This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.
Michael Commane
December 8 was the traditional start to the Christmas season. It was the day people from the country descended on Dublin to buy their Christmas shopping. December 8 in the Christian calendar is the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Last week I asked three young women, all educated in Catholic schools, what was the meaning of the feast.
They had no idea. Some days later I asked a 60-year old man the same question. He stumbled for a short time before telling me it was about Jesus being born of a virgin. He too was educated in Catholic schools.
The Immaculate Conception was made a dogma of the Catholic Church by Pope Pius IX in 1854. What it states is that Mary was born free of Original Sin.
Christians believe that we are all born in a state of sinfulness as a result of the behaviour of Adam. What that actually means to most Irish people today is an open question. We baptise our children to free them from original sin and welcome them into the Christian community.
From my experience young people seem to know little about the tenets of the faith into which they were born.
What exactly do older people know about the tenets of their faith? The majority of Irish people have attended Christian schools.
When I hear people say that it would be a shame to lose the ethos of the Catholic school I scratch my head in puzzlement, and ask myself what actually is that Christian ethos that was meant to have been passed on to us. Corporal punishment was prohibited in Irish schools in 1982.
Before that date many of us know exactly the full extent of that so-called ethos, how we were brutally and savagely assaulted.
What really were our religious knowledge classes about? What did we ever learn about the history, culture, theology of the Christian tradition?
In the last few days I heard someone say that we have tendency in Ireland to swing from one extreme to the other. Wise words.
Right now we are being deluged with all the razzmatazz of the season. It’s as if the original idea of Christmas has been hijacked. For many it’s a time of over- indulging in everything that’s available. Of course it is also a time where people come together to enjoy each other’s company.
The churches will be full on Christmas Day. It’s a great day for priests to use the opportunity to talk and pray in a language that makes sense to people about what the feast of Christmas is about.
Why do I keep thinking the churches’ communications skills are poor? Think about it, the churches are meant to be telling a Good News story.
That can be difficult to believe. I often wonder is our faltering faith still alive despite a hierarchical church that seems to live in the strangest of comforting bubbles.
A peaceful and blessed Christmas to all my readers. Don’t stress yourself. It makes no sense. And please, stay sober for everyone’s sake, yours too.
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