Past Lives

One afternoon almost a year ago, feeling a little sad that an incipient relationship had ended, I decided to take a stroll to try and clear my head. There was a time when I would have submerged my head in a large quantity of alcohol to deal with unpleasant feelings, but these days walking whilst wallowing in cynicism I find to be less detrimental to my liver and relative mental well being.

Whilst I was strolling down Aungier Street I saw an ad in a window that offered 'past life analysis', As if the constant disappointments and vicissitudes of this life aren't wearing enough some dreadlocked shaman thinks I should go nosing about in other incarnations (not that I believe in past lives, but for the sake of composing this piece I’m willing to pretend). Jesus is there no limits to this self-improvement business! I’ve been in and out of psychotherapy for years at great cost and I thought I was making progress with the flawed ego I've developed in this life. Apparently all those breakthroughs I thought I was having in therapy count for nothing, until I deal with the abandonment issues I never knew I had from when my parents of a few lifetimes ago had the nerve to die of starvation during the potatoe famine.

Besides, I'm from an Irish Catholic background and unless my previous lives were that of a horse-riding Anglo-Irish aristocrat I'd bet good money that the memories that would resurface would be those of a miserable and unpleasant nature. I have no need to relive the moment I died of rickets and scurvy at the age of seven, crammed in to a Victorian Dublin tenement surrounded by the other twenty wretches of my immediate family gawking with trepidation at my demise as a looming precursor of their own fate, nor do I need to reawaken the horror of having been the priest's favourite trumpet player in the Artane boy's band. No thanks Mr Past Life Therapist (at what University did you gain that qualification?) you can hold on to those memories. I've enough misery in this life to deal with already. The only way any of this knowledge could affect my life would be negatively and I have no desire to develop the onset of chronic panic attacks every time I see a trumpet or a brass band. Besides, to even entertain the concept of past life analysis is the ultimate declaration that you have given up completely on this one. Now, whilst I’m not known for my unbounded optimism I’d like to think I’ll keep cracking away at doing all I can with this life until I’m left out on the compost heap.

Anyway, no one raised in a Catholic country has any business meddling about in the affairs of their previous lives. There is enough religiously induced guilt and shame to get over from this one. How is conjuring up shameful sexual memories from the eighteen hundreds going to assist you to live in the present moment when you have trouble living with the lust you felt towards the cashier in tescos from only a week ago?

Later on that particular evening, I went to a restaurant with a book for company. The book was very pleasant to dine with compared to a few of my more recent attempts at forging a relationship. For instance, it didn't once try and emasculate me or allude euphemistically to my lack of current earning potential which I find always makes for convivial dining. Nor did it expect me to possess psychic powers with regards to how my life might be in five years’ time. My past replies to this line of questioning went something as follows, much to the bemusement of the women on the receiving end: “I’m trying to cultivate a more mindful approach to my existence where I am more focused on appreciating and being aware of each moment rather than anxiously obsessing to get somewhere that might be nothing like how I had envisioned it would be anyway. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have future goals, it’s just that I keep them grounded in my actions in the here and now and the future will unfold accordingly in tandem with outside forces beyond my control.”

Why do people who are never content with the present, even when things are going well, assume that future present moments will be any different? Meanwhile, I dined in respectful reciprocity with my book, each of us accepting each other for who and what we were. I listened to its every word, engaged with it and allowed it to express itself as it was. It both challenged me to open my mind and stimulated me with new ideas. I don’t know will I ever find such symbiosis with a female of my species as much as I desire it.

At first I was contentedly alone in this restaurant, but after a while lots of attractive fulfilled looking couples arrived. This was not the place to be for an overly educated, but qualified for nothing in particular, financially struggling published author, with a haggard heart and delusions of grandeur. Besides, they were challenging the belief I used to cope with singledom that everyone found relationships difficult and here they were, the cheek of them, having the time of their lives. I needed to get away from them before I started to entertain the self-pitying belief that fulfillment and contentedness were the norm and that I was just unlucky to be genetically predisposed to being a cynical crank with a penchant for failed relationships. I feel ashamed to admit it, but I felt a sense of relief when the best looking couple had a blazing row, in fact I almost applauded them. Somehow the world made sense to me again, but in my heart I wished it didn’t so.

Flirting with the Light of Reason: How 'a la carte' Catholicism Contributes to the Secular Agenda

The current rumblings within the Catholic Church with regards the censure and attempted silencing of priests such as Fr. Tony Flannery is indicative of a coming schism within the organisation. In fact, it is  well under way, it is just being confined within the church and has not yet led to a split. The Association of Catholic Priests is an organisation of Catholic priests who believe the Catholic Church should be accountable to its members and open to change. Members of the ACP, such as Tony Flannery, question the hierarchy's position on many social issues and take a liberal view on areas such as sexuality and human relationships that run at odds with the catechism of the Catholic Church.

This questioning and challenging of the dogma and doctrines of the catholic faith within the clergy is merely indicative of the changes in wider Irish society and in particular the ongoing transformation of Irish people who call themselves Catholics but whom are at odds with the official teachings and stance of the Catholic hierarchy on many social and doctrinal issues. I remember a time only a few decades ago when elderly relatives of mine, now deceased, said the Angelus every day and talked of protestants, even the ones they liked, as being damned to hell for not belonging to the 'one true faith.' There was nothing a la carte about their Catholicism. It was a set menu and there was no deviation from it. All courses were compulsory with no meat on Fridays. Catholics of this generation reveled in the idea that they were no good sinners. They made grovelling supplications for mercy to their ostensibly loving god to spare them from the torments of hell, despite the fact that many of them were already living in one. 

In between being consumed by guilt and shame simply for existing, these set menu Catholics of only a few decades ago, spent the rest of their time trying to placate  their all seeing, ever watching god by actually going to mass and fasting. They went to Lough Derg to walk around barefoot in the rain whilst sleeping on a bed of nails to curry favour with a compassionate god, who paradoxically had a penchant for the suffering of others. In between work and religious observances they found time to conceive multiples of children through joyless shame filled sex whilst being watched over by large statues of a putative virgin and of her son and his glowing heart. This kind of iconography came at you around every corner and hung from the walls of most homes in an Ireland of only two decades ago.

Whereas modern a la carte Irish Catholic women titillate themselves with the violent, sado-masochistic, submissive, misogynistic, socially accepted pornography of 'Fifty Shades of Grey', their mothers and grandmothers actually had to live in a society where violent misogyny and submission to powerful men was a reality as opposed to a trashy novel. This aggressive patriarchal dominance expressed itself in the form of the Magdalene Laundries, as well as in surgical procedures such as symphisiotomies, where women were butchered unknowingly so they could continue to conceive multitudes of children. Catholic women in Ireland until the early sixties also had to endure the humiliating and servile ritual of being 'churched.' This was a blessing they received from a priest to purify them and that allowed them back in to the church after being tainted from both the sexual act and its consequences in the form of a conception. I wish that more Irish women would reflect on the social history of this country before they applaud the abusive, patriarchal misogyny in the pages of the aforementioned novel.

For some variety in their religious adherence every few months they would sit in a darkened wooden box in the corner of a church and talk through a hatch to a variety of ostensibly celibate men. Some of these men actually kept by their vows,  many others succumbed to understandably human desires and emotions with women they were friends with, or who came to them for support. As well as being a shoulder to cry on to, they offered arms to run in to, and sheets to get under, whilst they hypocritically preached from the pulpit about the evils of sex outside of wedlock. Yes, I am referring to you Father Michael Cleary, Bishop Eamon Casey and Bishop Len Brennan. Let us not forget of course the many others that should have been making their own confessions in police stations for the most heinous of crimes against the most innocent. 

Instead of cheap weekends away to Barcelona with Ryanair, middle class set menu Catholics of a few decades ago, spent a small fortune heading to Lourdes to watch legions of people in wheelchairs being dipped in freezing cold water in the hope of a cure. The next day they returned to watch the same unfortunate wretches being dipped again, only this time they also needed to be cured of the pneumonia they caught the day before. Poorer Catholics of a few decades ago who couldn't afford the trip to Lourdes had to make do with Knock in County Mayo where they would queue to kiss what must be the most contagious wall in Ireland. It has been accepted by many Catholics that the Virgin Mary did a one night guest appearance here in the 1800s. It must have been an unappreciative audience as she hasn't been back since. Although a few hardcore orthodox Catholics did turn up in Knock only a few years ago to stare in to the sun alongside a Dublin man who said the Virgin Mary had told him that it would be a good idea to do that kind of thing. Not surprisingly several of the faithful went blind giving a whole new meaning to the term 'blind faith'. Rumour has it they are organising a trip to Lourdes to be dipped head first in the grotto with the hope of restoring their sight. A restoration to sanity would seem to me to be more pressing.

Now and again the set menu Catholics became aware of the intensely unbearable burden living according to the Catholic faith was, but instead of ever questioning the religious indoctrination they received as children they instead just 'offered it up'. This 'offering up' of their suffering in this life would shave a few years off their sentence in purgatory. When is the last time you have heard anyone that you know who calls themselves Catholic use such an expression? Or tell you that they were waiting for the hairshirt they ordered on amazon to arrive as they were eager to get started on some penance over the weekend to make up for the lustful thoughts they indulged in the weekend before?

In fact, in light of a recent Irish Times survey (30/11/12) that reads like a missing script from an episode of Father Ted, many Irish people who call themselves Catholics today would have been burned at the stakes a few hundred years ago for heresy. Only a few decades ago they would have been shunned by their families and communities for expressing such opinions. The poll found that seven percent of people who called themselves Catholics don't even believe in God, which is a bit like saying you are a cyclist despite the fact you cant cycle and don't even own a bike. Another twenty percent of Catholics polled don't even believe in the resurrection of Christ or that god created the Universe. This kind of doublethink, that is the Orwellian concept that it is possible to hold two contradictory views and believe in them both fervently is a defining characteristic of the modern Irish a la carte Catholic. They want to be Catholics without the Catholicism, like being a Jew with an intact foreskin who enjoys a bacon sandwich. 

An overwhelming seventy eight percent of Catholics, according to the poll, follow their own conscience on moral issues as opposed to the diktats from the Vatican. However, using one's personal conscience on moral matters or doctrinal matters is considered heresy according to the Vatican and the official teachings of the faith. On the Vatican's website you can read the catechism of the catholic church, which is basically a rule book for Catholics. According to the catechism, "heresy is the obstinate denial of some truth which must be believed, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt....schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff." Based on this passage alone one can conclude that many Catholics in Ireland would be considered heretics by the Vatican. What are these truths that must be believed and who decides what the truth is? These truths are decided by the popes and the bishops that are consulted with before the pope issues an edict of faith. The pope acts on the authority of Christ, apparently, according to the catechism, but Jesus can’t be contacted to corroborate this claim. Whatever the pope decides is truth is the truth and an infallible one at that. According to the catechism, "this infallibility extends to all those elements of doctrine including morals." A reading of the constitution of the Association of Catholic Priests reveals how so many clergy do not accept the Vatican and the Pope as an infallible source of moral guidance; in fact it is quite the opposite. Several polls in Ireland over the past few years reveal that although people call themselves Catholics, that in areas of morality and even doctrine, they are a very different kind of Catholic compared to only two generations ago.

What has any of this got to do with Atheism, Agnosticism or Secularism you might ask? Well, it is my contention that the exponential rise in the number of people who identify themselves as non-religious in the latest census is down to the fact that more and more Irish people are embracing thinking for themselves and have come to reject religious authority. This trend has now become evident within the Catholic Church itself, as both the existence of the ACP and poll after poll of people who identify themselves as Catholic recite views complete at odds with the Vatican and Irish church hierarchy.  Atheists and Agnostics should welcome this trend within the ranks of lay Catholics as once people start to shine the light of reason on to religious faith it can and has, in some cases, led to an embrace of at the very least agnosticism, if not outright atheism. Perhaps, this is why the Catechism proclaims it a sin to even entertain doubts. They know it could logically lead to a complete rejection of faith or at the very least an embrace of secularism. This a process that to a large extent a la carte Catholics have already done by placing personal conscience as their moral guide as opposed to the diktats of the Vatican.

When the Rights of Embryos Take Precedence Over Women and Children that Actually Exist

There is a good chance that we will have yet another referendum related to the issue of abortion here in Ireland in the coming year. No other issue attracts the attention of the upper echelons of the Catholic hierarchy to the same degree, apart from perhaps covering up child sexual abuse by their colleagues and aiding and abetting them to continue with such crimes, or when one of their housekeepers utters the words "Im late."

 In fact, the head of the Catholic church in Ireland, cardinal (I have purposely refused to confer a capital letter to the title that has been bestowed on him) Sean Brady, was revealed earlier this year to have known about the sexual abuse of several children and in the course of interviews with them followed a line of questioning that was designed to convey that they may have been to a degree complicit in their own abuse. He then swore them to secrecy. He didn't warn the parents of the other children who the victims had stated were at risk of abuse from the notorious paedophile father Brendan Smyth. As a result, Smyth went on to rape these children. Nor did Sean Brady go to the police. Instead, he passed a report on to his bishop and left it at that. Meanwhile Brady went on to rise in the ranks of the Catholic hierarchy whilst Smyth continued to rape and abuse children for years whilst serving as a Catholic priest. Brady and the hierarchy were aware they had left a paedophile with access to children. In fact, they were aware they had left hundreds of paedophiles with access to children, for Smyth was just one of a multitude down through the dark decades of rosary bead clutching Ireland.

It is clear from all of this then that Sean Brady is a man whose value system is above reproach and who should take the moral high ground on social issues and pontificate to the rest of society on what is and isn't moral, and not just to those traditional Catholics that share his views, but to all of us.The language that is being used by the anti-abortionist lobby and the Catholic church in the abortion debate is laughable. If you are following the issue so far in the media there are a few phrases that are used widely by those who would dictate that rape victims and young girls violently impregnated by a family member should have no access to terminate such conceptions. The first of these phrases is, "Ireland is one of the safest places to have a child." What does this actually mean? Do they think that in countries where abortion is legal and regulated that women are forced or enticed in to terminating conceptions? Do they think that women in Britain are offered buy one get one free abortion deals by Doctors handing out flyers outside abortion clinics? Do they think that the majority of women are so capricious in their decision making and lacking in any kind of moral or ethical reflection that if abortion was on demand women would make these decisions lightly?Judging by the fact that Britain has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world and an ever expanding population, despite very liberal abortion laws, makes a mockery of the view that permitting abortion discourages women giving birth.

Another problem with this phrase being used by the Catholic church, or those with a traditional Catholic bias is that the phrase contains the word 'safety' and 'child' in the same sentence. For the Catholic church to take the moral high ground with regards to what they define as the safety of children is as confusing as it would be to hear Gerry Adams make a speech on the positive aspects of Northern Ireland being in the United Kingdom. It is also ludicrous to suggest that the collection of cells in the zygotic or embryonic phase is a child when on observation it is clearly not. If there is one thing that we can all agree on, including many in the Catholic church, is that the safety of children and the welfare of mothers were not high on the agenda of the Catholic church throughout most of the twentieth century. If you doubt this to be the case just type Magdalene laundries (it evidences how misogynistic Ireland was in that there was no equivalent institution for men who had sex outside of marriage), industrial schools, Church opposition to Mother and child scheme and clerical sexual abuse in to google. You will have years of  horrified reading ahead of you.

The second phrase that I wish to analyse is the 'rights of the unborn child.' The first thing I would ask you to do is contrast this phrase with the phrase the 'rights of actual living children.' The official teaching of the Catholic church is that the moment the sperm meets the egg a human being is formed. According to Catholicism, every weekend throughout Ireland, in the aftermath of burst condoms (another mortal sin), thousands of innocent human beings are murdered when a woman takes a pill to prevent a fertilised egg from implanting itself in her womb.The rights of this egg from the moment of conception trump the woman's right to any considerations she might have about continuing with the pregnancy. Even taking the morning after pill is seen as an abortifacient and it doesn't matter whether it is taken after an act of consensual sex, or after a rape, in the exalted opinion of daft men in camp costumes trotting about the Vatican, it is murder.

The leader of the largest cult in Ireland and enabler of a paedophile, cardinal Sean Brady, has stated that though these women should not be granted autonomy over their own decision making faculties or bodies in the aftermath of the most violating of attacks, at the very least they are deserving of our pity . In his own words, "we have compassion for people, for women, faced with these very difficult situations. We want greater support and understanding for them. But we do not think that the situation, that terrible situations can be rectified by doing a wrong to another, innocent person."  Again, I implore you to contrast Brady's concern for a collection of cells in the form of a zygote or an embryo with his treatment of actual living children who were subjected to sexual abuse and what he did and didn't do in relation to that. Time again for some more googling and this time lets type Murphy report, Ryan report and Irish Child Abuse Commission in to the search engine. It gives us a clear idea of just how concerned the Catholic church has been with the rights of children in Ireland when it operated as the de-facto state religion. It is a strange kind of institution that will publicly fight for your rights as an inchoate human being, when you are only a collection of cells and have no consciousness or nervous system or pain receptors, but then once you are a conscious, sensitive innocent child will turn a blind eye to you being raped and allow the perpetrator of such acts ongoing access to other innocent children.

Above all else though, what Brady is hoping to have enshrined in law is a prohibition on women having control over their own bodies. The cult that he is a head of, opposed every attempt to liberalise access to contraceptives so that women and couples could control how many children they had or didn't have. Brady and others in the Catholic church would be content for Ireland to revert to the theocratic state it once was where women were, 'chained to an animal cycle of reproduction', as described by the late Christopher Hitchens. A country where men like Brady thought it was their prerogative to control women's bodies and sexuality as well as men's. A country that allowed men like Brady to incarcerate women as slaves in the Catholic equivalent of Victorian workhouses, only their crime wasn't being impoverished, but instead being sexual.

In effect, the Catholic church wants our parliament to impose legislation that reflects Catholic social teaching on all of the people of the state, regardless of whether they agree or disagree with the social teachings of the Catholic church and they have stated they will vigorously lobby TDs (Irish MPs) and the government on this issue. Nowadays, even many people who cling to the illusion that they are still Catholics, including liberal members of the Catholic clergy, don't even prescribe to much of the church's teaching on social issues, including abortion. It is in fitting with their totalitarian and authoritarian past that the hierarchy of the Catholic church seek to impose on those of a non-Catholic worldview their own prescriptions for living. I have no problem with the Catholic church dictating the terms of membership of their organisation and pointing out the rules of what it means to be a Catholic. In fact, it baffles me how so many people call themselves Catholic and yet in their private lives espouse views on a variety of issues that are completely at odds with the official teachings of their church. To a complete non-believer its a bit like meeting people who describe themselves as vegetarians but then tell you they eat chicken and fish.

There Are Romanians in the Sauna

One of the most striking characteristics of contemporary Ireland that I've noticed since returning home after several years in Britain, is the manner in which racists will openly share their discriminatory attitudes towards foreigners with you, as if it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Irish racists assume (like racists in all countries) that their national or ethnic identity is superior to all others, and that as you too are Irish you must also be aware of your exalted status and the inferiority of other nationalities and races. This kind of open sharing of bigoted views with a stranger would rarely occur in Britain ( well at least not in the larger urban areas in England), not that there isn't racism there, on the contrary there is an abundance of it, and it emanates from all races, classes and ethnic backgrounds. However, in the larger multi-ethnic urban areas of Britain, interactions between people are more formal and rigid and their identities are less homogeneous than in Ireland. As a result of this, racists are less likely to share their views with you, even when you share the same skin colour and ethnicity. For all they know you could be from a mixed ethnic background or married to a Polish immigrant or a third generation British Asian. Racists across the pond tend to share their views with you gradually; they test the water. Alternatively, they join gangs of knuckle draggers like the BNP or English Defence League. Then they can get drunk together in town and city centres and engage in shouting matches with rival fascists from the Islamic tradition whilst the police act as referees.

Thankfully, in Ireland racial and cultural tensions (two distinctly different phenomena: the former being deplorable and the latter at times unfortunately unavoidable, and in some cases understandable) have yet to manifest themselves to the extreme degree that they sadly do every now and again in Britain. Racism in Ireland presents itself in amiable, comradely tones with a hint of sneering superiority directed at 'the other'.

Last week I had an encounter with this kind of genial racism. It is the type that is common with some Dublin taxi drivers. Only this time it wasn't in a taxi, but as I was sitting on a bench queuing for a space in the sauna at my local swimming pool. At first I thought the man in question might be some kind of pervert, due to him  reaching down in to his tight, skimpily fitted swimming togs and shampooing his scrotal and buttock region with gusto in an openly public area,as members of both sexes passed by him. It didn't seem to bother or disturb him one bit that he was on full view to passing strangers. It was like watching an Orangoutang in Speedos. I wouldn't have been surprised if another ape had joined him and they engaged in mutual grooming.

After several  minutes of this inappropriate washing ritual he suddenly stopped and sauntered over to where I was seated. He sat what was by now an excessively clean arse next to me on a bench that would be a tight squeeze for anorexic twins never mind two grown men of average builds. I could sense that he was looking at me curiously, as if he was sussing me out in some way. He had a hawk like stare and the beak to match it.
His head was now definitely within my personal body space. After having watched him mess about with the contents of his speedos, as well as now violating my private space whilst staring at me, it would not have been a huge leap to assume he might be some kind of sex pest with boundary issues.

However, in true Irish style I didn't want to be rude and just get up and leave suddenly in case he thought that I thought he might be some kind of creep that hangs out in public swimming pools washing his balls and sticking his head in to people's faces. Perhaps he wasn't aware of how inappropriate his behaviour was I mused considerately. Maybe he's from Leitrim and perhaps public and communal ball washing is part of the culture up there I thought. Who am I to judge? Momentarily succumbing to the deplorable doctrine of cultural relativism. So I just sat there politely for what seemed like a very long minute giving him the benefit of the doubt, whilst hoping he wouldn't start engaging in puppetry of the penis before a space became free in the sauna.


"Where are you from?" he grunted in an indistinguishable country accent.

"I live in Dublin, but I am originally from Mayo."

He said something about Gaelic Football to me then, but as I have almost no interest in any kind of sport and don't speak GAA I just nodded. Then he leaned even closer. Here we go I thought, he's now going to offer to wash my balls with the same diligence and vigor he applied to his own.

"There's Romanians in the sauna," he muttered furtively and ominiously out of the corner of his mouth, as if uttering racist views in this manner was somehow more acceptable, whilst his bird like eyes darted the room to make sure no foreigners were in earshot.  To be honest, I was delighted to be talking to just a mere racist as opposed to a creep that might have offered me hand relief in the sauna. Perhaps he mistook my grin of shere relief and the fact that I said nothing as an invitation to come over even more Alf Garnett on me.

"There's even more foreigners around nowadays. There's loads of them in the gym blacks and all."

He was starting to annoy me now. The novelty of him not being a sex offender was wearing off.  It irked me that he assumed just because we were both conceived on the same island within decades of each other that this rendered us political allies. I had to say something.

"Lots of these people are here legally as EU citizens and many of the others from outside the EU go on to become Irish citizens. As long as everyone who comes here respects the rule of law and the values that underpin living in a liberal democracy, such as equality for all regardless of their colour, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and freedom of conscience, then personally I welcome them. Many of these people will add something to what it means to be Irish by living here and becoming citizens. In time they will add something to the tapestry of Irish identity, as did other waves of what were once outsiders have done down through our history."

"They might be entitled to be citizens after a certain time, but they'll only be second class citizens the likes of you and I are first class citizens. Natives, the real McCoy."

A man who washes his crotch and reproductive organs in public has no right to assume any kind of superiority over other individuals I thought.

Radical Feminist Nun (three words I thought I'd never read in the same sentence) Advocates Gay Marriage and the Benefits of Masturbation

As an ex-Catholic and staunch atheist/agnostic (I oscillate between the two), I find myself bemused by the divisions that are ripping the Catholic Church apart. There was a time in Ireland when you knew where you stood with Catholicism and Catholics in general. It was a time when you assumed that Mother Teresa was definitely on a direct line to the almighty, as opposed to having recurrent bouts of agnosticism bordering on atheism. It was a time when you were taught to revile your very nature as a human being, particularly in the corporeal sense and all desires emanating from it. If you think I am exaggerating I suggest you rent out or buy the acclaimed social documentary 'The Rocky Road to Dublin' and listen to the recitation of Cathechism by young boys in a primary school. Its chilling to hear them recite like mindless androids, rote segments of Catholic teaching about the 'sins of the flesh' a few years before their adolescence. Its quite clear they were being instilled with shame and guilt before they would start to develop as sexual beings. When you think of the sexual abuse and its cover up that so many clergy were complicit in at the time, this warped view of sexuality that was being inculcated in young children is even more sinister.

When I was a child, I was taught by my grandmother and priests that suffering and hardship were apparently blessings that one could use to shave a few years off of your time in purgatory. Then it was off to spend forever with that generation of elderly Irish women that had to put up with drunken misogynists keeping them in the family way for most of their reproductive lives. An eternity of them comparing who suffered the most and moaning about feckless husbands and their multitudes of ungrateful children who emigrated and never came home. Catholic heaven sounds like being stuck inside a perpetual Frank McCourt novel.


In those days there was no Association of Catholic Priests in Ireland seeking to infuse liberal values in to a historically illiberal institution. It is an organisation that appears to me to want to reform the Catholic church to the point of it not really being Catholic at all. Predictably, the traditionalists are having none of this and are quick to point out that Catholicism has always had it in for the gays and that sex for straight people should continue to be guilt ridden and joyless. It is now clear that the Catholic church is at war with itself and the Vatican is ordering liberal clerics such as Fr. Brian D'arcy amongst others to refrain from publicly writing anything that conflicts with the official teachings of the Church.

But just when you thought it couldn't get any more bizarre it does. A Nun in the United States has published a book in which she promotes same sex-marriages, divorce and masturbation. I expect David Quinn will give it a glowing review in his column in this week's Irish Independent.Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of nuns I have several prejudicial stereotypes, none of which would ever involve bumping in to one browsing for a rampant rabbit in Ann Summers or being the guest of honour at a gay wedding. Perhaps the offending nun, Sister Farley, is just a maverick led astray by watching too much Sex and the City? Not according to a report by the Vatican which has criticised the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), an organisation that represents over eighty percent of Catholic nuns in the U.S.A, and of which Sister Farley is a member. The Vatican has referred to this organisation as having "serious doctrinal problems" and promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith." There you have it most of America's nuns have more in common with Germaine Greer and Jo Brand than they do with Mother Teresa. Its a pity we hadn't more of that variety in Ireland for most of the 20th century, as opposed to the austere and sexually repressed witches that oversaw the incarceration and enslavement of other women in the brutal Magdalene laundries. Not that all nuns were of this variety, as with most organisations and belief systems there are good and bad people involved.

When I was in secondary school a priest, that we used to call Fr. Trendy, on account of the fact that he drove a sports car and always wore shades, came to our compulsory religious lesson to preach to us all that masturbation was a sin. A sin that I'd say most of us were already well acquainted with for some years by then as we were all about 16 at the time. This was the late eighties and our generation no longer deferred obsequiously to every word that emanated from the mouths of priests. After lecturing us on the moral dangers of masturbation he asked us if we had any questions. In his naivety it took him a few minutes to work out that the questions being put to him were more for comic effect rather than any one trying to find a theological loophole that would allow him to ejaculate outside holy matrimony without any kind of Catholic guilt interrupting the proceedings. In replying to a question put by one of my fellow students with regards what he got up to with his girlfriend, Father Trendy stated that as far as he was concerned (not the position of the Vatican from my own investigations) it was morally acceptable for the said student's girlfriend to pull him off whilst she was topless as long as he wasn't pulling himself off in his spare time or their foreplay didnt lead to intercourse.

The final question put to Father Trendy regarded technique rather than theology. "Father", one of the boys sniggered, "is it true if I sit on my hand til it goes numb it feels like someone else is doing it?" At this point my religion teacher, a devout Catholic man in his 50s, was standing behind this 'groovy' priest looking like he was about to pass out. Laughter erupted amongst all us little wankers and our religion teacher singled out those with stares whom he would physically assault once the priest had left the building, despite the fact that beating up students had been illegal for almost a decade. It took a few years for laws in Dublin in those days to trickle out west. In hindsight we should just be grateful that we only got the odd clout from a teacher (we often deserved it) as opposed to the horrific sexual abuse that was occuring elsewhere at the time by many of Father Trendy's colleagues. Father Trendy never answered the last question put to him and he left the class in a hurried fashion. Perhaps he couldn't wait to get home to sit on his hand, something I'm sure most of the class probably did later that evening whilst imagining having girlfriends who would take their tops off and do it for them.

Why does Catholicism have such a hang up about masturbation anyway? I mean this is the organisation that claims an omnipotent and omniscient being made us in his image and likeness. If this were the case, then logically this being would also have a sexual nature. Besides, if God is all powerful and all knowing (as claimed by the Catholic Church) why would he invent a being and instill him or her with sexual desire and the means to indulge in it and then command him or her not to partake in it for pleasure (even when married according to the teachings of the Catholic church)? Surely he would have worked out that that is exactly what would happen? And as the late Christopher Hitchens pointed out, placing the offending yet highly pleasurable items within arm's reach would surely be a design fault by the creator if he hadn't intended us to do exactly that. I mean talk about leading us in to temptation. If he didn't want us to masturbate he should have given us really short arms like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but this might have just led to a lot of rubbing off of furniture. No one would sit on any one else's sofa ever again.

In the century when we were being preached at by Father Trendy about what we could and couldn't do with our own bodies, many of his colleagues were involved in the sexual abuse and rapes of many children and teenagers throughout Ireland and the wider world and their superiors covered it up and did nothing to prevent it from reoccurring. I can't help but think perhaps they had their priorities all wrong, as well as their perverse and unhealthy view of  human sexuality. Whilst I don't personally advocate irresponsible promiscuity (which can lead to many social problems) I believe indoctrinating people that sexual desire is evil and perverted warps how they relate to themselves and affects the quality of  their relationships. In the decades before Ireland was liberalised this revulsion of human sexuality was all projected on to the female. This contributed to the rife misogyny prevalent in the country that manifested itself in the 'Churching' of women after giving birth, not too mention the Magdalene laundries. Interesting to note how there were no equivalent slave labour institutions set up for men who got women pregnant outside of wedlock or who had reputations as womanisers. Its no wonder so many Catholics are trying to redefine what it is to be Catholic when you look at the history of this institution in twentieth century Ireland. Perhaps, even some of them will let go of the security blanket of faith all together, but this is not an easy thing to do when you have been indoctrinated. It took me years to conclude I don't believe in God after reading widely and considering the evidence, of which there is none to date.

Nuns for gay rights who laude the pleasures of masturbation. Who would ever have thought it? It's akin to hearing a member of the Ku Klux Klan applauding the postive contribution the African American community have brought to the U.S.A.

Irish Blasphemy Law Applauded by some of the World's Most Repressive, Misogynisitc and Homophobic Countries

Since January 2010 it has been a criminal offence in the Irish Republic to make blasphemous remarks about any religion.Should you be prosecuted under the law you can face a fine of up to twenty five thousand Euros. The law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering: "matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion." 


The law has been condemned widely by human rights groups, writers, journalists and artists as a retrograde step that seeks to prohibit freedom of speech and expression. The fact that the wording of the Irish law has been applauded by the Organisation of Islamic Co-Operation, a body that has as its members some of the most repressive and illiberal countries in the world, such as Iran and Pakistan, gives further credence to the charge that this law is not compatible with the values of a western liberal democracy.I spoke to Michael Nugent, the chairman for Atheist Ireland, an advocacy group that has been campaigning against the law, on his views on this legislation.


What are the main objections that Atheist Ireland has to this law?
The first thing is that it purports to protect religion, but it doesn't actually protect religion at all. What it does is  that it criminalises criticism of religion and does it in such a way by using the expression of outrage as the first test of whether something is blasphemous. It actually incentivises people to demonstrate outrage when what we should be doing is incentivising people to act in a more proportional manner when someone says something that is different to their religious beliefs. The second problem with this law, is that it gives religious beliefs priority over non-religious beliefs and protects religious beliefs in a way that it doesnt protect other beliefs. You don't find scientists or people in other areas of discourse saying they need laws that protect their beliefs. This is because they can defend their beliefs by means of rational argument. The third reason is that it has an impact internationally, particularly with the Islamic states using it to justify Islamic blasphemy laws by saying 'look here is a western country passing a blasphemy law in the twenty first century.' The fourth objection is that the reason it was supposed to have been implemented  is because the 1937 constitution requires a law against blasphemy, but that's not a reason to bring in a law against blasphemy, its a reason to change the constitution and bring it up to date with a modern pluralist democracy.


Has anyone been prosecuted under this law?
No. The day it came in to force Atheist Ireland published twenty five blasphemous statements with the stated intention that if we were prosecuted we would challenge the constitutionality of the law and if we weren't prosecuted it shows there is a strong case for it to be repealed in that if laws are not being implemented it brings the whole legislature in to disrepute. I think the government recognised early on that it was not going to be feasible to enforce it and they tried to back away from it almost immediately by putting in safeguards to try to create the impression that they never intended for it to be enforceable, which isn't the case. The original  version of the law had a one hundred thousand Euro fine and no safeguards. Although it hasn't been enforced, as the X-case showed in the Abortion debate, you can never tell how people are going to act in terms of enforcing laws and somebody might decide that their conscience is telling them they have to enforce this law.


What has been the reaction of the main religious groups in Ireland?
The only people to have come out and support it were some Muslim spokespersons.The Catholic church has kept their head down about it and didn't say anything. They are in a kind of strange position in that in Islamic countries where Catholics are the victims of blasphemy laws they are actually opposed to blasphemy laws and the fact that this law came out at the peak of their loss of moral authority over the child abuse scandals wasn't a great time for them to be considering  the blasphemy law.

That makes sense. It was probably not on their list of priorities with all the skeletons that were coming out of their closet at the time.


Is their broad opposition to this law throughout the various political parties and have you come across any reactionary conservative support for the law within government or  within the various parties?
There's very little support for this law. One of our members did a walk from Cork to Donegal,to focus attention on the issue and to talk to people. He said he found hardly anybody that supported the law or anyone that would go on camera to say they supported it, but there was one very funny incident where he said he found one person who agreed their should be a law against blasphemy and the guy agreed to say why he supported the law on camera. So, he set up the camera and asked the guy, "Please tell us why you think there should be a law against blasphemy?" and the guy said, "I just dont think its right that a man should have two wives!"  Ha! Ha! So basically there is no one who understands the difference between bigamy and blasphemy who is in support of the new law.


One of the things I found most disturbing is that the Organisation of Islamic Co-Operation is using the exact wording of the Irish law as the model for a proposal at U.N. level to push for a normative principal in International Law to be adopted to encourage member states to pass anti-blasphemy legislation. Doesn't this make Ireland bedfellows with some of the most repressive, misogynisitc and homophobic countries in the world?
They are citing Ireland as best practice for blasphemy laws so we are worse than bedfellows.


And this is a country that when the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was murdered in 2011 by one of his own bodyguards for calling for the repeal of the blasphemy law, there were large public marches in support of the assassin, which included members of the legal profession who hailed him as a hero and called for him to be immune from prosecution.
They threw petals at him as he went to court.


One of the things I find hard to understand is that Fianna Fail and in particular, Dermot Ahern, the then Justice minister introduced this legislation and now they accept that it should be repealed. Their main argument was that there was a requirement under the constitution for their to be a blasphemy law. However, in that Fianna Fail are historically a very socially conservative right wing party do you think that might have been part of the impetus to bring in such a law?
If you accept the argument that Dermot Ahern made that we had to have a blasphemy law to satisfy the requirements of the Constitution then he could have just brought in a law that technically satisfied the Constitution with say a fine of one cent without it being a serious law, but instead he originally proposed  a law with a one hundred thousand Euro fine and no safeguards. The safeguards that were later brought in were proposed by the Labour Party, and this is a brilliantly Irish situation, after we lobbied the Labour Party, they then decided to oppose the law entirely. They decided that it was a bad idea to have a blasphemy law at all, no matter what the safeguards, so they withdrew their amendments to the bill that suggested certain safeguards. Then Fianna Fail said,'no you cant withdraw those amendments as they've already gone in to the bill so we are supporting those safeguards.'  Fianna Fail then adopted the safeguards that the Labour Party had withdrawn and that's how the current law came in to being.


What are these safeguards?
Well, intent  to blaspheme has to be proved and if you can prove that the blasphemous statement had artisitc, political or academic merit you may be exempt. I cant remember the exact wording but you can look it up.


These are quiet nebulous and vague safeguards. Who and how does one decide whether any statement has such merit?
Indeed. There is a funny story about Senator Ronan Mullen who is quite the Catholic and was expected to support the blasphemy law, but he ended up opposing the law because the list of  exemptions, the things you could use as a defence, didn't include religious merit, so he was saying the law didnt allow religious people to blaspheme against other religions and therefore he couldn't support it.


Its like something out of a Monty Python sketch.
You should look up the Senate debate on the law its hilarious. We set up a mock religion called the Church of Dermotology to highlight our opposition to the blasphemy law and to protest against anybody who mocks our beliefs. We worship Dermot Ahern. Our core beliefs are that Dermot Ahern created the world out of nothing and that ice cream wafers are literally the body of Dermot Ahern. We have a facebook page. Check us out. If you look up the Senate record on the debate on the blasphemy law, a few of us were in the public gallery observing, you can read how Senator David Norris welcomed the prophet Michael Nugent in who was here from the Church of  Dermotology. In future generations there will be historians looking over the Senate records and wondering what the Church of Dermotology was. Its a great country!

Peaceful Terrorism, Sound-Proofing Dana and other Presidential Considerations

Over the course of the Presidential campaign I've listened to Martin McGuinness trying to "contextualise" the IRA murders of innocent civilians during the troubles. In last night's TV debate, he said he had been working for peace in Ireland for over thirty years. Strange how the IRA's cessation of violence didn't occur until 1997 despite peace breaking out in 1981. It's an ironic kind of a peace activist that is part of a movement that planted a bomb in Canary Wharf in 1996 which killed two innocent newsagents to name just one incident during this tranquil time. Perhaps it was the Dalai Lama that planted a bomb the same year in central Manchester that injured over two hundred civilians out shopping, or was it the IRA? I can never be sure. Or can you picture Mahatma Ghandi having taken a woman and her children hostage whilst their father and husband was forced to drive a bomb in to a British Army barracks, where along with several British soldiers he was blown to pieces, as in the case of Patsy Gillespie, to name just one of many 'proxy bombs' that were used by Sinn Fein's peace wing in the nineties. 

Personally, I have no problem with Martin McGuinness running for the Presidency and I acknowledge and respect the contribution that he has made towards leading a group of undemocratic violent extremists toward embracing parliamentary democracy, but his peacemaking began in 1997, when the movement with which he was a part of ceased killing their opponents and innocent civilians. Despite the objections of Sinn Fein and its supporters, it is the job of the media and of writers and bloggers such as myself, to cut through the Orwellian doublespeak in which almost all politicians seem to wallow. Martin McGuinness's insistence that he was a peace activist during the height of the IRA's campaign of slaughter is a gross distortion of both truth and language.

Despite wishing to distance himself from links with Fianna Fail, Sean Gallagher appears to be suffering a similiar form of financial amnesia that many of its senior members did during the last government.  We could have been listening to Bertie or Ray Burke all over again when he claimed to have had no "recollection" of receiving a cheque and what he would have done with it "if" he had received it, despite having earlier denied ever receiving it. I'm coming to the conclusion that everyone in Fianna Fail smokes copious amounts of marijuana such is the level of memory loss.

On the final TV debate, Dana seemed to have been surgically removed from the copy of the constitution that seemed to form a part of her personality for the first few weeks of the campaign. In those early weeks, I came to irrationally detest the constitution solely through its association with Dana. I even had a few mates around to my gaff and we had a bonfire consisting of copies of the constitution whilst we drew rude pictures on the covers of Dana albums before hurling them in to the blaze. She has stated that the Presidency must be used to alleviate the suffering of the people. She could make an immediate contribution to this end without even being elected, by just ceasing to appear on TV and refraining from speaking in public, or at home, or even in a sound proofed isolation tank.

I don't have much to say about Gay Mitchell, but he has taken the time and money to explain that he comprehends the concept of time in his election posters as he "understands our past and believes in our future." The least I would expect from a President is that they would be able to grapple with the workings of a wrist watch. Whilst he has had some good ideas with regards to Northern Ireland, I find it hard to take seriously any politician whose mere presence and most utterings can induce me in to a state of narcolepcy within thirty seconds; he exudes the vivacity of a pile of bricks. He is also the spitting image of Sam the Eagle and surely we have had enough muppets running the show over the last two decades. His open contempt on the final TV debate for questions put to him by the electorate, whom I naively presumed he wants to vote for him, was an act of public political suicide. I doubt he could have done worse damage to his campaign than if instead of kissing a baby whilst out canvassing he had picked it up, called it ugly and then dropped it in a puddle.

Whilst Mary Davis didn't impress me politically, I felt sorry for her in the way some sections of the media revealed their sexist credentials by focusing strongly on her appearance, whilst not holding her male counterparts up to similar scrutiny.

Initially in this campaign, I would have voted for David Norris as I greatly admire the campaigning he has done for gay and minority rights in Ireland. However, his handling of the allegations levelled against him raised doubts as to his suitability, not to mention his ever increasingly nauseating sychophancy towards all and sundry when in front of a TV camera or microphone.

That leaves Michael D. Higgins the only candidate whom I believe has the personal integrity, intelligence and gravitas to be our President and whom I would urge all my fellow citizens to get out and vote for this Thursday.