A chara, – Your editorial “The Irish Times view on escaping from the shadow of conflict” (May 20th) on the Civil War offers a backhanded compliment (more backhanded than compliment) to how the Catholic Church could have had a positive influence: “Arguably, the overweening temporal power of the Catholic church was enabled by the loss of prestige of political nationalism. It was easier to look to the church for the apparently unified ideal of Irishness that politics had failed to sustain.”
Could The Irish Times not have said that the fact that a large majority of the population were Catholic contributed a basis for unity and an impulse for healing when civil society was rent by uncivil war?
The mission of all Christian churches is to encourage unity among peoples, whether Irish or otherwise, and whether or not politics sustains an “ideal of Irishness”.
The Catholic Church was the organisation with the largest number of members which could play such a part.
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There were many others. On May 11th last, RTÉ 1 broadcast a programme on the positive influence of the GAA during and after the Civil War.
How stands the “prestige of political nationalism” today? What organisations and movements today help to bolster unity rather than division among the peoples of Ireland? – Is mise,
PÁDRAIG McCARTHY,
Sandyford,
Dublin 16.
