The saying goes that nature abhors a vacuum. Bad money drives out good. These idioms are not to be dismissed in any walk of life. The evidence of this is clear when it comes to the changes being seen in the school curricula on SPHE. We are seeing it in our healthcare systems. We are seeing it in the proposed hate speech laws that are in the pipeline.
This is the nature of the socio-cultural political system we live in and in others around the world. Ironically, the Judeo-Christian heritage has sown the seeds of its own demise. As articulated by Tom Holland in Dominion, amongst others, it was Christianity that paved the way for liberal social democracy to become the dominant force in the West.
The European Union – even Europe itself as a less clearly defined entity – was founded on Christianity. Pope Benedict said “There is no disputing the historical role of the Christian faith in giving life to Europe. It is to the great credit of Christianity that it gave birth to Europe after the decline of the Greco-Roman Empire and after the period of the barbarian invasions. Not only that, but the rebirth of Europe after World War II was likewise rooted in Christianity”.
But that heritage is increasingly denied and finding itself in conflict with the culture it created:
Pope Benedict noted with great foresight that “[i]f we eventually find ourselves in a clash of cultures, it will not be because of the clash of the great religions … but it will be because of the clash between this radical emancipation of man and the major cultures of history … It is rather the expression of a mind-set that would like to see God erased once and for all from the public life of humanity and relegated to the subjective sphere maintained by residual cultures from the past Relativism, which is the starting-point for all of this, thus becomes a dogmatism that believes itself in possession of the definitive knowledge of reason.”
And this is where it seems we are at not just in Europe, but in Ireland in particular. Our Christian heritage, which – factually – accompanied the country on its evolution from a subservient dominion status, through emancipation, before developing into one of Europe’s wealthiest countries.
People may disagree with the level of attribution that ought to be applied to Ireland’s Catholicism in this transformation. Some try to liken Ireland of the 1950s to a theocracy, but the facts are that Christianity supported and enabled – and justified – Ireland’s evolution into a liberal social democracy.
But now that Ireland has evolved (just like many TDs consciences on certain issues), the country is determined to repudiate its heritage.
A vacuum has been created in Irish society, ironically, through the success of our Christian heritage, offering tolerance, religious freedom and freedom of (properly formed) consciences.
The response has been to push Christianity from our social structures, erasure of the foundations, leaving just the shell of the ideas that have been instituted. And without those foundations, a shallow understanding of human dignity replaces the substantive Christian understanding.
That shallow interpretation has no need for Christianity. In its place, where Christianity has been too easily pushed to the margins, the vacuum has been filled with ‘progressive’ ideas such as pre-teenagers being taught what ought not even be talked about amongst respectable adults; where healthcare facilities valued life, they have now take life; where blasphemy was considered to be anachronistic, we are now faced with new forms of censorships.
The disappearance of a full understanding of Christian values from society has created a vacuum that has allowed bad ideas to permeate our culture and institutions. And those bad ideas further drive out the good.