Re: Re: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

@apelles wrote:

Why was it Prax, do you believe that these Bishops, our representatives in Rome at this time were not up to par with the Bishops from other countries, why did they miss the point of the whole conference. . surely their seminary education was every bit as exemplary as their near counterparts. .What was it that made the Irish lads way of thinking so out of touch & cut off from the rest?

Apelles!

We shall need the services of an eccleiisatical historian to answer that question. However, we can identify a number of lines of enquiry while awaiting his book. Firstly, the few who contributed sensible stuff to the ante-preparatory commission had been educated (at least for part of their courses) in Rome, Paris and Innsbruck. Others had been educated in Rome, wholly or partially, and still had no clue at all. Most of the rest were educated in Ireland which appears to have embarked on some sort of theological Sinn fein-ery which left them completely impervious to the theological happenings in the rest of the Catholic world in a fashion not too dissimilar to the legendary Rip van Winkle. The ultimate results of this have been a-theistic with theology missidentified with a whole range of oddities including bovine flatulence on which which at least one bishop passes himself off as an expert.

It is also symptomatic that in P.J. Corish’ Bicentennial History of Maynooth College (published in 1995) the chapters on the century from 1895-1995 become increasingly shorter and one cannot avoid the feeling that a bit of feather down is being stuffed in here and there. It is also remarkable that in this period of that venerable institution’s existence that the installation of water closets in a particualr house should have been significant enought to deserve a mention in the commemorative history.