So, Archbishop Walton Empey "wouldn't have much theological competence", according to Cardinal Desmond Connell. To this theological incompetent, the Cardinal's remark raises questions as fundamental as his own opinions. What, for instance, is theological competence, when theologians, who purport to know a great deal about God, can't know whether or not He exists? What sort of knowledge is that? Granted, theologians, like billions of non-theologians, can believe God exists but they can't know, any more than atheists can know He doesn't.
With no proofs possible, is theology then any different from, say, astrology? Certainly, faith, being belief that isn't based on evidence, is not to be dismissed and is worthy of investigation. The centrality of theology to conflict in today's world is undeniable. But faith and knowledge are not synonymous. As means for apprehending existence, they are in different categories.
Therefore, being categorically different, how can anybody claim that theology is a valid body of knowledge in which competence can be measured? As an academic subject, are there not, to borrow a Dr Connell word, valid suspicions of "sham" about it? I only ask.
Clearly, since time immemorial, religion has been, and continues to be, a colossal force in the world. Historically, religion has attempted to answer questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. In the process, it has provided adherents with benefits - consolation, fortitude and "explanation", for example. But it has also sown confusion, conflict and ignorance, even when some of its "explanations" have logically come to be seen as absurd. Can you rationally attempt rational reflection on something that admits it is not rational? Theology believes it can.
In fact, in Dr Connell's case, theology knows it can. Certainly, as a subject, theology has attracted many brilliant minds and, no doubt, following its more esoteric analyses requires training, aptitude and intelligence. Its influence on the history of thought, its relationship to the societies which produce it and its relationship to other forms of power are obviously worthy of study. But if you start off by accepting something you cannot prove, logically there's got to be scepticism about any analysis or commentary produced. Believers frequently respond to such a charge by invoking Doubting Thomas.
Yet that's hardly good enough, is it? Thomas required evidence before he would believe and because of that, he has become a figure of Christian derision. Strange that. After all, most people require evidence before they believe what they are being told. Normally, they are considered wise to do so, even though reasonable scepticism can degenerate to unworthy and paranoid levels. The alternative is to be gullible - to open yourself up to exploitation - by not asking for proof. With religion, it's difficult not to conclude that fear and indoctrination at a very early age combine to suppress natural scepticism.
Perhaps a lifetime of theological high-flying clarifies matters which remain beyond the understanding of most of us theological incompetents. Then again, maybe it just deepens faith.
Obviously, something very powerful sufficiently deepened the faith of those suicidal Muslims who crashed passenger jets into huge buildings. Allegedly believing, with unwavering theological conviction, that they were on an express route to a heaven in which 72 virgins awaited each of them, they too have become, to most of us, figures of derision. You can think their beliefs to be insane but you cannot prove that they are.
To the Christian mind then, a Doubting Thomas deserves ridicule, while a Doubting Muhammad would be praised for his rationality. So far as Christian faith goes, this makes sense but in terms of knowledge, it can't prove anything. Looking at the world today, most Westerners would be happy to see rapid growth in the numbers of Doubting Muhammads. As Christianity was in mediaeval Europe (and even in mid-20th century Ireland) Islam today, at least in its fundamentalist forms, appears dangerously intense and anti-rational.
If fundamentalism is a concerted refusal to allow outside influences bring about changes, then Cardinal Connell is a fundamentalist. He really does seem like a man from another age, with all of the negative and, perhaps, even some of the positive attributes that implies. Winston Churchill, for instance, is widely regarded as having been a sort of 19th-century man at the height of his power in the mid-20th century. In any society with aspirations to egalitarianism, Churchill could reasonably be considered a bully. Yet his bullying had the merit of firm conviction during a time of war.
Similarly, Dr Connell's conviction endears him to, and is useful for, the right-wing of Irish Catholicism. Some particularly devout adherents, most notably in Islam but also in Christianity, believe that religion is already in a war against secularism. (Certainly, the kind of theological belief in "free" markets, which has gripped many Western governments in the past 20 or so years, evidences aspects of religious fervour on the secular side. We've already had shopping described by the governor of California as "modern day patriotism". So, "shopping as salvation" is the next, illogical, step.)
The fundamental problem, however, for Dr Connell and his staunchest supporters is that the more they cling to and insist on fundamentalist answers, the more people who don't agree with them are repelled. There is no reason to doubt that the Cardinal believes Trinity College, in not awarding him an honorary degree, "insulted" him and through him "the Catholic people of Dublin". But with his recent remarks, it can be argued that Dr Connell, unwittingly or otherwise, insulted quite a few of the Catholics of Dublin himself.
The simple truth is that most Irish Catholics do not believe what Desmond Connell believes and regard him as a peripheral and eccentric figure in Irish life. Sensible people know that the legacy of religion in this country includes both good and bad and that's as true for Protestantism as it is for Catholicism. But Dr Connell seems incapable of allowing for any Catholic bad. As such, it's practically impossible for anybody to engage in debate with him. He is speaking from a different time with a mind, by all accounts very cultivated, but cultivated by a world-view which dominated Europe's Middle Ages.
Anyway, at a time when theology, albeit Taliban theology, is being denounced as a hugely evil force in the world, Dr Connell's faith in his own Catholic theology cannot but be contentious. Before science eradicated for instance, smallpox, theology typically spoke of pestilence as the wages of sin. Even today, the loopier US Christian fundamentalists blame the attacks of September 11th on Western decadence and "sinful" abortion. As ever, of course, the problem with that sort of analysis is that it can neither be proved nor disproved. You either believe it or you don't.
And most Westerners don't. That does not mean that most Westerners have rejected religion - though some have. It just means that most have rejected analyses unsupported by evidence. History, culture and rationality have combined to rescue Doubting Thomas, a development which prompted the scientist Richard Dawkins to suggest that perhaps Thomas should be the patron saint of scientists. It's true, of course, that some scientists invest their discipline with religious zeal, arguing that faith itself is one of the world's great evils. But that too seems lopsided and partisan.
People will continue to believe in the supernatural and, presumably, such belief offers comfort to many. No proofs are required because a false belief can be just as comforting as a true one and, in many instances, it's impossible to prove what's true and what's not. When Dr Connell speaks of, for instance, "angels", what can you say? Doubtless, for him, they exist and have meaning and that can be seen as a testament to his faith. But it can hardly be seen as proof of his knowledge, beyond his being familiar with the thinking on the subject of like-minded people down the centuries.
It is easy to condemn Desmond Connell for his outbursts. Certainly, he can sound insensitive, arrogant and even rude. Mind you, he's not alone in Irish public life in displaying such qualities.
His imperiousness is also easily attacked. But beyond all of those widely perceived traits, is it not the case that when he speaks of knowledge, he is liable to be speaking about something very different to what most of us believe the word means? He professes faith, we profess astonishment . . .
Theology is often ridiculed because it once posed questions such as "the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin". Well, most disciplines have daft phases of greater or lesser intensity. So it goes. But when people retreat behind private walls of faith, they are often not only out of touch, in the colloquial sense, but out of reach in every sense. That the Archbishop of Dublin should be out of touch seems expected; that he seems to be out of reach is tragic for Irish Catholicism.