Comments on: Ireland, Sexuality and the Church http://zoomtard.furiousthinking.org/2009/06/24/ireland-sexuality-and-the-church/ Delusions of Adequacy Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:00:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 hourly 1 By: zoomtard http://zoomtard.furiousthinking.org/2009/06/24/ireland-sexuality-and-the-church/comment-page-1/#comment-8094 zoomtard Tue, 30 Jun 2009 21:10:03 +0000 http://zoomtard.furiousthinking.org/?p=1171#comment-8094 Hey Tom. Thanks for the comment. Please don't apologise! I have certainly over-simplified and acknowledge there is a much bigger story to tell than I managed in my 1000 words. But I was trying to remind fellow young church leaders and theologians that it is crucially important that the conclusions we might tentatively reach about a theology of the body must be lit right the way through with grace because in a very sharp way, bad theology of sex will genuinely destroy lives. And as we have seen in our country, devastate Christian witness. There are much more factors at work for why we let what happened happen but I suppose the point I was trying to make was that it is illustrative for us on how important it is to not let theology in this area become an intellectual game (not that this should be permitted anywhere!) [Also, way off tangent, am I way off base thinking that the constant connection that is made between Jansenism and Puritans is seriously flawed?] Hey Tom. Thanks for the comment. Please don’t apologise!

I have certainly over-simplified and acknowledge there is a much bigger story to tell than I managed in my 1000 words. But I was trying to remind fellow young church leaders and theologians that it is crucially important that the conclusions we might tentatively reach about a theology of the body must be lit right the way through with grace because in a very sharp way, bad theology of sex will genuinely destroy lives.

And as we have seen in our country, devastate Christian witness.

There are much more factors at work for why we let what happened happen but I suppose the point I was trying to make was that it is illustrative for us on how important it is to not let theology in this area become an intellectual game (not that this should be permitted anywhere!)

[Also, way off tangent, am I way off base thinking that the constant connection that is made between Jansenism and Puritans is seriously flawed?]

]]> By: Br. Tom Forde OFM Cap http://zoomtard.furiousthinking.org/2009/06/24/ireland-sexuality-and-the-church/comment-page-1/#comment-8093 Br. Tom Forde OFM Cap Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:53:43 +0000 http://zoomtard.furiousthinking.org/?p=1171#comment-8093 I think you may be over simplifying things. Yes bad theology played a part - Jansenism (puritanism in Catholic clothing) imported from France - but there were other factors. The Irish bishops set about rebuilding the Catholic presence in Ireland after four hundred years of English Protestant rule which had devastated the Church and the nation. The majority of the people were poorly educated peasants and the ruling nation was undergoing massive industrialization. The famine had a huge impact as you rightly say. Emergent nationalism lent a lot of force to the idea that the Irish were going to do it better than the British. The attempt to solve the problem of so many homeless children and so much squalor on an industrial scale coupled with Victorian morality and socio-political attitudes created a breeding and hunting ground for the deviant. As the Catholic middle classes grew they attracted (demanded) the better teachers (lay and religious) and the mad, the bad and the deviant gathered around the vulnerable ones, the children Irish society wanted to forget (and still does). Part of this tragedy is that the Christian faith did not confront this. The Church in Ireland lacked the wherewithal to deal effectively with abuse. Unfortunately what most people think is Catholicism is only a pale shadow of the real thing (I suppose that can be said of any part of the Christian community). Jansenism reappears as an over-commitment to Social Justice at the expense of personal faith in and relationship with Christ, of the Sacraments and of the other dimensions of Christianity. Sorry for the long post. Keep up the good work and good luck with your studies. I think you may be over simplifying things. Yes bad theology played a part – Jansenism (puritanism in Catholic clothing) imported from France – but there were other factors. The Irish bishops set about rebuilding the Catholic presence in Ireland after four hundred years of English Protestant rule which had devastated the Church and the nation. The majority of the people were poorly educated peasants and the ruling nation was undergoing massive industrialization. The famine had a huge impact as you rightly say. Emergent nationalism lent a lot of force to the idea that the Irish were going to do it better than the British. The attempt to solve the problem of so many homeless children and so much squalor on an industrial scale coupled with Victorian morality and socio-political attitudes created a breeding and hunting ground for the deviant. As the Catholic middle classes grew they attracted (demanded) the better teachers (lay and religious) and the mad, the bad and the deviant gathered around the vulnerable ones, the children Irish society wanted to forget (and still does). Part of this tragedy is that the Christian faith did not confront this. The Church in Ireland lacked the wherewithal to deal effectively with abuse. Unfortunately what most people think is Catholicism is only a pale shadow of the real thing (I suppose that can be said of any part of the Christian community). Jansenism reappears as an over-commitment to Social Justice at the expense of personal faith in and relationship with Christ, of the Sacraments and of the other dimensions of Christianity. Sorry for the long post. Keep up the good work and good luck with your studies.

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