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In Ireland, the Penal Laws Are Returning Under the Guise of Secular Liberalism
The Penal Laws were acts passed during the 17th and 18th century by the Parliament of England and Wales gradually eroded and then viciously reduced the civil liberties of nonconforming Protestants and Catholics in the islands of Great Britain and Ireland. Its most long-lasting and profound effects were felt in Ireland, where the laws were designed to obliterate the dignity of Roman Catholics and reduce beaten, defenseless, and powerless Irish Catholics into a third-class of citizenry. The Penal Laws created a form of apartheid long before South Africa and the American South.
Its difficult to go through the individual Laws, as there were several acts over the centuries beginning in the early 17th century until they gradually were overturned from 1780-1832, but the effects of the rulings or legal discrimination they allowed are most important. The laws applied to all nonconforming Protestants as well, but mainly Catholics faced the full force of the law. Here are some of them:
- Catholics were not allowed to vote.
- Catholics could not own land.
- Catholics were banned from becoming military officers.
- Catholics could not own guns (which is where your Framers realised the necessity of owning them).
- Catholics were banned from all the major professions — no lawyers, doctors, judges.
- Catholics could not stand for elected office.
- Catholics had to support a foreign church — the Church of Ireland.
- Catholics could not set up schools or any other social buildings used to promote Catholic views.
- Finally, the practice of the Catholic religion was outlawed. Any priest could be hanged if caught saying the Catholic Mass.
These acts have left a long shadow over Ireland. The countryside of Ireland is littered with monuments to the injustice of those dark times. The above picture is one such reminder near me. It shows a Mass Bush which commemorates the isolated areas away from villages and towns that priests risked their lives to offer the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass and attend to the spiritual need of their parishioners.
So why am I sharing all the above? Well, that’s sadly simple. As many of you know, I spent the good part of last month writing about the abortion debate in Ireland and the tragic defeat of the pro-life protections in our Constitution. However, all the while that was going on, there were subtle political moves of a very anti-Catholic nature taking place in Ireland’s Parliament as the populace was focused on the referendum.
Last month, the Irish Education Minister Richard Bruton (of the supposedly conservative party, Fine Gael, the same “conservative” party that introduced abortion on demand) introduced legislation into Dail Eireann that bars Catholics from discriminating between its followers’ children and a secular parent’s child for any reason in their applications to get into a Catholic ethos education facility. This may not seem too disconcerting for those of you who read only these lines. However here is the rub.
The law applies only, and I mean only, to Catholic schools. No other religious school, if it’s a “minority faith” has to abide by this law because this law only takes effect for Catholic ones. Only Catholic schools are forbidden from choosing their followers’ children vs. a non-believer’s child. The sad thing is nobody, and I mean nobody, saw the irony of this. Catholics in 2018 forbidden from having their own criteria for choosing their own students, yet every other faith and secular school can. I cannot imagine this is constitutional, but apparently the Attorney General here says it will be. Sadly, not one bishop spoke up over the outrageousness of this in a public manner.
With abortion on demand now soon to be legal, and courtesy of the huge majority they received, the supposed “conservative” Fine Gael government under Leo Varadkar (our Prime Minister) and his ambitiously toadying Health Minister Simon Harris have decided to force through laws that would allow General Practice Doctors to take part in the vast majority of abortions. Whilst they say they will allow individual GPs to be exempt from taking part in abortion through a conscientious objection, the same government insists that if they refuse to do an abortion they (doctors) must then refer their patient to a doctor who will do it.
Which, of course, to anyone with logic or a brain is taking part in an abortion. Any Catholic doctor would know exactly what this means, as would any secular pro-life doctor: they have to help with an abortion. Many Catholic doctors will refuse to do so, and if the government gets its way, politicians and their media bosom buddies (heaping continuous praise on brave government’s totalitarian actions) want it their way, those doctors will be struck off. If you want to see a look into the totalitarian madness, read this article published in the Irish Times (Ireland’s answer to your New York Times and just as bad). So much for being pro-choice. Once again, not a single Bishop has (to my knowledge) said a thing about this in Ireland.
In related news, the massive victory of the pro-abortion secularists has emboldened them now to go for a key prize that has long thwarted their ambitions in Ireland: the religious ethos of so many hospitals. Due to the incompetence and poverty of the early Irish state, many hospitals in Ireland had to be set up by Catholic religious orders. No one else had the money or the willing staff at the time. This has always been a bugbear for the secular liberals in Ireland. Now with the passing of abortion on demand, Ireland’s supposedly conservative Prime Minister Leo Varadkar (a vapid, vain, media-leaking and -loving lightweight) has turned his sights on Ireland’s state-funded but Catholic-owned hospital network. He has said in Ireland’s Parliament Dail Eireann that hospitals receiving state money must perform abortions in accordance with the law when it is allowed. Pressed on this, he said frequently that the huge vote in favour of abortion means they have to … democracy has become an end of itself.
As many of you know, no serious Catholic hospital in ethos can perform abortions. They will not. So now they are left with a choice. Surrender to the government? Do the religious orders sell their assets to the government but thus benefit from the evil intentions of what government has to do? Do they try to close hospitals and risk the full wrath of secular, viciously anti-Catholic media who would love them to do this and an Irish public that (I’m sad to say) shall not support them and a government dominated by secularists in government and in opposition who want to destroy the church’s influence? Do they go the legal route and hope for the best?
Though no bishop has yet said a word.
Before the referendum result, I was talking with another history teacher about Ireland and she made a very accurate point: Ireland does not do balance well at all. We go from one extreme to the other. She was dead on.
We have gone from Catholic authoritarianism to secular liberalism; pluralism appears to have bypassed us. I fear, however, that this new authoritarianism will do far much damage than the previous. God help us. Pray for Ireland.
Published in General
Oh, for pity’s sake, Paddy…smh
What does smh mean?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/ireland-abortion-referendum-what-is-legal-now-mandatory/
BEST COMMENT I’VE SEEN ON THIS:
This is not what was voted for in the referendum. The referendum was to make abortions legal, not to provide them at the taxpayer’s expense, nor to force them on Catholic hospitals.
There is a gross violation of conscience here. The Catholic MUST pay his taxes knowing they will be spent on abortions for non-Catholics. And the hospitals owned by the Catholics MUST perform abortions because the government graciously gives them back those taxes. This is simply oppression of the religious minority via the state.
http://archbishopcranmer.com/irish-catholic-hospitals-forced-abortion/
Shaking my head, JaC…
Shake (shaking) my head
Thanks, ‘Hant…I got it (above). :-D
The old laws weren’t great, but were put in place over time mostly because of rebellions. Catholic emancipation was a sore issue, and even was one of the initial causes of the rebellion that brought about the US. (The king was too lenient in Québec.)
The new laws seem to be with less reason.
I wonder how many of the doctors are going to put up with this guff. Order enough people around and some of them may vote with their feet.
Where will they go, Percival? I haven’t studied the issue, but most of Europe is probably no better? And they can’t all come to America. They are between a rock and a hard place, and the government knows it.
Actually he’s got a point. There is a huge shortage in Ireland of GPs as so many are gone abroad. It could be one saving grace. It however will mean abortion clinics like the scum of humanity that nwork in planned parenthood or Maria stopes would come to my shores.
Why have so many Irish doctors gone abroad? And, you may not know, but if you do know, how do Ireland’s new abortion laws compare to the rest of Europe?
I read once where the majority of doctors in this country refuse to perform abortions.
Of course they do, but if it weren’t for the pro-life movement, the government would try to force them. Even in liberal Massachusetts where I live, there are gynecologists who make a name for themselves by refusing to have anything to do with abortion: they have very successful practices.
The old laws were for subjugation/separation/attrition, ‘Hant…Pretty lousy reasons, if you ask me.
Even after all these years, there is still a very real stigma against abortion and abortionists in the medical community in America. They don’t talk about it very often, but abortionists are aging out and younger doctors are not replacing them. This is part of the reason why we hear horror stories of dirty clinics and terrifying doctors: the abortion establishment puts up with it because there are so few doctors willing to perform abortions.
I am connected to the pro-life movement in Mass; most of us are from working class areas. We are not usually the country club set, but somebody knew somebody who knew an abortionist who belonged to a country club in a wealthy town; people at the club would whisper about him behind his back. “He is an abortionist” they would say, when he was out of earshot. Even after all these years, even in liberal areas, abortion is still looked down on.
Pro-lifers have had remarkable success at converting many abortionists into pro-lifers; if the example of the abortionist referred to above is any example, it seems as though pro-lifers are nicer to abortionists than anyone else is. Most of the people at that country club wouldn’t be caught dead at a pro-life march, but they don’t mind gossiping about an abortionist behind his back. Kind of mean, if you ask me, but it probably makes it easier for pro-lifers to reach out to those who feel stuck in the abortion industry.
It all started when this one guy wanted a divorce…
Yeah, yeah, that’s what they want you to think… :-)
As I’ve said before, we should be prioritizing victims of religious persecution as refugees and immigrants, not extended families or highly-skilled workers (though in this case, that last one would be covered as well).
They could all come here, if there was the political will, just as we prioritized Cuban refugees from Communist oppression in the past. Unfortunately, the professional class within the Republican Party is as bad as Fine Gael (they are just somewhat circumscribed by a more accountable political system), so we can’t expect them to support anything like that.
I second the redneck.
The GOPe is fine with any repressive anti-constitutional action that improves their image in the eyes of the Progressives.
It is one thing to allow abortion to the time of viability, but even Roe vs Wade did not allow partial birth abortions or clearly did not anticipate public financial support for abortions or forced abortion participation by Doctors or Hospitals.
In Ireland, as is here, the issue was never about abortion; it was about the abolition of religion and the abolition of the freedom to worship as you choose. You will be made to care their way. Or else.
On this day on which the heinous crimes of the FBI, CIA and DOJ were whitewashed into mere “subordination”, it is important to note that our freedoms all around us are under direct assault by our Ruling Class/ Deep State overlords and that the time may be fast approaching for a very difficult and ugly reckoning.
Individual people tend to make individual arrangements if pushed beyond their tolerance. There is no “they.” Just a lot of individual choices. Retirement, the US, another profession, elsewhere in Europe, who knows? We’ve got to be talking about a population 10s or 100s of thousands strong. Some will no doubt support the new abortion regime, others will oppose it and make their choices. The choice may even be to simply be mysteriously unavailable the day they’re required to be involved. It’s very, very hard to make someone do something they deeply object to. Laws are very bad at that. It’s much easier to restrain someone from doing what they want than to compel them to do what they don’t want.
BTW – to compare any of this, objectionable though it is, to the Penal Laws described at the beginning of the OP, is the sort of hyperbole than undermines credibility.
Paddy, the archbishop may feel “thus is not what was voted for”–but did the majority of Irish who voted yes really believe it? Or are they getting exactly what they wanted? If they voted to make it legal, don’t you think they contemplated that doctors and hospitals wouldn’t be able to deny it to them? Otherwise, mere legality means nothing. People in our country argue that the reverse is happening: abortion has long been legal, but governmental policies are shutting down venues where a woman can get one. She might have to travel a long way to find a facility, and she might nit be able to afford that, nor yo make the trip in time.
Catholic hospitals in our country are few and far between now, because of mergers with and acquisitions by big hospital corporations. I wonder if those companies will now move in on Ireland.
Um, yeah. Ireland has traditionally been a place people leave, after all.
I wish Irish doctors would come here. Even with the Gaeltacht, I think most of them at least speak English, don’t they? That’d be a big improvement over what we’re getting.
BTW, how long has Ireland had that gay, non-ethnically Irish Taoiseach? Doncha think when he was elected, it foreshadowed the Isle’s determination to reject pretty much everything about its past and traditions?
Paddy, unfortunately the day may come when Catholic hospitals will make the decision to shut down in Ireland. Catholic hospitals in the US face lawsuits from the ACLU on a regular basis to try and force them to provide abortion services. So far they haven’t found a judge that will accommodate them. In some states that have mandated that Catholic Adoption agencies must place children in LBGT homes the Church no longer offers adoption services in those states.
You might want to read this article about the Dominicans in the UK, perhaps this would be an option for Ireland.
There is no person more dangerous than the holier than thou apostate, or heretic. The Irish are among some of the most literate, and wittiest people on this earth, but then again so was Voltaire filled with great wit. Robespierre was certainly literate, but the children of the Enlightenment paved the highways with the skulls of those that were victims of the enlightened state, they still are.
And it was once Ireland who evangelized the West during the Dark Ages. Now they’ve been evangelized by the Culture of Death, America’s leading export.
How is it that one can have a right to something that someone else has to provide? That is, a woman can have a right to end her pregnancy but does she have the right to force the doctor to do it for her? This, by itself seems like a very strange feature of the “Right To Choose.”
“…Ireland’s state-funded but Catholic-owned hospital network…..”
He who has the gold makes the rules. If you’re taking funds from the state, state politics will set the terms and conditions. Time to go private, or get out of the business.
the problem with that is that the state mandates that you must treat Medicaid patients regardless of whether or not you are a public or private hospital.
First I’ve heard of Medicaid in Ireland…
It’s the same argument that is made in the states from the ACLU, if Ireland has socialized medicine it will be the same argument that will be used in Ireland.
I’m sure that is what they are hoping. Then people will have the choice of going to either the state subsidized hospital, or the much more expensive, non-subsidized Catholic hospital. How long will Catholic hospitals survive in that kind of rigged market? In the end, Catholic taxpayer money will have been used to put Catholic hospitals out of business. Mission accomplished.