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The Papacy, Lisbon and the Irish Vote

Udgivet af: Monday 30 June 2008 14:08 af Seamus Breathnach

Seamus Breathnach // June 29, 2008 at 2:31 p.m.

The Papacy,
Lisbon and The Irish Vote

Today Saturday 28 June, 2008, in the centre of O'Connell Street , Dublin, there was great rejoicing coming from a shop that was obviously religious. The shop (broadcasting hymns and exhibiting chalk statutes etc.) exhibited a large poster in the front window to demonstrate that a Novena offered up by the Church to enlighten the people of Ireland to vote ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty had been answered. What has been most suspect in the recent Lisbon election is the hidden number of the Novena-faithful. What is confusing is how so many of the faithful could vote ‘No’ to the Lisbon Treaty so definitely, while their leader, Pope Benedict XVI, could be so circumspectly in favour of a United Europe. It might be remembered that the Pope’s guarded idea of unity comes ‘after’ rather than before the Irish vote! How can such ambivalence and apparent contradiction be explained?

Perhaps some relevant facts about THE IRISH might not be out of place :

1. Since the Middle Ages a Papal colony calling themselves Catholics and forming ‘a middle nation’ (i.e. Between native pagans and ‘real’ Norman English) took over Ireland. These colonists , in contrast to the repressed Gaels, consttute the modern ‘Irish’, and on behalf of the Papacy have governed Ireland vi pulsa and ‘by the grace of God’ (of the Caesarean variety) ever since.

2. Through the Papacy the diocesan Bishops and Parish Priests sperad their control over the island and dislodged the secular native pagan Chieftains. These dioceses and parishes have always formed the most conservative and at times reactionary collective mind in Europe; for it is a mind that has been totally indebted to the Papacy for its very existence and has , in return, submitted to becoming the most perfect instrument of imperial Christian propaganda world-wide.

3. Accordingly, in the Lisbon Vote, we witness the Irish (middle nation) turning its collective back -- or ‘apparently’ turning its back -- on its own leaders, and notwithstanding net receipts of some 32b euros, without which the Irish would still be swinging out of a Castle-cum-Cathedral culture, the pack voted a resounding ‘No’ to Europe. Much of this bonus money went wisely towards the creation of an Irish middle class, hitherto practically non-existent except for that tight parochial swathe of people that lived primarily off Church/State construction and allied services. In the absence of an Irish middle class, secular resistance to the rule of the Parish Priest is unknown in Ireland, and even if the Euro has helped enormously in this direction, as a class, it is still, perhaps, the last and certainly (barring Northern Ireland) the least and the pettiest bourgeois formation in Western Europe. Nevertheless, the Irish , for the second time , took Europe’s money on the pretext of having a shared affection and appreciation for it , but once the money was spent, like women of an unflattering variety, they Irish ran to the protection of their more enduring master. What tune were they listening to -- such that they could ‘apparently’ divorce themselves from their entire secular leadership? One might recall how , after the Nice Referendum , the Department of the Taoiseach, made the following statement:

‘I warmly welcome this extremely important decision of the Irish people. We can now ratify the Treaty of Nice and the truly historic enlargement of the European Union can go ahead. The Irish peoples decision was made following extensive debate -- a deeper debate than any we have had since our initial decision to join the EEC. 
<http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/index.asp?locID=367&docID=985>

Perhaps the Irish will always need a second bite of the cherry to really savour it. In the meantime ,however, the strength of of those opposed to the Treaty would have us believe that the Irish will is implacably written in Tablets as enduring as the Ten Commandments.

4. Sinn Fein/IRA , lately come from the very limited and horrifically reactionary streets of Catholic Belfast, is the first of such voices to sing ‘No’ to Lisbon, and is, ironically, the only elected voice among the promoters of a ‘No’ vote. For those who do not understand Sinn Fein/IRA , it would be fair to say that, despite their oft-quoted guff about ‘Marx’, dating from the time when they were underdogs fighting the RIC from the strongholds of Belfast, they really enjoy the same relation with the Church/State as , perhaps, the Franco regime did back in the ‘30s, their only claim to an ‘educated’ or an informed political consciousness being dependent upon the Catholic priests who have shunted them from the barricades to the benches of Parliament. People should not be too surprised at this: it has long become part of the universal church’s appeal to allow its faithful, especially in South America and Cuba, to give voice to their appalling social conditions, knowing full well that by the time they come to power they shall be ‘defined in’ to the system with minimum persuasion -- just as Sinn Fein are being co-opted in just as we speak. That they were ever ‘outside’ the capitalist system in any real Marxist sense is a debate for another day. Indeed, there are some who believe that their real grievance, though dressed up in the rhetoric of Liberation Theology is not about the ‘working classs truggle’ -- and was never about anything more than a neurosis for more ‘Catholic Emancipation’. Nevertheless, however anxious Sinn Fein/IRA is to distinguish their party in the Republic of Ireland, they would on their own make preciious little of a persuasive difference. Moreover, the erstwhile ‘Marxist’ party had little hope of making allies with others.

So, with whom were they allied? The only real ally Sinn Fein/IRA ever had in Ireland was the Church. But rather peculiarly, they joined with a total outsider -- a chap called Declan Ganley, (whom no one had ever heard of before Lisbon.) Ganley is an impressive performer, who keeps the identity of his backers under an Opus Dei-like seal. For all the world he has a stride not dissimilar to that of Oswald Mosley, and when he revealed himself as the declared leader of a groupless-group interestingly called ‘Libertas’, he was quick to disarm the little Irish curiousity there was by assuring one and all that he was a ‘good Catholic’ he is. Whereever Mr Ganley is from originally, or whatever interests he represents, one can be fairly sure that he does not habitually speak the Gaelic language that Gerry Adams is so keen to have Northern Protestants speak, or , for that matter, that he ever played hurling for Oughterard. On the face of it, however, this was the man with whom Sinn Fein appeared to hatch the plot of the ‘No’ vote -- a plot that emanated from the most opaque if conservative location in the mysterious Catholic spectrum.

5. Again one got whiffs of the Franco regime when each debate started. ‘One’s children had to be protected’, was the spiel; ‘democracy (sorry ‘greater democracy’) was at stake’, and Europe’s democracy had to be protected by the ever so democratic Irish. Having spent monies in large quantities, Declan Ganley (the ‘Business-man’ -cum- ‘Good Catholic’) garnered the ‘No’ vote at a time when, by any standards, the government canvassed as if they couldn’t care less -- an attitude that was picked up by most journalists, including Bruce Arnold of the Irish Independent, who rightly excoriated them on this very point. The point is: the government were so lacklustre in their business that one went so far as to wonder why they were so ill-organised.

Ostensibly , then, the ‘No’ campaign concerned itself with negative fears, while the Government did very little that was either meaningful, impressive or, indeed, had the ring of authenticity about it.

So, what, one might ask , were all these fears?

There was the amplified fear of Ireland being dragged into war on Europe’s behalf, even though the US, flying out of Galway, had been engaged in an illegal war for years -- a fact which people , including the ‘No’ voters, temporarily forgot. Then there was the sexual promiscuity - fear , even though no one dared mention ‘clerical pedophilia’ as a suitable object of European reform. As all Irish people know only too well, the damages arising from clerical pedophelia are paid almost exslusively by the Irish taxpayer -- hardlhy a cause for rejoicing even in the most hallowed circles!. But this also was never mentioned due to a temporary loss of memory. On the part of the ‘No’ campaigners. And there was also a set of assorted ragtag sources of distemper, some legitimate, like the fishermen's griveance and , to a lesser extent, the farmers.

6. Behind all this was an ongoing daily saga for months and years respecting the utter squalor of Irish public life. The squalor was shared incestuously and jointly by the RCC and its aweful hand-maiden, the so-called secular Republic. This debilitating squalor-fest remained in fateful counterpoint with the paralysed anger of the Irish people for years. The managerial effrontery of their leaders. Religous and secular, was suffocating. Even as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Pope Benedict XVI’s new Dublin broom, was preaching a hand-in-glove crusade with Premier Bertie Ahern against Irish crime, the whole Church/State ensemble collapsed into a cadence which saw Premier Bertie Ahern ignominiously leave office and, of course, with the people voting a decisive ‘No’, not just to Lisbon, but to the incredible squalor that had plagued the Irish Chruch/State since the days of C.J. Haughey, Dermot Morgan’s church ridicule ‘Father Ted’ and the Church/State coverup of significant clerical pedophelia. The vote was an angry vote, a vote to redeem the democratic process, not just from Lisbon, but much more significantly from the mediaevalism and mediocrity of the Irish State, over which they , the people , had no control whatsoever. One might be forgiven for thinking that it was a ‘curse-on-both-your-houses’ kind of vote, a curse on the Irish Church/State ensemble and a curse on its connection with the Lisbon Treaty.

Nevertheless, it is hardly conceiveable that Sinn Fein/IRA, on their own, or coupled with the ‘dark horse’ Declan Ganley -- from whom they are not as ideologically dissimilar as their representations would lead one to believe -- could have delivered the ‘No’ vote. Something else was needed. And that something else was Opus Dei, that body of good and pious souls who shunt incessantly between Premier’s Office and Archbishop’s tent. These men (and women), a lot of them, adept at table mannners on the Brussels-gravy train, and living high off the civil service hog of the ‘Yes-Minister’ variety, are never to be underestimated; they are, in effect, experts at calculating ‘who’ should the Church/State needs most to be in office as well as ‘who’ shall remain in office. Such matters are their raison d’etre. They knew what was possible , what was achieveable and what was desirable. They also knew how to achieve it.

After all, Opus Dei has kept power in church-laden hands ever since 1922, the only conceiveable ripple in their seamless success being the enigma as to how in the 1930s De Valera managed to dislodge Cumann Na nGaedhael after a decade of faithful Church-service. Some will tell you that it was the 1937 Constitution and the Special Position given by Dev to the Catholic church, or alternatively, perhaps it was due to the special position given by the Pope to Dev in return for drafting the Constitution in accord with Papal principles. Others , of course, will mention the Eucharistic Congress and how the State put the Church’s needs first, a bit like the O’Briens of medieval Munster giving the only decent castle they had in Cashel to the Pope’s legate, when they themselves slept on the mountain side ; others still will recall the new Constitution’s ban on secular divorce and the Vatican’s concern to gear Irish fertility towards the American missionary market ; others will recall the gradual monopoly of the hospitals and the schools secured under Fianna Fail hegemony, while others still will reflect upon the censorship laws and a raft of repressive Catholic legislation that kept writers in the doghouse and the religious in powerful positions extending to every nook and cranny of the so-called Republic. Indeed, the Church also needed someone they could trust to ratline the Nazis, someone who would keep that aspect of Irish neutrality secret.

For our present purposes , it really doesn’t matter; what matters is that everyone in the Republic of Ireland knows as a matter of fact and lifestyle, that all elections are won by the Church of Rome and its legion of 'good Catholics'. Indeed, whoever fights the ‘secular’ elections, the Angelus will still be broadcat nationally from the nation’s ecumenical, multicultural radio and television station, RTE. So, if Frianna Fail didn’t cowtow to the Roman Church, there are always other brethern among the rank and file of all the other parties to perform the same or a similar sergice. Indeed, Opus Dei has them championing at the bit to emulate Fianna Fail in serving the Church and, in consequence, manage Ireland soley towards that covetted if inglorious end.

7. The relevant question here is not so much WHETHER Opus Dei tapped into all the Church's liege parties that were ‘ostensibly’ for the Lisbon treaty, but in respect of which all their followers found just cause to abandon them entirely -- but rather ‘HOW’ did Opus Dei do it without sending out a religious alarm. The answer to this question lies in the most peculiar allignment between the Catholic Church, its episcopacy and the leaders of all the political parties. It is as if they were knowingly caught in a bind and the best way , not to be outflanked by the super-catholic Sinn Fein/IRA for permanent Church favour, what panned out was the best compromise for all concerned.

8. Regarding this ambivalence of the political party leaders, practically every commentator will tell you frankly that the government ran a shambles of a campaign. (The press is also part of the religious culture that obtains throughout the warp and weft of Irish life. They , too , indulge in theatre, by prying, but not prying deeply or relentless enough. In this respect, if it had not been for members of the British media, Catholic pedophelia in Ireland would never have been revealed!) The parties openly went through the theatre of criticizing each other for not being in earnest about returning a ‘Yes’ vote. Notoriously, some of them even broadcast the fact that they had not read the Treaty. Put it all together and you get Holy Roman Irish theatre - and on reflection, it all weighs in the balance. The Government and the ‘opposition’ parties threw the election to allow the Vatican to pronounce its veto on the European Community. Barusso probably was the safeguard to allow the theatre to have full effect and, at the same time, secure a second bite at the cherry for the Catholic Irish.

9. What all these things taken individually point to is a rather impoverished cultural and intellectual society, a society not at all informed in the proper areas and sadly if curiously lacking in the hard questions when it comes to the nub of secular politics. Who, for example, is Declan Ganley? What are his American interests? Why should being a ‘good Catholic’ require mention if not to cover a trail that might open up greater questions? And why spend over a million Euros on saying ‘No’?

10. Taken together, however, they offer us the true contours of a much more sinister reason for the ‘No’ to Lisbon vote. After the election the triumph of the most reactionary religious and conservative cabals in Britain and throughout the Roman Catholic world is not insignificant. Neither is it insignificant with what lack of conviction all the Irish parties portrayed their alleged desire for a ‘Yes’ vote. On reflection, it can well be argued that the whole Irish campaign was a Holy Roman stratagem, designed to allow the government to appear to be secular and in favour of secular Europe, but which in effect had compromised the election, prefering to obey its Roman masters while relying upon the secular authorities in Europe to reward them further. What the Irish really want, is what the Pope -- now victorious on his own terms -- is quick to tell us; the Pope now wants a unified Europe, but one unified in Christianity. We are back with Charlemagne and the vicious Papal plots against the secular powers of Europe -- where Islam and the Turks are demonised and he crowns Europe as the home of Christianity. Of course the Irish want what the Pope of the day wants; to think otherwise would be outside the ken of either Irish or Polish realpolitik. Which brings us to the Pope’s eulogy for the Irish in Europe, as the softener for having controlled the Irish vote through Opus Dei , the Jesuits and the Redemptorists.

The Pope needed a ‘No’ vote in order to tell Europe that Catholic Europe is still in contention and that he is the head -- the pro-active and conspiratorial head of that Church. Coupled with the Poles’ fervently praying for a ‘No Vote’ and congratulating the Irish, the Novena in O'Connell Street echoes the truth of what had happened. The Irish government, ever ready to do theatre, did what the Pope and Opus Dei wanted. There was nothing senseless about the Irish vote, no more than there was anything senseless about the notice asserting the triumph of the Novena in O'Connell Street.

11. In his speech concerning Ireland’s contribution to spreading the Roman message (the Irish love such assurances), the Pope unfortunately omits some salient facts. He doesn’t mention, for example, that the triumph of the “Irish’ (for which read the Anglici Norman colony in Ireland) Church occasioned the burning to death of native Gaelic Chieftains for saying that there never was a Jesus -- for saying no more, in effect, than what modern-day scholars of the calibre of Francesco Carotta (War Jesus Caesar?) or Joseph Atwill (Caesar’s Messiah) are saying. Secondly, it is in this context that Ireland’s so-called Golden Age of Christianity consisted no more than of really trying to re-sell to Europe that which Europe had already in its wisdom discarded (Christianity). And thirdly, if the Irish played such a Christian role in Europe as the Pope conveniently imagines, or if they had been so ‘Saintly and Scholarly’ rather than an unquestioning colony of liege lackeys of the Papacy, why did Benedict XVI’s predecessors draft Laudabiliter,a Papal Bull that delivered Gaelic Ireland bound hand-and-foot to Henry the 11 to Christianize?

12. Finally, what the Lisbon ‘No’ Vote demonstrates is that Ireland is as impressionable as it is manipulable by the RC Church. Over the decades and centuries it has developed little by way of distinct colonial cultural roots conducive of an enduring or intellectual environment, or , indeed, an environment independent of the Vaticanal or Jesuitical control. Perhaps, after 1,500 years of uninterrupted and unquestioned priestcraft, one should not expect too much from a significantly insecure community and one that is totally lacking in secular and political innovation.

Some people joined Europe — not so much to reform it — but to be reformed by it. I am one of these!But if this cannot be achieved, then Europe might well conceive of moving ahead without a Papal veto on every secular step taken to improve communal life. As James Joyce, Dave Allen, Dermot Morgan and thousands of ordinary Irish people have demonstrated in the past, confronted with such religious intransigence moving out of Catholic Ireland is not always an undesirable option.

Seamus Breathnach

http://www.irish-criminology.com