Catholicism: Did God grant Ireland through the centuries Most Favoured Nation status? The reader of popular Catholic literature in the first few decades of the last century will come across the frequently expressed view that Ireland had, of all the nations, suffered the most for Faith and Fatherland. Archbishop Daniel Mannix of Melbourne, I recall, told a group of seminarians in Rome in 1920 that God owed the Irish for what they had gone through.
The author of this book rejects such historically suspect and theologically dubious statements of Irish victimhood. Indeed, he seeks to question the authenticity of what passed for Irish Catholicism. Was it Irish and was it Catholic, he asks, in the first section of this engaging and provocative book.
Relying heavily for his historical sources on Desmond Fennell and on a study by Sean de Freine, he argues that the loss of Irish in the 19th century diminished the place of the sacred in post-Famine society. English, the language we adopted, "had been spiritually dehydrated under the influence of Hobbes and was consequently incapable of metaphysical discourse, was blind to the mystery of man, opaque to the mystery of God, and so incapable of theology".
Although the author acknowledges that historians may consider that reality as being more complex, he is convinced that Fennell has put his finger on why theology did not really matter in Ireland. The Irish had not yet fashioned their adopted mother tongue, as did the great English converts, into a receptacle for God's presence amongst us, he suggests.
The author identifies another historical weakness in Irish Catholicism, a weakness he became aware of forcefully after he went from Maynooth to do further theological studies in Germany in the 1970s. Living in Bavaria, and travelling widely on the continent, he became aware of the "impoverished nature of the Irish variant of the so-called late-Tridentine" or neo-Tridentine tradition, characterised by "a legalistic moral theology, a highly centralised, authoritarian institution, and a sentimental spirituality".
When the rest of Catholic Europe appeared in the 1950s to be in "dire straits" and "mired in all kinds of theological disputes", he writes that "the Irish Church basked in the self-satisfied glow of almost total attendance at Sunday Mass, sufficient vocations to supply most of the English-speaking world - and no theological doubts".
This, he argues, characterised Irish Catholicism up to the Second Vatican Council. As a seminarian in Maynooth in the mid-1960s, the author, who is a member of the Divine Word Missionary order, records that he was known as a rebel. He became disillusioned, not with the rich spirit and message of Vatican Two, but with the manner in which it was applied in Ireland. He argues that the Irish church has now to discover the richness of its early Christian roots, rediscover the real meaning of celebration and once again "catch the imagination of people at large, appealing first to the heart". "What is needed," he argues, "is pre-evangelisation. Discourse comes later."
But that Catholic recovery will now prove all the more difficult because of the banishment of religion from the public realm and "the hegemony of rationalism and utilitarianism". Joyce and Beckett are for Prof Twomey the apostles of an unhallowed, hollow modernity that characterises the wasteland that is a large part of Irish society in the first part of the 21st century. Even Irish membership of the European Union, in his view, "seems to be exclusively utilitarian" with little commitment to, or interest in, a vision of a new Europe built upon a common Christian culture.
He urges the Church to fight back and to re-enter the public space. That will have to be done in the recognition of the incontestable fact, in his view, that from the point of view of the Catholic Church "the Irish media can be described as the most hostile media in the developed world". He sees the media as being unfair and unprofessional - dominated by libertarianism - and fiercely hostile to ideas in opposition to that philosophy. In contrast to his experience of the media in other countries, participation in public debate in Ireland he compares with playing a game with the dice loaded against you where an interview with an Irish journalist "is more an interrogation by the thought-police, and any slip can be fatal". Nevertheless, he argues for Catholics to play a vigorous part in public discourse and to arrest the privatisation of religion.
Prof Twomey has an interesting and controversial chapter entitled 'Beyond Church and State'. Here he explores the distinction between private and public morality. His ideas are radical and integralist in character. But what precisely he wishes to see implemented is not so clear. The Constitution, in my view, does not permit the enshrining of Catholic morality in the laws of the country. The Irish state is a republic, embracing inclusiveness and diversity from its very foundation. That is enshrined in the founding documents of the state. Political leaders from William T. Cosgrave to Eamon de Valera, Jack Lynch, Charles Haughey, etc., have recognised that the laws of the land ought not to be confessional in nature.
The thesis on church and state put forward by Prof Twoney deserves a book in itself. But, for the moment, the reader may wish to read this work in tandem with that of his Maynooth colleague, Patrick Hannon, entitled Church, State, Morality and Law.
Prof Twomey has a series of practical suggestions regarding the reform of the Irish Church. He favours the extension of the teaching of theology. But for the author all theology is denominational. Hence his opposition to departments of theology in state universities that are inter or multi-denominational in character. There is a contrary view, and one that I share. Historically, the confining of the teaching of Catholic theology for so many years behind seminary walls did inestimable damage to the quality of "doing theology" in Ireland.
Put another way, the failure to teach theology to the laity in all the state universities (with the exception of Trinity) in the post-Vatican Two period significantly weakened the level of religious discourse in Ireland. The introduction of theology in the university sector in this century will prove difficult, but the outcome of debate - limited as it may be - will not favour the setting up of denominational faculties. The virtue of this book, however, is that it will provoke debate on the topic.
There is much more to ponder on in this book. The author raises issues about the reduction of the number of dioceses - structures in place since medieval times. He urges the reorganisation of the parish structure and puts forward a range of other far-reaching institutional reforms. The counter-arguments also need to be stated. Would such reforms lead to greater centralisation and to a loss of local identity - the latter being one of the major historical strengths of the Irish church? The debate will continue.
I participated in the conference at Fordham University in New York where the author writes that the idea for this book began. I shared a common educational formation for four years with the author nearly 40 years ago. While our ideas today on many matters might differ significantly, I hope that the concepts Vincent Twomey puts forward are debated in the media in as fair-minded a way as was the case in Fordham two years ago.
Prof Dermot Keogh is head of the History Department, University College, Cork
The End of Irish Catholicism? By D. Vincent Twomey Veritas, 220pp. €12.95