE AND NOW definitely needs our attention(s)...
This is beautiful. Thank you for sharing this Debra.
Let's pray for each other.
Blessed Feast of St. Nicholas!
-mb
Thank you for your kind words and wishes, Mark.
I've considered getting baptised in a sort of strategic, Pascal's Wager-style effort to at least have my paperwork in order should I ever find myself at the actual pearly gates. The way this whole experience of being alive has unfolded makes it appear to me likely bureaucracy rules all realms, above and below.
If there is a hell, it seems inevitable enough I'll be cast into it simply because I can't reasonably expect such an exclusive, swanky club with those sorts of perks to lower its standards such that *I* clear the bar, but it would be lousy to find myself excluded on a technicality. That's most definitely one regret you don't want carrying with you into the fires.
Still, there's something so cynical about Pascal's Wager it makes me suspect the Lord flags any jerk using that sort of logic to get in as an automatic fail.
I just can't win...
Trust in Jesus first as the Christ, the Son of God and Lord and add in baptism afterwards. It says ”Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners” He has remarkably low standards as regards those who come to him for eternal life. Pascal Wager as the motivator not a problem, it was my motivation, it was the best this sinner was capable of. He still met me with his Spirit and revealed the Father to me.
There's no bar except perfection, which none of us have. We all rely on God's mercy, so all we can do is trust in him, and try our best. If God were a divine petty bureaucrat, that wouldn't be God but an idol.
You needn't win. He's done that for you.
Baptism is a door opening, not a box checked or a form filled out. It continues the work of the Holy Spirit on your heart and mind. You won't be the same person after. It'll be subtle and slow, but you'll see it. And once you have eyes to see, the real fun -- the heart change -- begins.
A poignant article about a cillini, where poor theology and poorer compassion held that those buried children's souls were lost. The reflection was introduced by a pilgrim who also appeared to some to be lost (without the benefit of smartphone nor satnav) but clearly, based on the beauty of this article, was where he should be. "Not all those who wander are lost", as JRRT wrote and as Paul has winsomely revealed.
It gets even worse. It is a little known fact that having an illegitimate child was such a heinous crime in the late 19th century in Ireland, that young women were kept out of the public eye or sent away to family elsewhere so that no none would know there was an illegitimate child. When the child was born it was secretly killed and buried. Then the misfortunate mother could return home. Women had to be perfectly pure. Like the Virgin Mary, so to speak. The number of such killings of babies was frighteningly large.
I'm sorry, but I simply don't believe this. Basically you're saying "Irish Catholics believed in sexual purity so much they murdered illegitimate children". Please can you provide some reference points, data or evidence to prove this? I have no doubt that abortion, 'partial birth' abortion and infanticide occurred in pre-modern and/or pre-industrial Ireland to some degree, because these things happened everywhere. (It's worth noting that these things almost certainly happen more now, in the post industrial, modern world: but that's another conversation).
But you appear to suggest that in Ireland this number was particularly large specifically due to Catholic belief - or superstition based on Catholic belief, if you prefer. That strikes me as an appalling slander and must not be left without response.
Have you heard of the Devotional Revolution in Ireland. Begun during the famine when the Irish were on their knees. It was due to Cardinal Paul Cullen. The idea was that the Catholic Church in Ireland, now supported by the British,wanted an Ireland of the tCatholic faith! Morally pure, more pure than Britain.
Check out stuff on the levels of infanticide in Ireland in the last half of the nineteenth century. I can get references if you want them.
I do think you would have to provide some good evidence for this claim Gayle. I've never seen any myself, and I am wary of increasingly common claims which attempt to set the Church up as homicidal. Often they are nakedly political.
I’m not saying that the Catholic Church was homicidal. But in the West the Devotionsl Revolution aimed to bring about a change in catholic practice if you like.
It had been rather slack before that. One aspect of change was in respect of women. Quite demanding.
Having an illegitimate child for example, was no real issue in the the West/ Connemara up until the 19th crntury. People still adhered roughly to the Brehon Laws which were remarkably enlightened. The woman did not have the to marry the father of her child , but he had to continue support for the child, for example.
Church going was rather slack. And so were the priests. Probably a function of living in a place that was quite remote and cut off from the mainstream culture..
But things changed. The Devotional Revolution. One of the changes concerned the role and status of women. In particular illegitimacy of children was no longer tolerated. Families were disgraced and became social pariahs if an illegitimate child was born.
Women were supposed to emulate the purity of the Virgin Mary etc etc.
Many young women had to leave home, ending up as prostitutes on the streets of Dublin, for example. . They were pariahs, as were their families.
So what happened was that the illegitimacy was hidden. Either by leaving the family home or by concealing the birth.
The other alternative was the Magdalen Laundries which were in effect, prisons. The women never left them but worked there till they died.
As a result, of these cultural changes instigated by the Catholic church, infanticide increased significantly.
The Catholic priest played a role in policing illegitimate births. They would remove the offending female to the Magdelans.
This was the way it was in Connemara. The change began during the famine and continued on. The Catholic Church received a burst of support from the British government which increased the church’s power there.
I am like Paul on this one. I am increasingly mistrustful about information that blackens the Catholic Church in a context where it seems to me that civil society is out to destroy the Church's authority right now, and has been attempting this for quite some time now.
I notice that this situation seems to be in relation to the famine ? It would be logical that the famine exacerbated people's suffering, and while exacerbating their suffering, exacerbated... social intolerance at the same time.
I think it is important to remember that the idea that women should be chaste, and not have sexual relations outside of marriage is a very old one that can be seen all around the world, and is not reserved to the Catholic Church. Woman's purity and chastity is part of an antique code of honor which involves... controlling oneself in tempting circumstances. And way before the Catholic Church was on the scene, men liked to think that their children were theirs, and not somebody else's. That's the way it goes. We may not like it, but that's the way it was, and still is, elsewhere on the earth.
Yes, that would murder.
'A most diabolical deed': Infanticide and Irish society, 1850–1900
Elaine Farrell
Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2013, ISBN: 9780719088209; 288pp.; Price: £65.00
One aim of ‘A Most Diabolical Deed’ is to dispense with a belief commonly held by many contemporaries that infanticide occurred rarely in Ireland. Farrell argues that infant murder was sometimes cast as an English problem; as a symptom of the loose moral culture of industrialised England that could be idyllically compared to moral, chaste and virtuous rural Ireland. This claim formed part of a broader strategy, typically adopted by nationalists, of firmly distinguishing between national moral standards. In reality, this proposition was fallacious. As Farrell’s thorough statistical analysis in her first chapter establishes, infant murder and concealment of birth took place on a weekly basis in post-Famine Ireland; the typical perpetrator being an unmarried women in her 20s, Roman Catholic and poor. Infanticide was a nationwide problem that afflicted industrialised regions in the north of the country as well as the chronically poor rural west. While motivations for infant murder are notoriously difficult to fully recapture, Farrell posits that the propensity of the Catholic Church to condemn abortion may have played some part in encouraging young pregnant women to wait until birth to deal with an unwanted child. As in many other countries, mothers suffocated, strangled, drowned, poisoned and burnt their new-born, abandoned them (alive or dead) in hidden locations and, sometimes, deposited them with the local church.
Thank you for providing this information Gayle. I have just seen your comment, sorry I replied at length to another thread which had quoted the same work. I hope you don't mind if I don't reply again here! I am unable to copy and paste the comment, but if you're interested I believe the following link will take you to my reply.
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/suffer-little-children/comment/44727234?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=qj3ue
Wait.. this is not what you implied in your previous post. I thought you were saying that the Catholic Church authorities were taking these babies and disposing of them, but here the author is theorizing about mothers killing their babies. There is nothing here about Church leadership doing it.
Sorry about the misunderstanding. Yes the mothers were doing it. But iit was because the social stigma and shame associated with having an illegitimate child was too much to bear. The family would be ostracised for generations as having some kind of ‘weakness’ .
. The mother would be gathered up and taken to a Magdalen laundry by a local priest. Never to leave. A prisoner there forever until she died. It simply was impossible to continue one’s life if there was an illegitimate child. Ditto for the larger family which would be ostracised as well.
So the unwed mother did away with her child. I can’t imagine the mental and emotional trauma that this engendered.
When I was 22 and a university student, I got pregnant. I was not married.
My mother was Australian, but with Irish roots. She behaved just as if she was reared and living in 19 th century Ireland.
She asked me if I was pregnant one evening. I said ‘Yes,’. Her response? ‘Leave this house and never darken the doorstep again. I don’t want the neighbours to know. ‘.
I was left to try and struggle on with no resources. I did have a partner, the father, but he was feckless and soon disappeared when the going got tough.
I was astonished at how the old way of thinking and feeling- the shame and stigma - that my mother thought would result, had survived.
She herself had experienced a similar experience with the local Roman Catholicc priest. My mother was married to a Protestant.
The priest came round one day and told my mother that all her children were illegitimate because she had married a Protestant. She left the Catholic Church but never really quite recovered her former self. She had a few breakdowns.
Neither did she ever forgive me. I had so little money when my baby was born, that I struggled to feed myself. I was seriously undernourished. I suffered malnutrition. The University stepped in and supported me till I could get on my feet and take a teaching job. But hey. Here I am . Writing about it 50 years on.
Magdalene Laundries continued in Ireland into the 1960s - a cousin of my father was sent to one after becoming pregnant in her early teens. The convention then was that the child would be adopted and the mother detained until the child’s 16th birthday. Though free to go, many were so fearful of the disapproval of their families and the community that they asked to stay on in seclusion.
By now it was about 1970. An older relative returned from England as an old bachelor and invited her to come and live with him as his housekeeper My grandmother, her aunt, was particularly outraged and the family scandal coming back to light, but they ignored her. Within a few years she was married with a new family but I don’t know if she ever contacted her first child.
So sad. My first awareness of the Magdalen laundries was in 1980. I saw a bunch of about twenty very old women shuffle into the cinema. They were led by a nun. The women were very old. Maybe 80 years or more.
I asked who they were. And my friend told me.
The women just shuffled along heads down.
I’m guessing that they had probably been in the Laundry for at least sixty years. May be more. Which means they’d been there since the turn of the century. Just because they had a baby. And weren’t married.
They were a very sad sight.
Lord have mercy.
May the Lord God richly bless you and continue his good work in you till the end.
When my quasi-girlfriend and I got pregnant at 21, we resisted only slight pressure to abort by her parents. My parents persuaded me to adopt out. His mother in the end couldn’t do this; we raised him in separate home from the beginning outside of wedlock.
Each of us enjoyed forgiveness and embrace from most of our families and friends.
My family being liberal Mennonite, hers a bit more conservative but modern.
Our son is 22 now- embraced by both family sides. He was just baptized by free volition last year.
Mercy must rule all things.
Wonderful story.
My mother was baptized Protestant as an adult, but was an ignorant bigot in terms of her knowledge of the Catholic Church which she professed to hate (although I still love her dearly, and she has been dead for many years now). In the 1970's I heard her express opinions about the Roman Catholic Church that you could have heard... in the 1600's.
Both my American parents were devout Protestants, and while I grew up during the sexual revolution, I knew that it would have killed them if I had become pregnant outside of marriage. Well... they would have been very very disappointed, shall we say...and knowing this contributed to my reticence to fully explore all the sexual freedom that was being preached by civil society at the time...Sexual "freedom" has some strings attached, and as far as I know, pregnancy is one of the risks involved. Acts DO have consequences...
It sounds as though your experience contributed to making you more confident in yourself, and your capacity to survive in the world. That is precious, and must serve you well.
Maybe you are correct. But I discovered how potent those cultural memes were if they survived, in respect of my mother.
She was hysterical one day. She had discovered that her beloved Irish grandmother had been illegitimate.
Turns out that her grandmother’s mother had left Ireland pregnant and arrived in Australia with a baby. She made the journey on her own.
I could not understand why my mother was so hysterical.
‘We are all illegitimate . All of us,’ she wailed. It didn’t matter that the deed happened in the 1880’s.
As I adverted to in my last post. The stigma lasted for generations, I did say ‘forever, but that was hyperbole. But if it was discovered later even eighty years on., the shame was still potent.
Thank you for sharing your story. I am so sorry that this happened to you. I also got pregnant out of wedlock at age 17. The father and I married, and that lasted for 3 years. Soon after I met and married the love of my life who raised both children from this first marriage and we had one of our own. My family was very forgiving of me and helped me a great deal, but this was in the 80s.
May God bless the love of your life for this mercy and embrace of your children!
Beautiful.
This life is all about the acquisition of a merciful heart. May God help me and us all
M
Well... thank God that somebody in my husband's family deposited a new-born on the steps of a church in the French countryside a few generations ago... because my children wouldn't be here otherwise.
I am not sure that the Church's attitude toward abortion is totally responsible for encouraging young pregnant women to wait until birth to deal with an "unwanted" child.
The abortion issue is a very explosive one, and for good reason.
In a context where the industrial revolution was steam-rolling over rural and urban communities all over the West, it is... normal for vulnerable women to "lose the North", as I like to say, and to radically negate their role as havens/refuges for the unborn. When the Machine revvs up, people suffer, and lose the North.
It is very tempting to talk about unwanted children, but giving birth is a very complicated experience that arouses many conflicting emotions. Where there is new life just on the horizon, death is never very far away.
And people lose the North... so easily.
Considering that we are talking about post-famine Ireland, isn't it possible that many people were unfortunately reduced to the belief that life was cheap at the time, and couldn't this feeling explain in part the rise ? in infanticide ?
Maybe it was t so much that life was cheap but that death by starvation was inevitable. To have to watch a baby starve to death would have been intolerable.
I totally agree with you. What a truly tragic situation. And... the industrial revolution and monoculture were already a problem, I fear...
Yes!
Sorry , I misread your last paragraph. I thought you were referring to the famine time itself.
As I understand it from my reading, the tendency to take the life of a baby was due to the strictness of the Devotional Revolution in its revision of Christian womanhood. Women were to be pure. As pure as the Virgin Mary.
Conceiving a child out of wedlock was became such a heinous crime that the entire family would conceal it by sending the girl away. Never to return if she still had the illegitimate child sans husband.
The stigma of a woman having an illegitimate child affected the entire family. They all became social pariahs, forever. Very harsh punishment if one lived in a tiny community in the West of Ireland.
So the pregnant girl often landed up in the Magdalens or left her family forever, often then ending up as a prostitution in Dublin, to try and survive.
The best conclusion was to get her married very quickly. And in the west of Ireland this often meant marrying an elderly bachelor farmer. Of whom there were many as they could not marry until they inherited the farm. But this was only possible when their own father died. The inheriting son might be in his sixties before he could marry.
And the pregnant girl might not be given any choice about it. Marriages were arranged by the relevant fathers of the couple involved. Personal feelings such as love for the proposed marriage partner played no part.
In fact this was normal for marriage making. It was never about love. For the farmer of means it was about land and dowry that was brought to the table by the girl’s father. For the tenant farmer it was about the strength and brawn of the proposed partner. The ability of the girl do the same work as a man. Such as bringing up the bags of turf from the bog.
As I have adverted to in another post, the shame that attended the family of a pregnant unmarried girl hung on down the generations. My own mother on discovering I was pregnant and not married three me out and told me to never darken the door again. She did not want the neighbours to know.
She was third generation Irish Australian. Yet the old attitudes survived along with snatches of Irish, passed down from her Gaelic speaking ancestral grandmother.
Just to conclude. It may well have been easier to do away with the baby , in the light of the consequences of producing an illegitimate child. Where would a whole family of peasant farmers go to remake their lives? They would become homeless and thus itinerants without home or income. Ireland still has the descendants of such itinerant farmers from the 19th century. . But now they have caravans and cars. They are descended from the dispossessed landless peasants that lost their once leased bits of land.
I will never forget a priest, friend of mine, explaining once during mass how that belief on Limbo had finally changed, and then bursting into tears and asking God and parents for forgiveness
There are also unmarked burial grounds in the North West of Scotland where unbaptised infants were interred. Though it did not last as long as in Ireland (dying out in the 19th century) the practice continued well after the Protestant Reformation., and for much longer than in Lowland, English speaking Scotland. In the 1800s those areas were strictly Presbyterian, and the idea of Limbo was regarded as a superstitious heresy, but still old practices survived. Those areas were Gaelic speaking until not so long ago, sharing much Celtic heritage with Ireland. Another hold over from pre-Reformation times was the treatment of the bodies of still born infants. In some areas of the Scottish Highlands they were buried separately and at night, and this continued into the early 20th century. Drowned bodies washed up on the shore were treated with fear into the mid 1800s. Burial of a suicide was surrounded by strong taboos into the 20th century. It is interesting how long some of these beliefs survived, despite the changes in the formal religion and the "banishing" of superstition.
'The holy lande of Irelande' (Anon) is not a far-off place. Takes me back to when BBC radio in the early 1950s got interested in folk song other than the bowdlerised versions we were used to in primary school. I managed to corner the family 'wireless' enough to listen in another room. I suppose it must have been early Alan Lomax, Peggy Seeger, Euan McColl and the producer whose name escapes me. Field sound recording had come on apace in the war and this early series was mostly field recording across the British Isles. They told us that the recording team had found themselves beside this song by accident and had debated their intrusion on privacy and the ethics of broadcasting it. A young woman was keening her sorrow for her dead baby to the waves alone beside the Atlantic. It is very faint now but I can still hear her.
Thank you for teaching me about the difference between Limbo and Purgatory, Paul.
You've hit on a subject this Sunday morning that is one of the hardest ones to deal with in our perception of Christianity and sin.
Ironically enough, one of the most perspicacious explorations of sin, inherited sin, comes from "Oedipus Turannos", well before the Gospels were written. (I probably have a reading of Sophocles which has been deeply influenced by Christianity in that I believe that Laïos, Oedipus's father, was guilty of a terrible breach of the antique laws of hospitality when he seduced the young son of one of his hosts, with the consequence that the young man committed suicide, and... the (pagan) gods were not at all happy that their unwritten laws had been transgressed.)
Sophocles' play explores the FACT that the sins of the fathers have consequences on their... innocent children, even their unborn children. This is a... fact, I believe, and the Bible holds this to be true also. And it caracterizes the fallen world, where acts continually have consequences that go way beyond the moment when they are committed. We may not like to recognize this... fact, and the modern world definitely does not want to recognize it at all, but missing the mark, or taking a wrong turn (sinistra ?) does have effects that go beyond the time frame of the individual. The modern world, where heredity has become a concept that is firmly attached to the realm of biology, resorts to the concept of illness to take away the idea of responsibility. But taking away responsibility also takes away the power to change... oneself, the world. If only getting rid of guilt and responsibility did not entail losing so much power...and don't try to tell me that popping pills and seeing doctors gives us a sense of power over our lives. (I am not against having a sense of power in one's life. We are not supposed to be.. worms to avoid hubris. That's leaving Scylla to embark for Charybdis.)
When we recognize and accept this, what do we, can we do with it ?
What can Oedipus do with it, Oedipus who has a certain personal responsibility in his fate, but has inherited a place, an origin that can not allow him to be upright in the world ?
When Oedipus is cast out of Thebes, and condemned to wander as an impure man, is he in limbo, purgatory... exile ? hell ?
At the end of his journey, he has become a monument, (not a well, and the place where he disappears is not a place of pilgrimage, either), and his legacy is supposed to protect the City. His personal fate is tragic, but he is transformed to protect the City. His legendary anger is a positive force that the City needs to protect it.
Reading people with mystic bents at your place reminds me, Paul, that in the fallen world, love is not an absolute good, because there are no absolute "goods" in the fallen world. In mine, at least. And what is "love" ? Can too much of a "good" thing make it evil, and turn it into something that makes you miss the mark, or the way ? That is the way I understand the fallen world, in any case.
And I am not sure that I would want to live in an unfallen world, despite all the modern enthusiasm for ersatzes of paradise here and now, no... waiting, and on credit.
"God is love"
Dear Debra;
you may find my comment above germane:
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/suffer-little-children/comment/44739943
respectfully;
-mark
I will have to get back to you on this one, Mark. I will be rather busy for the upcoming few days, and reading this comment and responding to it in a thoughtful manner will take me some time. Thank you for your understanding.
I'm glad you tackled the issue of the Killeen's Paul. You are right, they are dotted all around Ireland. For me, they are a reminder of how dark and unforgiving the Church I was brought up in could be. You are I suspect right, the phenomenally rapid collapse in the moral authority and "hold" the RC Church had on the people of Ireland is I suspect a form of "payback" for this, and I'm sorry to add, numerous other mean and unloving aspects of Roman Catholic hegemony in Ireland.
What is remarkable to me is that this change has occurred within my life time. As a child in the 1960s, staying the long summer holidays in rural Kerry at my Grandparents small farm, I remember that most of the Irish people I knew, were in thrall psychologically and emotionally to the Roman Catholic priesthood. This vanished like "snow off a dyke on a sunny morning" from the late 1980s onwards.
I have returned "home" to Ireland for the past 24 years, and in that time the RC Church has taken such a collective kicking from the new high priests of secularism in Irish cultural and political life who now determine Irish mores, that it has brought to mind the image of an aging gang boss being kicked to a pulp by a squad of tough young usurpers. Repeatedly receiving kicks to the head long after he had expired. The assailants continuing their booting and wounding of the ousted dead leader to extend the humiliation, and to emphasise to all of us watching, the fate that awaits anyone who thinks to challenge them.
For me, that's how it feels, we have a new "priesthood" here in Ireland, they pervade our media, cultural, and political life, and they possess every bit of the arrogance and rectitude of the Roman Catholic hierarchs of the 1930s or 1950s.
In the same way that poor old insecure and self doubting Ireland strove to be the most Catholic of all the Catholic nations of the earth, so too does Ireland in the 21st century take a strange pride in its "progressive" and "woke" credentials internationally, as ever, seeking verification and affirmation from those they consider to be the arbiters of all that is creditable and worthy.
Ireland in the 21st century looks to me like a nation that has "thrown the baby out with the bath water", an old and pungent saying, which is appropriate to a sense of absence and loss, which sadly has made Ireland increasingly similar in many ways to all the other cookie cutter small to medium sized secular liberal EU nations, with all the attendant dominant
'liberal values' which render them incapable of even perceiving, far less preventing, their eventual disappearance as distinct and vibrant nations.
I think you're spot on here John. This is how it looks to this Englishman living in Ireland too. The new priesthood ostentatiously burying the old one. Babies and bathwater indeed.
You would enjoy Conor Fitzgerald's substack, he has written about this exact topic:-
https://www.conorfitzgerald.com/p/the-life-and-death-of-an-irish-consensus
Also Angela Nagle briefly touched on it in her most recent post. Basically we've replaced a repressive Catholicism with a repressive wokism.
Seeking, I checked out both of your suggestions. I found them both very interesting, and their observations about a consensus crisis and Nagle's suggestion that Ireland's elites behave similarly to a "comprador" class, "managing" the estate on behalf of larger internationally more significant economic forces is perceptive and persuasive. Both writers correctly perceive the virtual lack of dissent in Ireland from the "everyone knows" narrative so dominant here, as an indicator of a fear of rocking the boat, since the social costs of open dissent from the left/ liberal narrative here, are relatively high in this small highly socially interconnected island society. Thank you for these suggestions, I had heard of Angela Nagle, but was not aware of her thoughts on contemporary Ireland. I had not come across Conor Fitzpatrick before, however.
Yeah, she's Irish (or at least has Irish parents and grew up here). Fitzpatrick is excellent.
I couldn't quite follow Angela's argument about the "universalist moral code" of imperial powers, can you?:-
"The motivation behind the Dublin riot is as old as collective human existence: If a male outsider hurts or kills women and children, a violent response follows. This principle is overridden by force in imperial systems, where the overarching power strategy of territorial expansion necessitates a universalist moral code. Rome had one, the Soviet Union had one, and the United States has one. For a small island nation with no imperial ambitions, this arrangement has to be awkwardly enforced by an administrative and comprador class in exchange for financial and status benefits. When those benefits are felt only by an elite, violent retaliation is the predictable result."
What does she mean there about our moral system being different to imperial ones, relative to the riots?
I'm not sure either, she seemed on firmer ground when talking about an elite in Ireland which behaves as though they were a "comprador class", and I certainly found I instinctively agreed with her on the high level of "compliance" in Irish mainstream society because of the high social costs of dissent. I listened to a couple of interviews with her last night, and I found some of her ideas rather abstract at times. I get the impression she's a left leaning intellectual at home in that sociology / cultural studies milieu, which can be ever so "theoretically" oriented. There is though, to me, an impression from her of a growing impatience with the left/intersectionalist "woke" shibboleths which she has been perhaps constrained by in the past. She seems to be moving towards a centre left critique of "open borders", and her willingness to challenge the group think on this has to be welcomed. I wonder if there will come a time, perhaps sooner than she thinks, where she will be turned on and "cancelled", the traction her writing is getting from those ideologically to her right, I suspect may speed this process. I wonder when and how she will be denounced?
Oh she's already effectively been cancelled as when she came to prominence it was for a book that the thoughtless progressives thought was a criticism of the alt right but ultimately went pretty hard on the ridiculous side of the progressive left too. She's also appeared on Tucker a few times which is complete no no in respectable media circles.
She was also effectively cancelled for writing a piece on just what you said, arguing that open borders are bad for the left as they force wages of working class people down. This is undoubtedly correct but the shibboleths fall hard among the non-thinking classes. I think I'd regard her as being left wing economically but probably right wing socially, though I'm convinced the concepts of left and right aren't really the same any more.
Either way, I find her very interesting. She's the kind of voice (like Paul's here) I'd love to see on RTE or in Irish media more, I think it would go a long way to addressing our consensus problem.
That's interesting, if sadly rather predictable. I certainly find in Ireland that the range of "acceptable opinions" is rather limited. Any other good suggestions for alternative thinkers on Ireland..
Are you here in Ireland too?
Yes, Angela Nagle is long cancelled. Like the best of us ;-) She got a good kicking from her fellow leftists in 2018, when she did indeed lay out that left critique of open borders here:
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/11/the-left-case-against-open-borders/
I thought it was a brilliant piece and very hard to argue with. I noticed that those who piled on to her from the left had no argument to offer as they did so. Lots of accusations of racism, etc, but I didn't see anyone taking her up on the actual points made. Probably for good reason.
Oh well, I got that prediction about Angela Nagle's "cancellation" right anyway, albeit unconscious that it was in fact in retrospect...ha ha...
Absolutely true, so tragic on all fronts. Tragic that Ireland has forsaken its own soul. But Ireland doesn’t stand alone in this phenomenon, it’s all over countries in the West ...look at the UK..
Regarding the root of the word 'sin', I don't know the details but I gather that there's also an argument that it could mean 'debt'. In which case, there's an argument to be made that Jesus was an early monetary reformer. After all, he did get angry at the money-lenders....
I'm not being flippant here. Being a promoter of the forgiveness of debt has many connotations, but even if you look at it from a purely practical level, such an attitude shows great compassion and care. And of course it's the opposite of the traditional notion of being burdened with personal guilt just for the sin of being born, as if we are automatically born into emotional debt, as well as these days often being born into financial debt and wage slavery.
That's very perceptive, I think.
I have lost friends for suggesting that Jesus was VERY INTERESTED in economic matters ; it shows up in the context of many of his parables, and I surmise that there was a banking/monetary crisis in Judea, and in the larger Roman "empire" at the time.
I believe that the monetary/banking crisis was tied to the status of work, as slavery itself went into a state of crisis with so many people being freed during Augustus' reign that he had to issue legislation to curtail, and strictly control emancipation. Slavery had the advantage of giving some people a roof over their heads, which can be helpful and desirable sometimes, contrary to modern opinions on the subject. So many freed slaves puts a tremendous burden on your society, pushing upward mobility, and Rome definitely suffered from this problem. Upward mobility is great when your Empire and its influence are expanding, but when they are declining ? Maybe the world looks like what ours looks like right now ?
Beautifully written, highly informative. I didn't know the different theories about Original Sin before! It's clear that Original Sin allowed Rome to maintain a kind of extortionate power over the people, a protection racket. The church threatened certain death unless you followed orders and paid the fees.
Somebody DID write a book about getting lost! Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost. I haven't read that one, but Solnit is a wonderful essayist and I love her book Wanderlust, which is about...walking one of my favorite things.
I was going to post this on here, no need now! It's a great little book that. I've gifted it to a few people and they've also enjoyed it.
I wouldn’t write anything that I had no documented evidence of. I will certainly get it for you.
And just yesterday I saw one of those horrid electronic billboards, on the highway by the local mall, that reads, "Pray for the souls in purgatory." Somebody paid a bunch of money to broadcast that message. My cellphone may be Satanic, but I use it to read your Substack - and at least I can choose when to pull it out of my pocket and look at it, or not. That billboard, with its gaudy lights assaulting the eyeballs amid the beauty of the Appalachian hills, feels like the greater sin.
Many moons ago when they first cropped at the edge of the cities here I used to fantasized about placing small controlled explosives at the base of these by night and bring them down.
Back then I reasoned if I kept my mouth shut no one would ever imagine a mild mannered Kindergarten teacher was the vandal!
... I'm fine if anyone respectable out there wants to steal my idea. I'm too old now. :)
I don't know. There is a French intellectual, Jacques Le Goff, who wrote a very documented book about the Roman Catholic Church's invention of Purgatory. The invention of Purgatory bottoms out the binary system of "if you don't go to heaven, you go to hell", and the theological elaboration of Purgatory goes hand in hand with the elaboration of the modern criminal justice system, with its mitigating circumstances, for example. Roman law has had a tremendous impact on our criminal justice systems, although that might be changing now.
For sure, our modern societies are not keen on mitigating circumstances right now, I fear...
There is a church near where I live in southern Germany where they discovered the remains of so-called "Traufenkinder", lit. "eaves children" - babies who died before they could be baptised, and who were buried not in the graveyard, but where rainwater would drip down from the church eaves. This water was believed to have been sanctified by contact with the church roof and thus blessed the unbaptised children lying below. An attempt by the anguished families to provide a kind of posthumous baptism.
That is heart-breaking.
It's heartbreaking that it had to happen this way also so profoundly beautiful an expression of these mothers' love triumphing over all- even the moral and spiritual laws (as they would have understood it). I see here a testimony to the "inner heart" alive and beating in these anguished mothers. The true centre of our perception of God: faith and hope that pass understanding. For what "religion" did our father Abraham have to orient him? No- he had his "nous"- his inner spiritual heart/intellect, clean and perceptive to know the will of his Creator.
Likewise these bereaved mothers, that regardless the corruption of religious wolves making twice the sons of hell in false dogma, the nous that perceives God's love and energy directly- it transcended all law in the hearts of these mothers.
And they were right- the rainwater falling from the house of prayer was their loving tears baptizing their own lost infants.
I've read of that happening in England too.
That is beautiful, and a testimony to the human ability to find ways of getting around official, and institutional prohibitions in certain circumstances.
It is not slander. The Irish were being drawn away from their own ancient Coptic Christianity that was melded with pagan spirituality, toRoman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church was harsh in its efforts to convert the Irish to Roman Catholicism. The idea of purity was so demanding of the women that they killed their babies rather than suffer the consequences from the church. Of course they would have spent their lives on the Magdalen laundries as well, until they died. They were treated as hoors and the family’s name was blackened for generations.
I'm often fascinated by the continued survival of the idea that Ireland and England had some form of early Christianity that had nothing to do with Rome. I've met good and faithful Anglicans who do all sorts of gymnastics to avoid the obvious: that the Christian faith arrived in these islands effectively from the Roman empire, and the church that spread through that empire was clearly Roman. The earliest liturgies performed in these islands were in Latin, performed by people who believed what is essentially the Catholic faith: and they believed essentially in the "primacy of Peter". No-one has to like either of these things, but they're true. All of the earliest Holy books we have extant from the 'dark ages' in these countries are in Latin: the Cathach of Columba (mid 6th century) and the Book of Kells are both in Latin, and are essentially copies of the 'Vulgate bible'. The earliest missale (mass book) is the Stowe Missal: all in Latin of course, and it has a variation of the Roman canon called the 'Gelasian Canon', as far as I am aware it is so called because it is also found in the 'Gelasian Sacramentary', a book to which is attached the description Liber sacramentorum Romanae ecclesiae ("Book of Sacraments of the Church of Rome"). This all happens a couple of hundred years before the Normans enforced Roman canon law. If you would rather date the 'arrival' of Roman Catholicism to the date of the synod of Whitby then you may: but you will have to persuade sceptics like myself why the 'Celtic' church so readily agreed to change their customs - the record shows that it is because they believed already in the primacy of the Seat of Peter: Rome.
You're welcome to believe that the Roman Catholic church erred, this is standard Orthodox and Protestant belief. But believing that there was some earlier church in these isles that was not clearly Roman and Catholic in practise and belief, is contrary to all historical evidence.
Look up who is the Bishop of the Catholic church in Co Clare. (I don't have the correct ecclesiastical name of the area but I can get it.) It is the Pope that is the Bishop in Clare. And for good r reason. The locals refused to comply with the Roman calendar and continued to use the old old non Roman one.. Easter was a particular issue. So in the 19th century the Bishop had to wade in and become the bishop of the local area. A Celtic Christianity was built from Celtic spirituality and Coptic Christianity. That is not contestable.
Somebody needs to write a book about this. Does anybody know of one?
THE QUEST FOR CELTIC CHRISTIANITY by Donald Meek (Edinburgh, 2000, reprinted 2010) is worth a look. A native Gaelic speaker and professor of Celtic Studies. Perhaps a bit dry but seems a pretty even handed look at the evidence.
He says "....neither my knowledge of the Christian faith nor my loyalty to the proper discipline of Celtic Studies will allow me to offer misleading and comforting tales of a spiritual Shangri La somewhere back in the mists of time which is overflowing with wisdom for our post modern age".
I think the last bit is a bit of a polite "dig" at what he sees as the cultural appropriation by some modern "devotees" who might not be Celtic or Christian.
I’m not sure there was a ‘quest’ for a Celtic Christianity per se, in Ireland. It just happened naturally because the Celtic culture was alive in some places such as Connemara, well into the nineteenth century. Christianity was was also ‘live ‘. The two cultural traditions sort of knitted into each other especially since the Catholic Church appropriated. Celtic spiritual practices and reinterpreted them in terms of a Christian meaning. eg., Holy wells.
I'm not sure this is true. There's a building body of evidence for the influence of Coptic Christianity in Ireland before Patrick, and I find it quite convincing. This doesn't amount to an independent 'Celtic Church' later destroyed by Rome; I think you're right to reject that notion. But I'm not sure at all that the missionaries of Rome were the first on these shores. I think that the Egyptians, with their Christianity much more influenced by the Desert Fathers, may well have arrived before them. And it is obviously true that Celtic and mainstream European spirituality differed enough for both to have to go head to head at Whitby and elsewhere.
The Roman Catholic Church really only managed to oust the older Christianity in Ireland during the famine. And I’m sure it was Irish monks that brought Christianity to Europe in the dark ages after the Romans left.
This is very interesting, thanks Paul. And as we both believe the Church was essentially united at that point (i.e. before St Patrick, if we consider him a 'Roman missionary'), then I think we can both rejoice at however the faith arrived on these shores! I found one good account of this theory online (Abba Seraphim on Britishorthodoxy.org), but if you have any further information regarding this I am certainly interested.
Incidentally, I find it more interesting that, if there was a Coptic foundation before Patrick, the tradition so quickly blended into the Latin tradition with no trace of controversy or opposition. As with the synod of Whitby, this seems to clearly demonstrate the organic continuance of a faith that was already essentially in line with Rome (or, 'the Rome of that time', if you prefer). The interesting thing is not that Celtic Christianity 'clashed' with Rome at Whitby, but rather that it peacefully agreed with Rome, as both sides shared the same first principles. In other words, that they were essentially both the same side.
The Book of Kells is in Irish.
I consulted the Google Oracle and it stated that the Book of Kells is in Latin.
It must be the Celtic illustrations that persuaded me! Mea culpa..