When Irish Eyes Aren’t Smiling
By DONALD DeMARCO
Ireland’s historical contribution to Europe and to America is inestimable. Immediately after the fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476, Europe was suffering acutely from a lack of moral values, barbarian invasions, and famine.
Irish missionaries such as St. Columbanus and St. Cathaldus spearheaded a wave of re-evangelization and cultural renewal. “Scotland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Slovakia, Russia, Iceland, [and] Greenland,” according to the Dublin-based Italian scholar, Enzo Farinella, “are in many ways linked to them.” The “true work of spiritual and civic reunification of the whole of Europe,” he affirms, “starts from Ireland.”
The Irish clergy were the luminaries of the Western world, bequeathing to posterity the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, and many Classics. Irish monasteries, as John Cardinal Newman has remarked, became the storehouse of the past and the birthplace of the future.
In 1995, Thomas Cahill penned How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe. He argues that the Irish clergy “singlehandedly re-founded European civilization throughout the continent.”
Surely, Ireland has a proud and glorious history. And it has overcome great challenges, including British persecution and the potato blight. In this perspective, it is difficult to maintain that the adoption of contraception, divorce, same-sex marriage, and, on May 26, 2018, abortion, represents what many have hailed as progress. Not every change is progressive. As G.K. Chesterton has reminded us, “Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.”
What is next for Ireland? Prime Minister Leo Varadkar views the events leading from contraception to abortion in a positive light: “What we have seen today is a culmination of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years.”
If it is a revolution, it is not one that Ireland’s forefathers would be proud of. Contraception, divorce, same-sex marriage, and abortion are devolutions that greatly weaken the family. And the family remains the basic unit of society.
On the front page of the May 27 issue of the Toronto Star the words “Jubilation Sweeps Ireland in Historic Vote” are placed over a picture of apparently jubilant young women wearing stickers stating “We Made History.” Being jubilant over legalizing abortion seems to be expressing the wrong emotion. And as far as making history is concerned, one has to wonder if these women have any knowledge concerning the people of the past who truly made history for their nation.
The Star’s lead story is borrowed from The Washington Post. Writers William Booth and Isaac Stanley-Becker begin their account with words that typify the secular mind: “Stunning outcome delivers blow to Catholic Church, affirms nation’s liberal shift.”
It may be argued that the outcome is more of a blow to the people of Ireland than to the Catholic Church. The Church will continue to defend the right to life of the unborn and will not be shaken in its divine mandate. Concerning the word “liberal,” how liberal is it to remove protection from the lives of unborn children? What about their liberty? A one-sided liberty can annihilate another’s liberty. Liberty must be for all, not just for those who happen to be in power.
The article goes on to state that Ireland will be “no longer obedient to Catholic dictates.” The great newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer once remarked: “Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and the courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.”
A biased and misleading press can surely mislead the people and lead them down the wrong path. The secular press is almost universally pro-abortion and its language betrays its obvious bias. Is it a mark of individual liberty to renounce the Church and acquiesce in secularism, or in the feminist movement?
Furthermore, the Church does not “dictate,” the way an executive dictates a letter to his secretary. The Church is God’s mouthpiece. “Thou shall not kill” comes from God and is a commandment.
Despite scandals in the Church, the essence of the Church is a mandate from God. One must not mistake the messenger for the message. And where does one find a more humanitarian message than one that preaches justice for all?
The Irish vote, 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent in favor of overturning Ireland’s prohibition of abortion, should not have been a surprise. In 2015 the Irish voted for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Researchers estimate that approximately 3,500 women travel from Ireland to Britain each year for abortions while another 2,000 end their pregnancies with pills they purchased over the Internet. The mood for abortion was in place and the vote reflected that mood. The population of Catholics in Ireland has plummeted from 92 percent in 1991 to 78 percent in 2016. The decade of the 1990s was a period when Ireland became economically prosperous for the first time. No doubt affluence and individualism were significant factors contribution to the “revolution.”
Turning to page A16 of that same issue of the Star, one comes across a piece entitled, “We can all help save turtles.” The author, CEO of the Canadian Wildlife Federation, explains how people can participate in saving the lives of Blanding’s Turtles.
No one, of course, would be opposed to saving the lives of turtles as a general principle. Nonetheless, the irony is painfully evident. On the front page we see a photograph of people expressing their “jubilation” about the intentional loss of the lives of their own compatriots in the future, while on another page of the same issue readers are urged to save the lives of turtles.
John McGuirk, a leader of the prominent defend life group, “Save the Eighth,” describes the vote as “a tragedy of historic proportions.” If Irish eyes are not smiling, it will be because there will be fewer Irish around either to elicit or express smiles. Also, the prospect of planned death is not one that should bring smiles to anyone’s faces. Nor is the aftermath of abortion anything to smile about.
(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow with Human Life International. His latest book posted on amazon.com is Why I Am Pro-life and Not Politically Correct.)
