Mary KennyDeath notices reveal Christendom in Ireland is not in fact dead
In common with most older people, I take a greater interest in the death notices in the newspapers than I used to do (and I positively enjoy reading a good obituary – that is, a longer article which describes a person’s life in greater detail). And despite Archbishop Michael Neary’s doleful statement last week about the Church having “lost the battle” with secularism in Ireland, I have observed that most Irish death notices still mention a church service.
Let’s take The Irish Times from last Saturday – a newspaper which has carried the most frequent readers’ letters upholding atheism and secularism. Of 21 death notices, 18 of them indicated a religious funeral – mostly Catholic, but two Church of Ireland and one Presbyterian.
“Mass at St Patrick’s, Monkstown… funeral Mass at Sacred Heart church Aughrim… funeral Mass at Our Lady of Good Counsel… funeral service at St Canice’s, Kilkenny.” One did not mention any particular service, yet ended with the usual Gaelic committal to God: “Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dilis.”
Two other death notices had no specific mention of faith: one was a “celebration of life” at Glasnevin, and one referred to a lady who was resident in Canada whose funeral had already taken place, but “May she rest in peace” – traditionally a spiritual phrase – was included.
Profile
This profile of death notices, and their continuing strong link to faith, broadly reflects the percentage of Catholics and other Christians in Ireland – that is, more than 80%. So Archbishop Neary’s fear that Ireland “is witnessing the death rattle of Christendom” is not reflected in the way we deal with actual death.
He is right, to be sure, about the broader secularisation of Ireland, and he is spot-on about media attitudes: where once the secular media took every opportunity to give the Church both barrels, now indifference has tended to replace hostility.
Freelance journalists who specialise in being critical of the Church have not been called upon as much as previously, and as journalists must respond, to some degree, to market demands, some are now choosing to focus on other subjects.
Of course the clerical scandals damaged the Church terribly – and deservedly so – but now that the airwaves are being flooded with reports and accusations of child sex abuse from, it seems, every quarter (showbiz personalities, Westminster politicians, Pakistani-heritage organised gangs in Yorkshire and elsewhere, Northern Sinn Féin), these offences are being seen as a much wider social problem rather than one specifically linked to the failings of the Church.
Indifference
Dr Neary is right about the indifference and the secularism. But at a deeper level, I’d say there still remains a core of attachment to faith. Yes, there is much to be done to re-invigorate and re-evangelise and I’d make two suggestions.
First: bring back a bit of beauty into faith services and rites. In a raucous world, there is a crying need for beauty.
Secondly – restore some of the holy days that the Church so weakly ceded to secularism – follow the French and Italians and make a fuss about Pentecost (Whit), Corpus Christi, Ascension, Assumption and All Saints.
Humanity in the midst of violence
One of the best films I’ve seen this year is Yann Demange’s ’71, which is a gruesome, but persuasive, portrayal of Belfast in 1971. Jack O’Connell (pictured) plays a British soldier who gets detached from his group during a military raid on West Belfast, and what follows is terrifying.
The British Army is seen as incompetent – the commanding officer is dim and under-informed – the loyalists, hard-faced and block-headed, the republicans involved in brutal in-fighting and deeply penetrated by British intelligence. You sympathise with the soldier, a simple Derbyshire lad, because he is an individual caught up in a maelstrom of troubles not of his making.
Religion seldom comes well out of these stories either: the grim Protestants blindly swearing allegiance to “God and Ulster”, the Catholics venerating a statue of Our Lady, but nevertheless deeply enmeshed in horrible violence. And yet, the heroics do belong to characters named as “Good Samaritans”, who put humanity and compassion before tribal reflexes – and, in one case, face a fearful price for doing so. It’s a gripping movie, leaving much unsaid, but much implicated. It was filmed in Liverpool, which does a fine imitation of Belfast in 1971.