Courtney McGrailDear Editor, Thank you so much for your impressive pair of articles on the Reformation in your issue of November 10.
Prof. Salvador Ryan’s piece on what led Luther to revolt was absolutely fascinating, and a salutary lesson in the dangers of excessive scrupulosity in our religious lives.
It seems clear that there was an alarming rigidity in the young Luther – something some sensible spiritual guidance might well have tempered – and in hindsight it looks far from surprising that he eventually snapped and set himself up as knowing better than the Pope.
Whether there are lessons in that for today’s ardent young Catholics is a matter for another day!
Prof. John McCafferty’s piece on the English failure to impose Protestantism on Ireland was if anything even more enthralling and enlightening.
The popular myth that Catholicism was happily abandoned and Protestantism merrily adopted in England once the Tudors opened the door to change has, as is well known, been long under siege, discredited by such authors as Christopher Haigh, Jack Scarisbrick, and Dundalk’s own Eamon Duffy – the latter based in Cambridge, of course. Rather, it has become clear, the Reformation was in no small part imposed upon the English from above, and with this imposition having been so successful, many will have wondered why a similar imposition did not succeed in Ireland. I have certainly done so!
Prof. McCafferty’s explanation that the attempted imposition failed because, in essence, it was a foreign imposition, attempted by foreign rulers, using foreign methods in a foreign language makes perfect sense when explained.
In this respect, it was particularly interesting to learn how the persecuted Catholic Church in Ireland made use of our vernacular Gaelic tongue, translating the catechism and prayer books so ordinary people could hold fast to their faith in a language they could understand.
Yours etc.,
Gabriel Kelly,
Drogheda, Co. Louth.