Mary Kenny
I’ve been invited to participate in an American television programme on Pope Francis’s forthcoming visit, which will focus on “how the evolution of the women’s movement in Ireland changed aspects of society and culture”.
To be sure, the development of women’s rights and the women’s movement did contribute to changed aspects of Irish society and culture, since, say, the last Papal visit in 1979.
But it would be erroneous to think that feminism was the only agency that has brought about social change. 1979 is nearly 40 years ago, and 40 years can bring monumental alterations in a nation’s life.
Think of the period between 1880 and 1920, and the dramatic innovations in those decades: the motor car, the cinema, air travel, broadcasting, wars and revolutions, not to mention a total overturning of manners, morals and fashions.
Irish society since 1979 has been similarly affected by a number of factors, from cheap air travel to the Internet and social media, from new developments in medicine to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, from precision engineering to multi-channel television, from the use and abuse of drugs to new approaches to politics and the law.
Social change is never the result of one single factor – it is many things working together. And it is usually a mixture of outcomes too – good, bad – and unintended.
Papal encyclical doesn’t sufficiently address women’s health issues
I have written previously about Humanae Vitae, so I won’t repeat myself at length: I’ll just sum up by saying that while I find the 1968 encyclical a thoughtful document, with an uplifting view of marriage (and, by the way, emphasising that conjugal relations should be consensual, never demanded), it doesn’t sufficiently address the health of women and mothers. That aspect should be revisited.
Abortion is not health care, but bona fide contraception can be. Prolapse of the womb was common among multiparous mothers until better means of spacing children became available.
However, women have written to me to say they do not agree with this analysis: one lady, living in Dublin 20, writes to say that she is “disappointed” with the point I have made. “My Mom and Dad had enough faith and trust in God to give them enough health and all they needed to raise their family. They had seven healthy children and what a lovely childhood we had.”
She regretted that “my husband and I did not have enough trust and I was sterilised. What a mistake that was, very heavy periods, severe migraines and very bad bouts of depression. All my family suffered.
“I don’t believe contraception brings health and happiness to anyone.”
Another woman, writing from England, says that “the basic point about contraception is that it doesn’t matter HOW you control fertility – it’s not the means, it’s the ends”.
Logic
By this logic, she goes on, whether a couple use natural family planning or artificial contraception “you are interfering, controlling and arrogantly defying the authority of God.”
Certainly, the difference between “artificial” and “natural” contraception has become less with modern medical developments. For example, there is now an “app” which can measure natural cycles of fertility and infertility – recently recommended by the fashion magazine Vogue. If you are using a logarithm to measure the natural cycle, is that artificial?
It was a Rabbi who explained to me the Orthodox Jewish objection to artificial contraception, and one of the bases of Judeo-Christian thinking: that a married couple are “two in one flesh” and no foreign barrier should come between that union. I think that explains the principle very clearly – but in health terms, it still seems to me a complex area.
World Cup victory for cultural integration
France’s victory in the soccer World Cup is hailed as a victory for multi-ethnicity, and perhaps multi-denominationalism, since seven members of the French squad are Muslims.
But it’s also perhaps a victory for cultural integration, which is a vital aspect of any nation’s peaceable cohesion.
The only way that immigration of any kind can work is for incomers to integrate with the host community. That doesn’t mean yielding up their own culture or religion, but it does mean accepting the formal framework and historical values of the host state in the public sphere.
Draconian
Denmark, one of the most liberal countries in Europe, is currently banning the burqua and insisting that any migrant children who settle in Denmark must speak Danish.
It seems to me banning a woman’s apparel is draconian, but the Danes fear that non-integration leads to trouble down the line.
The French win will, hopefully, be good for more integration in French society, where Muslims have often felt alienated.
Playing and winning under the tricolour of the French Republic must surely encourage the Kylian Mbappés of the future to feel part of the nation that is now theirs.