Oh Catholic Ireland...where art thou?

It seems the Ireland I grew up in no longer exists.
And I'm only in my 30s.
Imagine how Poor old 90 year old faithful Catholics feel.

http://m.independent.ie/entertainme...t-people-of-all-faiths-and-none-34123759.html

 

It is mind boggling how much Ireland has fallen away from its roots. I went there in the early 90s and it must be changed dramatically. The Celtic tiger had a lot to do with it I think.

 

We Irish are a very impressionable people, emotionally very manipulable. Many seem incapable of thought beyond a very shallow, glib level, as exemplified by many, though by no means all, of the comments beneath the article. There seem, on the evidence of such as these comments, to be quite a number of these extremely tedious "new atheists" in this country. These are apparently mostly incapable of rational discourse and engage in mockery and insult under the impression that this is irrefutable argument. They are incredibly self-righteous with an extreme, though wholly misplaced, self-confidence. One shudders at how all this will hold up for them at the hour of their death. I would imagine that most in RTE now share this idiotic mindset. I don't bother with television or radio now, except for sport. The rest is drivel. People managed the Angelus long before these devil's mouthpieces arrived on the scene.

 

Wonderfully said. I agree 100,000%.

 

Things will have to change in Ireland. A lot of what has happened in Ireland to our faith and values has been subversive in nature. Personally, over the last 7-8 years I have witnessed a very subtle effort to debase culture and standards, fuelled by the media, pop culture etc. All this new world order stuff aswell coming in .

 

Yes and the one thing we hear about most from New Atheists is how well educated people are nowadays, as opposed to earlier times when out of ignorance they explained away things - like say extreme weather events - via the supernatural, not knowing any better.

But you listen to late night radio in Ireland, or read most modern Irish newspapers, or follow most online debates etc etc and I will defy you to come away with the impression that we live in better educated times! The newspapers seem like comics in comparison to what people read in the past for example, and so much of the radio stuff is embarrassingly puerile and judgemental etc. Well educated is certainly not what we are these days!

 

I have layed over in Dublin on and off for over 10 years, and I have definitely seen the complexion of the city change during this time. I notice quite a lot of people begging, and many of them are unwed mothers.

I also noticed in the airport a teeshirt for sale that said "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" but not seeming in a reverent way but sort of a mockery-- like it was a joke of some sort. Maybe I interpreted it wrong. I hope so.

 

It was probably meant as a joke. Unfortunately hearing the Holy Name being taken in vain on Irish television and radio is now commonplace aswell.

 

People are not better educated. They seem to be miseducated, even diseducated and no education is preferable to this as one would still have one's conscience, common sense and innate sense of natural law to rely on.

 

I see Ireland just voted in it's first Gay Prime Minister...

 

Remember Sodom and Gomorrah!!

 

We are going hear nothing but equality, inclusion, diversify etc etc.

 

We should give Varadkar a chance. Hopefully, he will make no issue of his homosexuality, no more than any of his predecessors did of their heterosexuality. He is the son of an immigrant and is a good example of integration as opposed to diversity. Events are rapidly making certain kinds, at least, of inclusion and diversity go out of fashion. He also seems to have considerable political talent and, I suspect, will need it all.

 

That's not quite accurate. The majority party in a coalition government changed their leader. While I pay very little attention to Irish news, I gather that he had the support of the majority of the party's elected representatives but his opponent was supported by a majority of the party's grassroots members. I could well be mistaken about that.

 

Interesting.

 

Apologies if I got the specifics wrong. I was just quoting a news headline I saw. I may have assumed wrongly that voting was involved.

 

After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. - Judges 2:10, 12

The Lord is our God. He gave us this wonderful land and made an agreement with us that we would worship only Him. But if you worship other gods, it will make the Lord furious. He will start getting rid of you, and soon not one of you will be left in this good land that He has given you. - Joshua 23:15

All of the people of Joshua’s time joined the members of their families who had already died. Then those who were born after them grew up. They didn’t know the Lord. They didn’t know what he had done for Israel. They deserted the Lord, the God of their people. He had brought them out of Egypt. But now the people of Israel followed other gods and worshiped them. They served the gods of the nations that were around them. They made the Lord angry because they deserted him. - Judges 2:10, 12-13a

 

I spent the afternoon at a healing service of Mass, Benediction and praise and worship. It was a large church. The ceremony was 3 and a half hours. The church was packed. There are still a lot of faithful Catholics. What you read in the papers is not the whole truth. The media is completely anti Catholic. Leo Varadkar was anointed by the media before the contest began. Amazingly 65% of the grassroots said they wanted the other candidate. 45 people picked Leo. We must keep praying for conversions and don't watch RTE

 

Yes, the international and home news headlines gave the impression that Ireland voted to make him Prime Minister. The truth is that his party won the most seats in the 2016 general election but not an overall majority so they have formed a minority government with the support of nine independents and some kind of agreement with the main opposition party to abstain on votes of no confidence in the government (that's from Wikipedia because I'm so out of touch that I had to look it up). The leader of the party announced his intention to resign and the party chose a replacement. As Maryrose explained in her post above, Veradker's opponent won the vote of the party's grassroots members but the majority of the party's elected representatives voted for Veradker and the party's system for choosing a leader gives the elected representatives some kind of enhanced vote. Veradker, therefore, is the leader of the party but not yet Prime Minister because that will require a vote in the parliament (Dail). The Dail vote will likely be a mere formality but he is not officially Prime Minister until then.

 

Don't get me wrong. Sodomy is an abomination. I just think we must distinguish between the homosexual and the homosexualist. I know little of Varadkar, even less of his private life, even though it is highly regrettable that he has apparently made it public that he claims to be a homosexual. I don't even subscribe to the notion of 'sexual identity', which I regard as a modern myth. To me, homosexuals are men who commit sodomy. Those who think they are 'homosexuals' in their identity as contrasted with those who are so due to their sodomitic behaviour I regard as men who have been confused or, worse, corrupted in their thought by the peddlers of this perversion. Varadkar may be celibate, for all I know. Even if he engages in this behaviour privately but desists from being an activist for the lifestyle, in other words a homosexualist, I think he should be treated no differently from any other man. What I will not do is condemn him ex-ante until I hear him promoting the homosexual lifestyle. I am currently unsure whether he is being used by the blatantly homosexualist media or an advocate himself. I hope he is not, but if he so turns out, I will be first in the queue to condemn him. I don't think it is moral to reject a homosexual per se for public office, who may well be struggling mightily with the notion, but it is immoral to accept one who advocates the sin, who would obviously not be repentant.

Remember, a heterosexual may well be a homosexualist, in that he might advocate that homosexuality should be morally acceptable, while there are homosexuals who struggle with their vice and may even be celibate both in thought and deed who would be anti-homosexualistic in their views. In fairness, I think this was the distinction that Pope Francis was clumsily trying to make in his notorious 'who am I to judge' comment.

Note: I have never voted blueshirt in my life and have no inside information.