Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 68(3) August 2018

Editorial
The Fall of Catholic Ireland

AuthorCatholic Ireland has fallen. But it has not died. Those who worked so hard on behalf of the unborn and their mothers were brilliant. We need to support them. In doing so, we do not turn for support to the political parties, all of them pro-abortion. And we cannot turn to liberal Catholics who have been promoting their watered-down version of Catholicism since 1965. We need the real stuff. Nothing else will do.

Ireland became pro-abortion because its people first turned to widespread contraception use and divorce. Then they tried re-defining marriage, an impossible task. And now they have chosen the way of abortion.

The great pro-life priest Father Paul Marx saw it all well before the sex abuse crisis hit Ireland. Back in 1982 [1], he said this about the pro-life situation in Ireland:

"Frankly, I am not optimistic. Planned Parenthood and their collaborators, the wild theologians dissenting from Humanae Vitae, are seeing the results of the process of moral erosion they began after that prophetic encyclical ..... Naturally, the abortionists concentrate their propaganda on winning the young, especially the university students."

In 1985, he wrote:

"Poor Ireland. It is so hard to survive as an island surrounded by oceans of cynicism, godlessness and the new paganism. Ireland's birth-rate is falling. NFP is floundering. Pornography is increasing. Yet too many priests are Pill-happy ...... Increasingly, it seems that the laity must save the Church, in Ireland and in the countless lands which Erin's missionaries once converted."

There can be no compromise on the issue of abortion. The Church allows us a good deal of flexibility on issues such as immigration control, on environmental issues and on the economy. But not on issues pertaining to moral absolutes. The Irish Catholics need to be counter-cultural. Like the rest of us.

We need formation and I cannot recommend strongly enough "Abortion Matters" edited by Anthony McCarthy [2], one of our leading pro-life academics. In less than a hundred and fifty pages, we have a summary of all the major issues in relation to the issue of abortion. If only the Irish had read this superb book rather than listening to the secular media.

In the United States, there were lies about "Roe" of Roe versus Wade fame. I am convinced that the Irish will learn one day that the death of Savita Halappanavar was exploited in order to promote abortion on demand.[3]

References

  1. "Confessions of a Prolife Missionary" by Fr Paul Marx, Human Life International, 1988
  2. "Abortion Matters" Edited by Anthony McCarthy, Philos Educational Publications, 2018
  3. Caroline Farrow (2014). The real story of Savita’s tragic death. Catholic Medical Quarterly. Volume 64(4) November 2014. The real story of Savita’s tragic death