Jesuits announce major new research institute at Campion Hall

Press release 2nd July 2018



The Jesuits in Britain are pleased to announce that a new research institute called the Laudato Si’ Institute (LSI) is being established at Campion Hall, the Jesuit permanent private hall of the University of Oxford. The LSI will be established during the academic year 2018-2019 and will formally open in September 2019.

The aim of the Laudato Si’ Institute is to foster interdisciplinary research arising out of the intellectual challenges presented most vividly in Pope Francis’ encyclical letter Laudato Si’, while being faithful to Ignatian traditions and reflective practice.

The premise of Laudato Si’ is that the crumbling of the earth’s fabric, largely through human activity, is ultimately devastating for humanity and other creatures, particularly the poorest communities on earth. In contemporary Western thought, academic disciplines are often treated by specialists in isolation, so that the interrelationships between different social, ecological, technological, political, economic, philosophical and religious issues are obscured. The Laudato Si’ Institute will comprise: -

(1) An ambitious research programme using a dialogical method that enlists philosophical, ethical and theological insights as well as scholarly research in the natural and social sciences.

(2) A global network of allied activities inspired by Laudato Si’ in order to foster international collaboration and link scholarship across different global cultures and contexts.

The Laudato Si’ Institute will be informed by and act as a resource for allied educational initiatives of the Jesuits in Britain and elsewhere. It will also engage with scholars in other faith traditions as relevant to its research themes.

Its overall mission is to contribute to the intellectual basis for individual and structural transformation towards an ecological conversion at the levels of individuals, communities, public policy and governance.

Professor Celia Deane-Drummond, currently Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Theology, Science and Human Flourishing at the University of Notre Dame, USA, will be the inaugural Director of the Institute.

Fr Damian Howard SJ, Jesuit provincial, welcomed the announcement, saying, “As Jesuits, we are dutybound to seek out new intellectual frontiers and to bring to them the light of the Gospel. I am delighted that Professor Deane-Drummond has agreed to take on the role of Director of the new Laudato Si’ Institute. The intellectual and spiritual exploration of Pope Francis’ teaching in Laudato Si’ is vitally important work for the future of humanity. I look forward with great excitement to seeing how the work of the Institute unfolds.”

Professor Deane-Drummond said, “When Pope Francis released his encyclical Laudato Si' in June of 2015, I knew a fresh, invigorating wind of change was blowing through the Church. For the first time in the Church's history, environmental scientists, conservationists and anthropologists, whether they were believers or not, woke up and listened. The challenge for those of us who have been working at the boundary of ecology, philosophy and theology for the last quarter century is to discern how to implement and work out with intellectual rigor the message of Laudato Si', and use that as a basis for deeper individual and societal ecological conversion. I consider it a great privilege and honour to have been given the opportunity to direct this new initiative.”

Professor Deane-Drummond, currently Director of the Center for Theology, Science and Human Flourishing at the University of Notre Dame, USA, is a theologian who has professional experience in academic science and has two doctorates in plant physiology and systematic theology. She has a well-established track record in publishing in science, theology, environmental ethics and at the intersection between theology and the natural sciences. Professor Deane-Drummond has also served as Chair of the European Forum for the Study of Religion and Environment from 2011-2018. Her most recent books include A Primer in Ecotheology: Theology for a Fragile Earth (2017) and Theology and Ecology Across the Disciplines: On Care for Our Common Home (2018).


2 July 2018


For further information contact Jane Hellings, Director of Development & Communications jhellings@jesuit.org.uk 07736 151323

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Pope Francis to climate change experts: Need for systematic efforts toward integral ecology

Catholics engaging in politics

#217 - July-August 2018

Catholics engaging in politics

Italian Catholics were recently invited by Pope Francis to be more engaged in politics. Matteo Truffelli, President of the Azione Cattolica Italiana Movement, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, shares his thoughts on the need to engage in the common good in Europe. 

«Dear Friends from Catholic Action, continue to feel a great sense of responsibility for sowing the good seed of the Gospel in the life of the world, through your charitable work, through your involvement in political life – but please, politics in the noblest sense of the world, politics with a capital P! You can also do this through your strong commitment to education and your engagement in the cultural sphere».

Pope Francis gave us this clear invitation to take care of the common good on April 30 2017, during the meeting in St. Peter’s Square with Catholic Action, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Association. It was a fatherly plea, which we did not see as addressed only to the members of Catholic Action but, more generally, to lay Christians who feel the willingness to engage with the world today. I felt particularly intrigued by the reference to engage in "politics in the noblest sense of the world, politics with capital P". There is a lot of debate today on the issue: what contribution can Catholics, both as individuals and as associate organizations, make to the social and political life of the places where they live? The reflections articulated after that day were collected into a book, "The capital P – Engaging in politics at the grass roots". It contains several interviews, in which we tried to put into practice the advice of Pope Francis in the current context.

The need for politics “with a capital P” undoubtedly challenges the whole European and international scenario, in a time of tensions fed by new populisms and during a sort of "piecemeal third world war" as Pope Francis sees it. Indeed, today's world is marked by conflicts of different kinds. The violence of terrorism becomes confused with the violence of the many wars that oppress the poorest countries. Many of the wealthy nations react to tensions by choosing to isolate themselves instead of boosting the reasons for peaceful coexistence. At the same time, Western democracies seem to be going through a phase of crisis and many people believe in identity and strong leadership, with the illusion that those can solve problems.

Challenged by difficulties that seem enormous to face, it can be natural to think that the solution is closing and raising up barriers. But the world today does not need a selfish policy. It would not only be unjust, but even inconvenient. As Pope Francis himself teaches in the encyclical Laudato si', if there are shared problems, the answers must also be shared. The big issues of our time cannot, therefore, be solved by individual states. We need to cultivate the reasons for international solidarity and peace, instead of going back to a way of conceiving the world as shaped by the idea of balance among powers. This is why, for example, the Italian Catholic Action often puts forward initiatives and organizes events concerning international law and Europe.

In this era of uncertainty, many people prefer to question the project of European unity that has brought so many advantages to our continent over the years. We firmly believe that we need now to push Europe to make a leap forward and recover that same energy which allowed us to find a completely new solution. European unity would have been inconceivable a few years ago, but it helped to face the problems that affected all European nations and that seemed unsolvable, in a period which was no easier than the one we are going through today.

Bill Hughes - Part 3: The Ship That Goes Through

The Rise of the New ORDER, Angels & Demons- The US Image of the Vatican...

Speculative Theories

“Those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever;” but “the secret things belong unto the Lord our God.” Deuteronomy 29:29. The revelation of Himself that God has given in His word is for our study. This we may seek to understand. But beyond this we are not to penetrate. The highest intellect may tax itself until it is wearied out in conjectures regarding the nature of God; but the effort will be fruitless. This problem has not been given us to solve. No human mind can comprehend God. Let not finite man attempt to interpret Him. Let none indulge in speculation regarding His nature. Here silence is eloquence. The Omniscient One is above discussion.

Even the angels were not permitted to share the counsels between the Father and the Son when the plan of salvation was laid. Those human beings who seek to intrude into the secrets of the Most High show their ignorance of spiritual and eternal things. Far better might they, while mercy's voice is still heard, humble themselves in the dust and plead with God to teach them His ways.

We are as ignorant of God as little children, but as little children we may love and obey Him. Instead of speculating in regard to His nature or His prerogatives, let us give heed to the word He has spoken: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10.

“Canst thou by searching find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do?
Deeper than hell; what canst thou know?
The measure thereof is longer than the earth,

And broader than the sea.” 

Job 11:7-9.

“Where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof;
Neither is it found in the land of the living.
The depth saith, It is not in me:
And the sea saith, It is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold,
Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,
With the precious onyx or the sapphire.
The gold and the crystal cannot equal it,
And the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls:
For the price of wisdom is above rubies.
The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,
Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
Whence then cometh wisdom?
And where is the place of understanding? ...
Destruction and death say,
We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.
God understandeth the way thereof,
And He knoweth the place thereof.

“For He looketh to the ends of the earth,
And seeth under the whole heaven....
When He made a decree for the rain,
And a way for the lightning of the thunder:
Then did He see it, and declare it;
He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. And unto man He said,
Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;
And to depart from evil is understanding.”

Job 28:12-28.

Neither by searching the recesses of the earth nor in vain endeavors to penetrate the mysteries of God's being is wisdom found. It is found, rather, in humbly receiving the revelation that He has been pleased to give, and in conforming the life to His will. 

Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8, pp.279,280. 

Chapter 44—A False and a True Knowledge of God

Sikh Association and Adventist Health Bakersfield Partner for Cancer Screening at Sikh Temple

4 July 2018 | Adventist Health Bakersfield is joining forces with Bakersfield Sikh Women’s Association for a preventative cancer screening. The Kaur Care Women’s Health Preventative Cancer Screening program will feature free breast exams and will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Sunday, July 8, at Gurdwara Guru Dashmesh Darbar, a Sikh place of worship in Bakersfield, California.

This is the first in a series of screenings that will be hosted by Kaur Care. It is named after Gurbinder Kaur, a mother who passed away from cervical cancer this year at the age of 43.

According to the Bakersfield Californian, Kaur’s cancer could have been detected early if she had received a routine pap smear.

An Adventist Health press release said that discussion of health issues is often avoided in the Sikh community. The program seeks to raise awareness in the community of the need for routine cancer screenings to improve early cancer detection.

Adventist Health Bakersfield, previously San Joaquin Community Hospital, is a 254–bed facility in Bakersfield, California which serves Kern County. Adventist Health runs 20 hospitals and over 280 clinics on the West Coast and in Hawaii. It also operates home care and hospice agencies. According to the Sacramento Business Journal, it is the third-largest private company in the Sacramento region with $3.95 billion in 2016 revenue. The system is affiliated with the Adventist Church.

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What Is the Church / Ellen White, CH01-01 SM3

"When Protestantism Follows the Beast" - Pastor Joe Crews

Maranatha July 13 Unity and Separation Under the Loud Cry

Great Controversy Chap 35 Liberty of Conscience Threatened

FBI agent Peter Strzok appears before Congress

Facebook Shuts Down Christian Ideas While Letting Others Post Threats

Facebook members can say virtually anything about Christians who uphold a male-female foundation for sexual ethics. But I can’t share my religious perspective.




By Robert Gagnon
July 3, 2018


Facebook has become one of the great censors of our day. Rather than provide a forum in which people can express their own views freely on controversial issues (controversial, that is, from a left-wing perspective), Facebook administrators have seen fit to selectively impose their radical sexual ethics on users of their social media site.

On June 14 at 1:09 PM I learned that Facebook blocked me for 24 hours because of my alleged “hate speech.” They made my post visible only to my eyes and fixed things so that I could not post or comment on my own FB page or even send communications through private FB messaging. I was directed to the “community standards” that prohibited “a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics — . . . sexual orientation . . . gender identity.”


They said: “If you request a review, someone from our review team will take another look at the post.” There was a little dot to click but no place to make my case, just as there was no specific explanation for why my remarks were being treated as “hate speech.” I clicked the dot and was informed, “Someone will be taking another look at this video.”

I found out that the next time I am blocked it will be for three days; after that, 30 days; with the eventual threat of disabling my Facebook account entirely. What heinous act of “hate speech” did I commit?

I had responded to this perverse video from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from the program “CBC Life.” In it Canadian television personality Jessi Cruikshank sits at a table with a garland of rainbow balloons, providing lead-in questions to two girls and two boys, who seem to be ages five to eight. The purpose of the video is simple: to proselytize for support of “Gay Pride Month.”

Pope Francis and the Problematic Sainthood Cause of Cardinal August Hlond

James Carroll

July 11, 2018 5:00 AM

Roman Catholic canonization is always as much about the present as about the past. So why would the Church elevate the Polish Cardinal August Hlond as a moral exemplar today?Photograph by Tony Linck / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty


In Poland, a revisionist manipulation of the history of the Holocaust is under way, and Pope Francis may be its unwitting ally. A bill sponsored by the governing nationalist Law and Justice Party and signed into law in February bans any discussion of Poland’s co-responsibility for or complicity in the Shoah, but how far can such disavowal go? The Vatican recently advanced the sainthood “cause” of Cardinal August Hlond, the Primate of Poland during the Second World War, and a famous opponent of the Nazis. Indeed, he was the only cardinal to be arrested by the Gestapo, which occurred in 1944, when he was in exile in France. In May, Pope Francis certified Hlond’s “heroic virtues” and declared him “venerable,” an assessment based in part on Hlond’s defense of Jews.

In 1936, Hlond issued a long pastoral letter addressed to the Catholics of Poland. Read by priests from pulpits during Lent, the letter included a short section on “the Jewish problem.” The Cardinal wrote, “So long as Jews remain Jews, a Jewish problem exists and will continue to exist.” But, the letter went on to declare, “It is forbidden to assault, beat up, maim or slander Jews. One should honor and love Jews as human beings and neighbors . . . . Beware of those who are inciting anti-Jewish violence. They are serving a bad cause.”

Given that clear defense of Jewish lives and safety, it may seem surprising that leaders of Jewish organizations are objecting to the Holy See’s glorification of Hlond. But critics, including Polish Catholics, have drawn attention to other lines in that same letter: “It is a fact that Jews are waging war against the Catholic Church, that they are steeped in free thinking, and constitute the vanguard of atheism, the Bolshevik movement, and revolutionary activity.” The letter’s litany of such “facts” goes on, blaming Jews for their “corruptive influence on morals,” “pornography,” “fraud,” “usury,” and “prostitution.” The letter, written three years before the Nazi occupation, encourages Poles to boycott Jewish businesses.

After Pope Francis approved the prelate’s advancement toward sainthood, Rabbi David Rosen, the American Jewish Committee’s international director of interreligious affairs and a widely respected veteran of Jewish-Catholic dialogue, warned that the valorizing would be “an expression of approval of Cardinal Hlond’s extremely negative approach towards the Jewish community.” But the Polish priest in charge of the sainthood cause derided critical focus “on this negative part of the letter,” complaining that critics “are not quoting any other part.”

US missionaries fear for lives amid riots in Haiti

By Chris Perez


July 10, 2018 | 10:05pm

 

People walk past burning roadblocks set up by anti-government protesters in Haiti. AP

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The capital of Haiti has faced four days of riots and demonstrations — forcing US tourists and missionaries to stay inside following a government-ordered increase on gas prices.

Looters have been burning down buildings, pillaging shops and setting up fiery roadblocks in Port-au-Prince during clashes with local police over the price hikes. The US Embassy has urged citizens to remain inside.

An estimated 120 Americans are reportedly staying in a Port-au-Prince hotel — where demonstrators tried setting a fire Saturday.

Church groups and volunteers from several different states — including North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia — are also said to be stranded in Haiti as the riots continue.

Many said they feared for their lives over the weekend as the demonstrations ramped up.

“I, 100 percent thought I was going to die, and so was my sister and my fiancé,” said Savannah Peek, a missionary from Richmond County, NC.

She told WSOC that protesters tried getting to her and her team at one point.

“We hear a loud knocking. We look over and there’s 10 men trying to break in,” she said. “We heard gunshots start and they were very close. At this point, we all dropped immediately to the ground. We’re all on our hands and knees. Everyone’s screaming, everyone’s crying.”

Peek said that things got so bad, she and several others were given guns to protect themselves.

“People started passing out guns to civilians because we thought the 10 were about to break in and rob us, kill us, start a fire,” she explained. “We had no idea.”

Peek claimed that some locals were doing their best to keep the US citizens safe.

“The people here where we’re staying have been nothing short of amazing,” she said. “I really love Haiti, but I’m scared for my life.”

While the riots have been violent, officials have yet to report a single injury or death.

The demonstrations appeared to die down briefly on Saturday after local officials announced a temporary stop to the price increase. But it’s still not likely enough to satisfy protesters.

“The gas prices went up to $5 a liter, which is like $20 a gallon,” explained Jonathan Thames, missionary with Peek’s Richmond County team. “They only make about $2 a day.”

Source

'You don’t love me anymore?': A son is separated from his father at the border, then comes a wrenching call

 

By Esmeralda Bermudez
Jul 10, 2018 | 5:55 PM





Guatemalan asylum seeker Hermelindo Che Coc, 31, with Father Tom Carey, Rev David Farley, and Rev Matthias Peterson-Brandt, left to right, as they pray outside the Los Angeles Federal Building prior to an hearing. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)



On the day the government rushed to reunite dozens of families separated at the border, one immigrant father showed up to a federal appointment downtown fearful that he would be deported without his 6-year-old son.

Hermelindo Che Coc came from Guatemala in late May to seek asylum with his son, Jefferson Che Pop, his attorneys said. His son was taken from him with little explanation, he said, and sent to a shelter in New York.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials asked Che Coc on Tuesday morning to appear before an officer as part of his removal process.

But officials promptly dismissed him because they could not locate his file, said Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director with Immigrant Defenders Law Center.

He left the court free for now but still no closer to being united with his son. His case underscores the confusion and heartbreak that has marked the Trump administration’s efforts to reunite families this week. While some children were placed with parents Tuesday, many more families remain separated, not knowing when they would see one another again.

“I can’t sleep. All night, every morning I pray. I ask God that he will soon return my son,” Che Coc said. “I came with him. I carried him in my arms. I ask God to put him back in my arms as soon as possible. Without him I can’t be happy.”

Hermelindo Che Coc came from Guatemala in late May to seek asylum with his son, Jefferson Che Pop, his attorneys said. His son was taken from him with little explanation, he said, and sent to a shelter in New York City. 

Catholic Bishop: Europe Migrant Crisis ‘Orchestrated’ by International Powers

Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images 7 Jul 2018

The Catholic church is being used as a pawn in a well-orchestrated plan to radically alter the Christian identity of European nations through mass migration, said Bishop Athanasius Schneider in a bombshell interview last week.

Schneider, who serves as auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, told the Italian daily Il Giornale that the current migrant crisis “represents a plan orchestrated and prepared for a long time by international powers to radically alter the Christian and national identity of the peoples of Europe.”

To achieve their objectives, these powers abuse “the true concept of humanism and even the Christian commandment of charity,” Schneider said, exploiting the moral authority of the church for anti-Christian purposes.

The powers in question “use the enormous moral potential of the church and their own structures to achieve their anti-Christian and anti-European goal more effectively,” he said.

The interview was released in the midst of a series of initiatives by Pope Francis to bring about a “change in mindset” regarding immigration by focusing on the positive contributions of immigrants rather than the negative fallout from mass migration.

Asked for his opinion of Italian populist politician Matteo Salvini, who now serves as interior minister, the bishop said he is unqualified to speak on Italy’s political situation but praised the general direction that Italy is now taking, especially by standing up to the European Union (EU), which he compared to the Soviet Union.

The bishop said he would applaud the government of any European nation that “tries to accentuate its own sovereignty and its historical, cultural, and Christian identity in the face of the totalitarianism of a sort of new Soviet Union, which today is called the European Union and has an unmistakably Masonic ideology.”

Schneider’s words were especially poignant given his background, having been born in the Soviet Union in 1961, the child of ethnic German Catholics whom Joseph Stalin sent to gulags after the Second World War.

The criticisms leveled by Bishop Schneider echoed similar concerns voiced by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has also fought to retain the “Christian” identity of Europe as well as his country’s national sovereignty.

Orbán has called out left-wing billionaire George Soros for his scheme to flood Europe with millions of migrants in an attempt to blur national borders, saying that the European Union is following “Soros migrant plans” with its forced immigration quotas.

The Hungarian prime minister said in 2017 that Soros and the EU seek to bring in the one million migrants annually to create an EU immigration force to undermine the national sovereignty of member states.


Source

Adventists Help commemorate Colombia’s National Religious Freedom Day

Future peace can only be built on respect for human dignity, says Adventist religious freedom advocate.

Jul 10, 2018 | Bogota, Colombia | Bettina Krause, Communication director, International Religious Liberty Association

(Front row, from left) Pastor Gabriel Villerreal, PARL director for the Adventist Church in Colombia; Mr. Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia; Dr. Ganoune Diop, PARL director for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. [Photo courtesy of the Inter-America Division]



Seventh-day Adventist religious liberty leaders were invited by the Colombian government to help celebrate the country’s third annual National Religious Freedom Day, held July 4. During a morning meeting at Casa La Giralda, headquarters of Colombia’s Ministry of the Interior, Dr. Ganoune Diop, director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the Adventist world church, addressed more than 100 religious and political leaders who had gathered to mark the occasion.

“You have the opportunity to make a historic contribution to peace by recognizing human dignity as the essential foundation for building a peaceful coexistence,” Dr. Diop told the group, which included Evangelicals, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and representatives of other faiths.

In his presentation, Diop acknowledged that Colombia faces extraordinary challenges following more than five decades of armed civil conflict—a devastating struggle that through the years has displaced some 5 million people from their homes, left an estimated 220,000 dead, and taken a massive economic and emotional toll on generations of Colombians.

Circumstances of Trump’s Nomination of Catholic-Jesuit B. Kavanaugh,Prop...

President Trump Nominates Brett Kavanaugh to U.S. Supreme Court: Full Video

Former Vatican Bank chief: Authors of New World Order demographic collapse influencing the Vatican

Ettore Gotti Tedeschi Video frame

Diane Montagna

Mon Jul 9, 2018 - 1:23 pm EST


ROME, July 7, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — The demographic collapse of the West in recent decades was planned in order to create the necessary conditions to usher in a New World Order, and the authors of this collapse are now influencing the Vatican at the highest levels, the former president of the Vatican bank has said.

Speaking at the first international conference of the John Paul II academy for human life and the family, Italian economist and banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi said efforts to decrease the world’s population by globalist elites have set in motion a series of predictable and intended economic, geo-political, and social catastrophes meant to “persuade” people around the world to accept a global “political vision” that would eliminate national sovereignty and institute “gnostic environmentalism” as its “universal religion.”

The recurrent themes of the present papacy are poverty, immigration and the environment, and we are led to believe that these are caused by “the greed of bankers, war and man, the “cancer of nature.” But this is “fake news” according to Gotti Tedeschi. For him, the cause behind all of these scourges is the “collapse in births.”

The people pushing this fake news, he said, are “gnostic prophets” such as population control proponents Paul Ehrlich, Jeffrey Sachs and Ban Ki-moon who, rejecting the natural law and the divine order of creation, seek to proselytize the world with their “anti-Catholic gnosis.”

Trump nominates Kavanaugh, a Catholic, to Supreme Court

Michael J. O’Loughlin

July 09, 2018

President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, who is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook, File)


President Donald Trump announced he is nominating D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, using a prime-time television address on Monday that will kick off a contentious battle in Washington over the replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy and the future of the court. Mr. Kavanaugh, if he is confirmed, will be the fifth Catholic on the nine-person court.

Speaking from the White House, Mr. Trump called Mr. Kavanaugh “judge’s judge, a true thought leader among his peers.”

Mr. Kavanaugh, who was joined at the announcement by his wife and two daughters, took the podium after the president and thanked Mr. Trump for his nomination.

During his remarks, Mr. Kavanaugh highlighted his Catholic faith and Jesuit connections.


“The motto of my Jesuit high school was ‘men for others.’ I have tried to live that creed.”
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Catholic Church Gains Control of the Supreme Court

The church brutalised Ireland. People have a right to protest against the pope’s visit

Opinion

The church brutalised Ireland. People have a right to protest against the pope’s visit

Emer O'Toole


Ireland’s political leaders are calling protests against Pope Francis’s visit ‘petty’. Have they forgotten the decades of abuse?


@Emer_OToole

Mon 9 Jul 2018 07.42 EDTFirst published on Mon 9 Jul 2018 06.30 EDT


In 1979, Pope John Paul II visited the Republic of Ireland, and approximately 2.7 million people– 79% of the population – came out to honour him. At the time, contraception, divorce, and homosexuality were illegal, and John Paul II was a god.

Survivors of Catholic church abuse in Ireland demand papal meeting

On 25 August, when Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to travel to Ireland in 39 years, he will arrive on the shores of a very different island.

Throughout the 1990s, abuse scandals rocked the Irish Catholic establishment and hastened the process of secularisation. Since then, progressive constitutional and legal change has been slow but consistent, signalling rejection of the church’s moral authority. In 1993 homosexuality was decriminalised; in 1995, a referendum to legalise divorce passed by the slimmest of margins; in 2015, the country voted overwhelmingly to legalise gay marriage; and in June, 66% of the electorate voted to legalise abortion.

The separation of church and state in Ireland is far from complete. For example, the church is still involved in running 90% of state-funded primary schools. It is deeply enmeshed in our medical system. We are still wrestling with the scars of decades of abuse, implemented by the church and facilitated by the state. We are still finding children’s bodies in unmarked mass graves.