The religious test to be a teacher in Ireland's schools

More information about the Catholic Teaching Certificate here

I previously wrote a blog post 'Irish teachers must be Catholic missionaries', and I also wrote a post, 'Ireland's sectarian schools' here.

I want to explore this matter further...

John F. Kennedy's Texas speech on the Catholic Religion (1960)

JFK speaking at the Rice Hotel in Houston, Texas, September 12 1960 (speech in full here and at bottom)

Today, American politics is hugely varied religiously. In 1960 it was very different. 

Today Congress is run by a Catholic and a Mormon, the president is a black- Christian, on the Supreme Court sit six Catholics and three Jews.

G.K. Chesterton on Belfast

G.K. Chesterton by David Low.

[UPDATE - Read here and here for G.K. Chesterton on Unionism and Home Rule respectively]

The Protestant turned Catholic G.K. Chesterton wrote 'Irish Impressions', published in 1919 he shared his thoughts with great contemporary relevance on his time in Ireland. He devoted a chapter to the Ireland's leading industrial centre, 'Belfast and the Religious Question,' in which he wrote scathingly of the superiority of the northern Protestant creed. He began with thoughts on Ireland and poetry:

"Of that cloud of dream which seems to drift over so many Irish poems and impressions, I felt very little in Ireland. There is a real meaning in this suggestion of a mystic sleep; but it does not mean what most of us imagine, and is not to be found where we expect it.

The editorialisation and alteration of sincerely held religious beliefs

The pope by Ralph Steadman

We're told that the religious have sincerely held religious beliefs, unalterable convictions and an indivisible conscience. 

Christopher Hitchens - "Islamic fundamentalism is not created by American democracy"

Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie

Christopher Hitchens wrote in 2001 in The Nation magazine, 'Against Rationalization', a counter to Chomsky and the Left, who, in response to 9/11, suggested that the attacks against America were the causal effect of American action in the Middle East. He said:

"I know already that the people of Palestine and Iraq are victims of a depraved and callous Western statecraft."

For Christopher Hitchens, islamic grievance long pre-dates the Blair-Bush intervention. He said:

Is criticism of Islam islamophobic and racist?

On the racist question, Christopher Hitchens says no, and categorically so:

"You cannot be a racist by criticising the Islamic religion, by definition you cannot. There’s now a stupid term that’s trying to be imported into our culture, "islamophobia", as if to group it with racism in general. Nonsense. I won’t have it. I dislike Islam very much, just as I do all religions, and ive every tight to say that I think it’s an absurd and wicked belief."

Glenn Greenwald gives a slippery view to the contrary, saying that the label of racism for anti-muslim animus is a "rational view":

Jack Kyle on Ian Paisley

Jack Kyle, rugby player and surgeon, born on February 10 1926. Aged 88 he passed away on November 28 2014.

[UPDATE - Read my essay on Jack Kyle and free speech in Northern Ireland published by Eamonn Mallie here]

We know him as the rugby great and for his work as a doctor. But Jack Kyle was also a man of letters and ideas. Throughout his life he shared comments on the Irish Question that were lucid, forceful and profound. 

On rugby in Ireland he said, "There was never any religious business about rugby. That was the wonderful thing about it." At more length, he said about Irish rugby:

"That was the wonderful thing about [Irish rugby, the absence of religion]. When the various unions were splitting up, the Irish Rugby Union said: “we play as one country”. Those of us from Ulster were very fortunate that happened. It was also a much greater honour for us to play for the whole country. I think it says a lot that during all the Troubles, never once did a southern side fail to come north or a northern side fail to go south."

George Bernard Shaw on his Irishness, Edward Carson and Home Rule

George Bernard Shaw by Alick P.F. Ritchie

George Bernard Shaw is the venerated and revered Irish man of letters, and a protestant Irishman to the very narrow" of his bones at that. Like all Irish he proclaimed his Irishness but unlike the Irish, he also proclaimed his unIrish roots:

"I am a traditional Irishman, my family came from Yorkshire."

In sharing this Wildean aphorism, Shaw touches on a truth that many on the island can relate to, even if it's uncomfortable in doing so. Shaw also proclaimed his unionism as a protestant Irishman. In a letter to The Irish Statesman, January 10 1920, George Bernard Shaw said:

Fintan O'Toole - Ireland's parallel monarchy

Fintan O’Toole wrote in ‘Enough is Enough: How to Build A New Republic’ (page 28) about Ireland's 'parallel monarchy’ of the Church:

"Having shrugged off one culture of deference to titled nobles, the new state embraced another. The elected representatives of the people always kneeled before a bishop and kissed his ring. The fact that the bishop was addressed as ‘My Lord’ and lived in a house that was always called a ‘palace’ did not seem to cause any great discomfort to Irish people who would have been enraged by any sugges- tion that Ireland should honour an aristocracy. Indeed, Mary Kenny has argued persuasively that the Church occupied the place where the monarchy had been: ‘even the ardent Republicans would find a vehicle for the pomp and ceremony that every society either derives from tradition or reinvents – the Holy Roman Catholic Church would soon fill the vacuum left by the departed pageantry of His Majesty.’7 She points out that the Eucharistic Congress of 1932, which was the Irish state’s first great public ceremonial, ‘followed in almost every detail the format used for royal visits and royal events in Ireland… Not coincidentally, words and phrases previously applied to the monarchy were at- tached to the papacy: “allegiance”, “loyalty”, and “kingship” (of Christ).’ The ‘parallel monarchy’ of the Church preserved all the habits of awe, obedience and humility that might have been thrown off in a genuinely democratic revolution."

In an article in the Irish Times, 'Why do we allow a foreign state to appoint the patrons of our primary schools?' Fintan O’Toole wrote:

"Why do we allow a foreign state to appoint the patrons of our primary schools? If some weird vestige of colonial times decreed that the British monarch would appoint the ultimate legal controllers of almost 3,200 primary schools in our so-called republic, we would be literally up in arms. Why should we tolerate the weird vestige of an equally colonial mentality that allows a monarch in Rome to do just that?"

Penn Jilette - The duty of fairness owed by those who cleave to a higher power

Penn Jilette said about the duty of fairness that believers should uphold here:

"The problem is, if you have a sense of fairness, simply by saying that you believe in a higher power because you believe in it, you've automatically given license to anyone else who wants to say that... I want to live in a world that has a marketplace of ideas. where everybody is busted on their bullshit all the time because I think that's the way we get to truth."

He continued on tolerance:

"What we call tolerance nowadays, maybe always—I'm always skeptical about the "nowadays" thing. I don't think things get that much different. What we call "tolerance" is often just condescending. It's often just saying, "Okay, you believe what you want to believe that's fine with me." I think true respect... it's one of the reasons I get along so much better with fundamentalist Christians than I do with liberal Christians because fundamentalist Christians I can look them in the eye and say, "You are wrong." They also know that I will always fight for their right to say that."

See full transcript here and here.

Judge Peter Murphy - "England and Wales is essentially a Secular Democracy"

His Honour Judge Peter Murphy recently ruled that a female Muslim defendant in a criminal trial must remove her face-covering veil (niqaab) whilst giving evidence. On the relationship between the church and the state, he said this:

"The jurisdiction of England and Wales is essentially (though not formally) a secular democracy. I recognise that the jurisdiction is in the rather odd position that part of it (England) has an established church, while the other part (Wales) does not. But in neither part does the church interfere with the working of the courts. I do not for a moment suggest, to borrow language used in

NS, that courts should be a religion-free zone where religious beliefs and practices must be parked at the door of the court. On the contrary, the Courts must respect and protect religious rights as far as that can properly be done. But in my view, it is necessary to the working of the Crown Court in a democratic society for the Court, not the defendant, to control the conduct of judicial proceedings. A defendant cannot, by claiming to adopt a particular religious practice, oblige the court to set aside its established procedure to accommodate that practice. That would be to privilege religious practice in a discriminatory way, and would adversely affect the administration of justice."

 Adam Wagner covers it here and here.

Andrew Sullivan - "All faiths, even the most popular, are by definition sectarian"

Andrew Sullivan wrote in 2008 in The Atlantic Magazine here:

"All faiths, even the most popular, are by definition sectarian."

Separate the Catholic church from the Irish state says politician

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1777 by Thomas Jefferson and has been of huge import to the healthy development of the United States. Associated with this is Jefferson's 'Wall of Separation' letter to the Baptists of Danbury.

I touched on the above in relation to Northern Irish politics on my essay on NI21 on the Huffington Post here.

Ireland's history on both sides of the border has been hugely determined by priests, reverands and other so-called "men of god". However secular societies have long shown themselves to be the most stable, peaceful and tolerant. So it's my contention that the above report should be given attention and the calls for a full separation between church and state in the Republic of Ireland, should be carefully considered.

I'll leave with a quote from WB Yeats:

"Once you attempt legislation upon religious grounds you open the way for every kind of intolerance and religious persecution."