The historical Easter

Gore Vidal tells a story of how he once met the late Sir Moses Finley, one of the twentieth century’s leading ancient historians, and asked him whether a colleague of Finley’s was reliable.

“The best in his field,” replied Finley, his great dentures shifting slightly in his mouth, “Of course he makes most of it up, like the rest of us.”

Finley wasn’t being entirely facetious: much modern analysis of ancient history is necessarily speculative, deductive, and tentative. It’s a jigsaw puzzle, and a puzzle with most of the pieces missing. Sometimes we have a corner piece and can confidently build outwards, but more often than not our picture is patchy and fragmented.

It always astonishes me when modern historians follow the consensus established in the late eighteenth century and assume that the Gospels were written between 65 and 95 AD. That this is unproven should go without saying, but what’s striking is that this consensus has profoundly ahistorical foundations.

The theory has three important elements: the ancients knew that John was written after the three synoptic gospels; textual analysis suggests that both Matthew and Luke are heavily dependent on Mark; and Mark 13 records Jesus as saying of the Temple that “there will not be left here one stone upon another, that will not be thrown down,” in an apparent reference to the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD.

Modern writers tend to hold that Mark wrote in the aftermath of the Temple’s destruction and anachronistically attributed these words to Jesus, because it would have been impossible for Jesus to have so predicted the fall of the Temple.

Impossible? Yes, as it’s become customary for New Testament historians to approach their texts from an implicitly materialistic or atheistic stance, such that miracles, prophecies, and all intimations of divinity must be discounted as pious or superstitious elaborations.

Fantasies

Even Christian scholars tend all too often to begin their studies from the prejudiced position that their principle sources are fundamentally unreliable in their most important respects.

This doesn’t happen with other branches of ancient history. Thucydides, widely regarded as the greatest of ancient historians, predicted that had they but a few disparate ruins to go by, future historians might be inclined to doubt that Sparta had ever been one of the mightiest Greek powers. Scholars of fifth-century Greece don’t approach Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War by observing that the modern ruins of ancient Sparta are indeed sparse and unspectacular, casting aspersions on Thucydides’ prediction, and dismissing out of hand all accounts of Spartan force projection as Thucydidean fantasies.

If we approach the New Testament from an honestly agnostic position, we have to concede the possibility that perhaps – just perhaps – Jesus could have predicted the destruction of the Temple. Remove this keystone from the modern consensus and the entire hypothesis collapses, forcing us to look at the facts afresh. In particular, it’s worth considering how Acts ends.

Luke and Acts are, to all intents and purposes, two halves of the same document, and the inconclusive ending of Acts, with Paul teaching freely while under house arrest in Rome, strongly suggests that Acts was written before 64 AD. How better can we explain Luke’s failure to mention the outcome of Paul’s trial, the Great Fire of Rome, the Neronian Persecution, or the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem? And if Luke wrote in the mid-sixties, drawing by his own account upon earlier narratives, then does it not seem likely that Mark and perhaps an early version of Matthew must have existed before 60 AD?

Scholars differ on the date of the Crucifixion, but generally date it between 30 and 36 AD. If Mark was written in the mid-50s, as seems likely, then we can’t dismiss this as an unreliable account, written long after the events it describes. It would be no different from somebody today writing about life-changing events in 1990.

Even Luke is no further removed from the events he describes than we are from the Hunger Strikes, the Falklands War, and the wedding of Charles and Diana, but we put the cart before the horse if we assume that Christianity began with the Gospels or is based upon the Bible. It’s not. It’s based upon the reality of Christ, as experienced and witnessed to by the Church, and as reflected in the Gospels and other New Testament writings.

Reality

Popular critics of Christianity tend to forget that the Pauline letters are widely recognised as predating the Gospels, with 1 Thessalonians dating to around 50 AD. Widely regarded as the earliest extant Christian document, it’s a remarkable testimony for Christian belief within two decades of the Resurrection.

Paul describes Jesus as the Son of God who has risen from the dead and will return from Heaven, but he doesn’t describe Jesus’ teaching, or explain how the Crucifixion and Resurrection were the fulfilment of the Old Testament. He doesn’t need to. Paul’s letters were, in the main, designed to fill gaps and clarify points: the main lines of Christian teaching were already present and accepted in the churches he and others had founded.

In 1 Corinthians, written a few years later, Paul declares the importance of accepting the historical reality of the Resurrection:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve... Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”

Paul was taught this and more when being catechised in the nascent Church, the Church we see in Acts as having been born in the jaws of persecution.

Beyond Acts, the Jewish historian Josephus mentions the stoning to death in Jerusalem of James the “brother of the Lord”, and the Romans Tacitus and Suetonius testify to how – scarcely three decades after the Resurrection – huge numbers of Christians went to their deaths in Rome as a witness to the truths they held, being crucified, torn apart by animals, or set alight to serve as human streetlamps.

These were the first generation of Christians, including such eyewitnesses as Stephen and Peter who gave up everything to serve Jesus. It makes no sense to claim they willingly died for something they knew to be false.

People miss the point when they question the likelihood of the Resurrection.

They should instead ask how, if we deny the Resurrection, we can explain the Church.

-- Originally published in The Irish Catholic, 5 April 2012.

Ninjas, Vikings, and Celtic Fancy

Those of you with long memories may recall how last summer I enlightened you both by exploring a remarkable episode of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in which the viridian foursome visited the Emerald Isle, there to stroll inconspicuously through a Dublin as empty as though the Queen were visiting, before shacking up in a castle that had somehow evaded the tender cares of An Taisce and thwarting an assault on my home city by the denizens of Dublin Zoo's pets corner.

No, really. Go and look.

Anyway, early in the lads' adventures Splinter takes them through Fusiliers' Arch -- that's Traitors' Gate to the more unreconstructedly nationalist among you -- into Stephen's Green, there to tell them of Ireland's history, with the aid of the many statues in the park. He homes in straight onto a statue of Ireland's principle patron saint, there to tell the boys that Ireland is a land of magical legends, including that of Saint Patrick, who drove all the snakes and other reptiles out of Ireland.

No, really, that's what Splinter says. 

Now, there are at least four things wrong with this. First, although there's legendary accretion around the character of Patrick, he was a real historical figure, rather than a magical legend. Second, Patrick supposedly drove the snakes -- and only the snakes -- out of Ireland, with the few lizards we have being left to roam freely. Third, there is no statue of Patrick in St Stephen's Green. Fourth, if there were, it probably wouldn't look like this:

So, anyway, I was reminded of this recently after reading a letter in the Irish Times a few weeks back.

I would have loved this when I was in primary school...

Seemingly the American O'Brien Clan Foundation has decided that there ought to be a statue to Brian Boru, the victor of Clontarf, in Dublin; in principle this is a nice idea, and one that I espoused myself in school when I was eleven years old. The letter begins:

'The Victorian ambiance of St Stephen’s Green seems perfect for a classical equestrian statue of Ireland’s greatest High King, Brian Boru, the millennium of whose death is fast approaching. 

We believe Brian Boru deserves the place at the centre of the park, where the statue of King George once stood. Once in place, it would appear to visitors as though the park was designed around the likeness of an Irish leader, rather than a foreign colonial ruler, or bed of flowers. 

In his address to the assembled troops before the Battle of Clontarf, Brian Boru spoke of Irishmen fighting for their country, surely the first ever mention of the notion of Irish nationality? Brian Boru was the first and only High King to unite the warring tribes of Irish into a nation. His was the greatest Irish life ever lived. Were the Office of Public Works to permit a monument to be erected, people would have the chance to pause and reflect about the sublime achievements of Brian Boru, and drawing inspiration from it, enrich their own lives.'

And it concludes:

'Texas Pastor Terrell O’Brien, who is also an accomplished monumental sculptor, famous for his statue of Rev Billy Graham, in front of the university he founded, has been chosen by the O’Briens to carry out the project. 

A photograph of a rough model he is working on is viewable at obrienclan.com/raising-a-monument-to-brian-boru. The scheme is simple: We will pay for the statue, and its erection, and hopefully the Office of Public Works, and the art adviser can help with the proper permits and approvals.'

Now, call me old-fashioned, but remarkably aquiline features aside, isn't this statue of Brian just a bit similar to the fictitious statue of Patrick in the Ninja Turtles cartoon? I'm not suggesting for even one moment that Terrell O'Brien copied his maquette from the cartoon's take on our patron saint, but it seems to me that it might be a bad idea to have a statue so similar to the cartoon Patrick in the very spot where the cartoon Patrick is supposedly located. It could confuse tourists, after all. Especially the sort who like to wear Hawaiian shirts and play frisbee in cities so desolate that Cillian Murphy could show up any minute.

Seriously, look how similar the statues are: you'll note that Brian appears to have inherited Patrick's clothes, and is brandishing two cruciform shapes just as Britain's greatest son is portrayed as doing. The horses are a mirror image of each other, once you correct for the fact that only a miracle could explain how Patrick's horse is balancing so elegantly on its left legs.

What might have inspired this pose, you might ask, other than that mounted Prima Porta rip off we know as the Marcus Aurelius statue on the Capitoline? 

Ah, folklore...

Well, the centrepiece of the Irish Times letter reads as follows, quoting, it says, from the Annals of Innisfallen to describe the 73-year-old High King engaging in a fine piece of battlefield exhortation:

'Their ranks had been formed before daylight, and as the sun rose, Brian rode through the lines of his soldiers with a crucifix in one hand, and a drawn sword in the other; he reminded them of the day selected by the pagan invader to offer battle, and exhorted them to conquer or die. Standing in the centre of his army, and raising his powerful voice, his speech was worthy of so great a king and so good a man:  

"Be not dismayed my soldiers, because my son Donough is avenging our wrongs in Leinster; he will return victorious, and in the glory of his conquests you shall share. 

On your valor rests the hopes of your country today; and what surer grounds can they rest upon? Oppression now attempts to bend you down to servility; will you burst its chains and rise to the independence of Irish freemen? Your cause is one approved by Heaven. You seek not the oppression of others; you fight for your country and sacred altars. It is a cause that claims heavenly protection. In this day’s battle the interposition of that God who can give victory will be singly manifested in your favour. 

Let every heart, then, be the throne of confidence and courage. You know that the Danes are strangers to religion and humanity; they are inflamed with the desire of violating the fairest daughters of this land of beauty, and enriching themselves with the spoils of sacrilege and plunder. The barbarians have impiously fixed, for their struggle, to enslave us, upon the very day on which the Redeemer of the world was crucified. Victory they shall not have! from such brave soldiers as you they can never wrest it; for you fight in defence of honor, liberty and religion – in defence of the sacred temples of the true God, and of your sisters, wives and daughters. 

Such a holy cause must be the cause of God, who will deliver your enemies this day into your hands. Onward, then, for your country and your sacred altars!".'

Stirring stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. Still, without wanting to be a party pooper, I think it mightn't be a bad idea to inject some reality into this narrative.

A touch of history...

Firstly, I'm far from convinced this is from the Annals of Innisfallen. It might be from the eighteenth-century farrago of fact, folklore, and full-blown mythologising that's known as the Dublin Annals of Innisfallen, but if you look at the year 1014 in the actual Annals of Innisfallen, you'll find the following passage:

'Great warfare between Brian and the foreigners of Áth Cliath, and Brian then brought a great muster of the men of Ireland to Áth Cliath. After that the foreigners of Áth Cliath gave battle to Brian, son of Cennétig, and he was slain, with his son Murchad, royal heir of Ireland, and Murchad's son, namely, Tairdelbach, as also the princes of Mumu round Conaing, son of Donn Cúán, and round Domnall son of Diarmait, king of Corcu Bascinn, and round Mac Bethad son of Muiredach, king of Ciarraige Luachra, and also Tadc Ua Cellaig, king of Uí Maine, and many others. There were also slain in that battle Mael Mórda son of Murchad, king of Laigin, together with the princes of the Laigin round him, and the foreigners of the western world were slaughtered in the same battle.'

It's a bit dry, isn't it? It's certainly not the Mel Gibson-esque patriotic fantasy that the O'Brien's are quoting.

Here's the thing. Clontarf, contrary to popular belief, wasn't what we think it was, and it didn't really matter all that much.

The Vikings had been a spent force in Ireland for decades before Clontarf. Under Olaf Sigtryggsson, Dublin had ruled over a big chunk of north Leinster in the mid-tenth century, but at the battle of Tara, fought in 980, Máel Sechnaill II, King of Meath, defeated Olaf, forcing the Dubliners to pay tribute to the Irish henceforth; it was Tara, not Clontarf, that had decisively ensured that Vikings would not rule in Ireland.

Clontarf, on the other hand, is best understood as a battle between rival Irish kings. Máel Mórda, king of Leinster, had rebelled against Brian Boru, the High King of the day, and although Vikings made up a large part of his army, the Vikings of Dublin did not take part in the battle on their doorstep; indeed, although Sigtrygg Silkenbeard, king of Dublin, was Máel Mórda's son-in-law, he remained neutral in the conflict between the two Irish kings. And well he might, for Vikings served in Brian's army too, and Brian had been the third husband of Sigtrygg's mother!

The tale of Clontarf grew with the telling. Vikings remembered it as a heroic encounter between champions, while as time went by Dubliners grew embarrassed about their Viking heritage and recast the battle as a clash of nations. The reality is that the Vikings were an important presence in medieval Ireland following their defeat at Tara. Though they remained an important -- if decreasingly distinctive -- element in Irish life right up to the arrival of the Normans in 1169, after Tara they would never again threaten to be an dominant one; the Irish and Norse nobility were deeply intermingled, and it's schoolboy nonsense to think of Clontarf as a heroic Irish victory against sinister foreigners. 

Then again, schoolboy nonsense has its charms. I suspect Chesterton would have said that there's truth buried there, the kind of truth that academics too often forget. 

Stationary at the Cross: A Good Friday Meditation

The Cross, says John O’Donohue in Eternal Echoes, is a unique axis in time. It is where time and timelessness intersect. All past, present, and future pain was physically carried up the hill of Calvary in the Cross, so that it could face the new dawn of resurrection, and be transfigured. This, he says, is the mystery of the Eucharist, which embraces Calvary and the Resurrection in the one circle:

‘In Christian terms there is no way to light or glory except through the sore ground under the dark weight of the Cross.’

O’Donohue describes the Cross as a lonely, forsaken symbol, with the most terrifying image in Christian theology being a state of absolute exclusion from belonging. We all know that moment from the Passion accounts, of course, the moment when Jesus cries out ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ – My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

This, says Pope Benedict in the second volume of his Jesus of Nazareth, was no ordinary cry of abandonment. Misheard and misunderstood by some of those nearby, the faithful recognised this as a truly Messianic cry, the opening verse of the twenty-second psalm.

‘Jesus is praying the great psalm of suffering Israel, and so he is taking upon himself all the tribulation, not just of Israel, but of all those in this world who suffer from God’s concealment. He brings the world’s anguished cry at God’s absence before the heart of God himself. He identifies himself with suffering Israel, with all those who suffer under “God’s darkness”; he takes their cry, their anguish, all their helplessness upon himself – and in so doing he transforms it.’

Given the suffering that’s ever-present in our world, and how at times we seem awash in a sea of tragedies, it staggers me that I have only ever seen one artistic attempt at expressing this moment of divine agony and isolation.

This may seem trivial, but just as how we talk of things reveals how we think of them, so too does how we picture them. Theology is not simply a matter of what we say. I’ve known Protestant friends purse their lips at the thought of crucifixes in Catholic churches, arguing that representations of Christ on the Cross are expressions of his suffering that fail to recognise that the sacrifice of the Cross is finished, and that Christ is now glorified in Heaven. They’ve misunderstood what the crucifixes represent, but they’ve recognised something very important nonetheless.

Iconography matters.

Before the eleventh century it was relatively rare to see crucifixes on which Christ was not depicted alive and looking ahead, his eyes wide open. Such iconography expressed an understanding of the Cross prominent in all sermons on salvation in Acts and which was, in one form or another, the early Church’s dominant understanding of the Crucifixion: that the Cross was not a defeat, but was the path to resurrection and God’s supreme triumph over sin, death, and the Devil.

While the landscape of early medieval iconography wasn’t as smooth as he thought it was, the Swedish Lutheran bishop Gustav Aulén hit on something very important when he wrote in 1931 of how things changed during the Middle Ages.

‘What was lost was the note of triumph, which is as much absent in the contemplation of the Sacred Wounds as in the theory of the satisfaction of God’s justice. This is reflected very significantly in later medieval art. The triumph-crucifix of an earlier period is now ousted by the crucifix which depicts the human Sufferer.’

There can’t be many of us who haven’t seen myriad representations of the Crucifixion in our lifetime, but almost all of them – cinematic ones aside – will have been variants on a theme: a dead Christ, his head almost always resting on his right shoulder, his side bleeding from the spear driven into it by the Roman soldier when making sure that he was dead.

These pictures and sculptures all serve to express a truth – that God became Man and gave his life for us – that though all-important nonetheless omits something that was central to earlier Christian thought.

Of course, the sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross is a mystery, and it is a mystery that cannot be dismissed with a single neat theory. Tom Wright, until recently the Anglican bishop of Durham, has it right when he points out that ‘when Jesus himself wanted to explain to his disciples what his forthcoming death was all about, he didn’t give them a theory, he gave them a meal.’

It is through the mystery of the Eucharist that we actively participate in the memory of God; this was brought home to me with great force when in Leeds last November, for the second Catholic Voices training weekend.

Charles I’Anson’s crucifix in the chapel at Leeds Trinity University College is like no crucifix I have ever seen. Completed in October 1971, the crucifix was the fruit of eighteen months of work by the college’s then senior lecturer in sculpture; made from bronze and fibreglass, and modelled upon I’Anson himself, the crucifix depicts neither a Christ looking forward in confidence nor one in gentle repose after having given up his spirit.

People often don’t grasp just how agonising crucifixion was, or how it killed. It was a slow punishment, and killed – in most cases – by suffocation. The crucified needed to stay as erect as possible in order to breathe, and as legs and arms gave out, pressure gradually built on the chest, forcing victims of the cross to inhale constant shallow breaths simply to stay alive, until eventually even the shallowest of breaths proved too much.

I’Anson’s crucifix depicts Our Lord pushing himself away from the Cross, driving himself upward and forward and crying out. It portrays a dying man’s supreme act of will, showing Jesus forcing his limbs to support him so he can gather the air to cry out, whether to ask why his Father had forsaken him, or to commend his spirit into his Father’s hands.

It’s a representation of agony, but it’s not a representation of defeat; on the contrary, it is a magnificent, gritty, idealised rendering of triumph, and not just any triumph, but the greatest triumph there has ever been, that moment when history and eternity were as one, and God reclaimed what was his, defeating sin, death, and the Devil.

Too rarely in my life have I had more than the driest and most academic understanding of what the Mass meant, but on that November Saturday, as the Eucharist was held up before I’Anson’s Crucifix, I understood.

Britain's 'muddled' document on proposed gay marriage

It’s increasingly difficult to avoid the same-sex marriage debate in the British media, now that the government’s consultation on the redefinition of marriage has been launched.

A muddled document, to say the least, the consultation confuses marriage with marriage ceremonies, treats civil and religious marriages as though they’re legally distinct institutions rather than being exactly the same thing, avoids the question of how marriage is currently defined in law, and openly admits that the practical consequences of redefinition should be left up to the courts.

The very concept of such a consultation is itself highly irregular; parliamentary practice normally involves the drafting of a green paper to explore the possibility of changing the law, followed by a white paper putting forward government policy and inviting further comment, eventually leading – perhaps – to legislation.

In contrast to the usual process, the government seems to be trying to railroad through parliament a policy spectacularly absent from the electoral manifestos of both governing parties. The consultation really only addresses how this policy could be implemented, effectively disregarding the question of whether such a radical change in law and custom is desirable, practicable, or wise.

The consultation’s first two questions, asking whether marriage should be opened up to same-sex couples, are evidently intended merely to provide a veneer of legitimacy. The document stresses that those questions are asked only out of interest, and Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat equalities minister, has given a “cast-iron guarantee” that marriage will be legally redefined by 2015, regardless of popular opinion.

Popular opinion seems to be divided on the topic, to judge by the widely differing results of three recent polls, with one firm – ComRes – having found that 70 per cent of people believe that marriage should continue to be defined as the union of a man and a woman. There’s certainly no great enthusiasm for the proposed change.

It is notable that ICM, which found the highest support for legalising same-sex marriage, also found that the vast majority of people – 78 per cent – believed the issue should most definitely not be a parliamentary priority. ICM also observed a widespread unwillingness for schools to be allowed teach that same-sex marriage is identical to marriage between a man and a woman.

Divisive

So divisive a debate has naturally become almost ubiquitous in the media; I’ve discussed the matter on the radio myself, the first time with the feminist and lesbian journalist Julie Bindel, the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, and the LGBT activist Marc Delacour.

Part of the challenge in such discussions, I’ve learned, is to resist the urge to focus so much on “winning” that we fail to listen and truly engage with what others say. Julie Bindel, in particular, said something upon which I’ve since reflected quite deeply, given how acrimonious and polarised the general debate has become.

“Civil partnership provides what every single couple in the world is looking for in terms of legal protection and the right of next-of-kin, and I would extend that to brother-sister, two sisters, two best friends. I signed a civil partnership agreement with my partner ... we didn’t do it because we needed anyone to see that we have a good, stable, happy relationship.”

She argues that the State should abandon the marriage business altogether, because while it should protect committed couples – something it can do through a modified version of the civil partnership scheme – it has no business approving or withholding approval of people’s private relationships; if committed couples wish to have their unions religiously solemnized, that is their own business and no concern of the State.

Essentially a variant on the French system, it’s a similar argument to ones I’ve heard put forward by libertarian friends.

France

In France, religious marriages have no legal standing whatsoever; only civil marriages are recognised in law. People get married by a civil authority such as a mayor, and then – if they so wish – have their legal marriage solemnized afterwards in a religious ceremony.

The obvious advantage of Julie Bindel’s proposed system is that it would establish an indisputable legal equivalence between same-sex couples and unions of men and women, whilst also preserving long-recognised rights to freedom of religion and conscience by restricting the term ‘marriage’ to religious institutions; nobody would be obliged to recognise same-sex civil partnerships as marriages as the law would not recognise them as such, and clerics would not be obliged to celebrate same-sex marriages as marriages would be exclusively religious affairs.

It’s a tempting idea, and one I think I might subscribe to, were it not for one crucial problem, leaving aside how those already wed in civil ceremonies might be unhappy with no longer being able to call themselves married!

Just as the redefinition of marriage is not a “gay issue”, neither is it a “religious” one. Marriage is a social good, the one institution we have that exists to promote the idea that children should grow up with the love of a mother and a father. I’m not convinced that it should only be for religious bodies to make that case.

Of course, in practice the abolition of marriage is on the cards in England anyway. Since the seventeenth century, parliament has recognised marriage as the union of a man and a woman, primarily for the purpose of bearing and rearing children; marriage differs from civil partnerships also by requiring vows and sexual consummation.

The government’s consultation proposes that marriage should henceforth be recognised as the union of any two consenting adults, makes no mention of children, says that vows should no longer be absolutely necessary, and effectively abolishes the need for consummation as always understood.

In other words, if marriage to be opened up to everybody, every distinctive feature of the institution would need to be changed, such that marriage, as currently understood, would no longer exist, being replaced by a new institution called “marriage” but functionally indistinguishable from civil partnership.

Like the baby brought before Solomon, it seems marriage cannot be shared without being torn apart.

 

 

-- Originally published in The Irish Catholic, 29 March 2012.

Flame

More than 8,000 young Catholics from across England and Wales filled London’s Wembley Arena on Saturday for the Flame Youth Congress, Britain’s largest-ever Catholic youth event and largest gathering of Catholics since 2010’s Papal visit.


After prayer, music, and a series of presentations, Father Timothy Radcliffe gave a keynote speech on the theme of “respect”. Paralympic runner Stephanie Reid, Olympic rower Debbie Flood, and the former Olympic speed-skater Sister Catherine Holum CFR spoke of the role of faith in their lives, and Barry and Margaret Mizen, whose son Jimmy was murdered in 2008, spoke of forgiveness and peace.

In his homily before Eucharistic adoration, Archbishop Vincent Nichols called on those present to share their gifts with the world to the glory of God, and to “embody the joy and happiness which comes with loving generously.”

Jack Regan, from CatholicYouthWork.com, said “I think that Flame shows us a number of things: It shows us what Catholic youth ministry can achieve when we really set our minds to it; it shows us how many young people there are out there who will respond generously to the Gospel, and it shows us that the faith in this country is still strong and vibrant.”

-- Originally published in The Irish Catholic, 29 March 2012

Almost Three Thousand Years of Self-Justifying Colonial Clichés

The other day's piece on the Parthenon Sculptures, and some reactions it's provoked, have reminded me of an article I read many years ago, whilst doing my master's degree.

We are hard-working, civilised, and responsible, but they are lazy, savage, irresponsible idiots...

Entitled 'Eaters of flesh, drinkers of milk: the ancient Mediterranean ideology of the pastoral nomad' and by one Brent Shaw, it argued that the Cyclops episode in the Odyssey should be understood as an ethnographic text, establishing a dichotomy in European thought that distinguished between barbaric pastoralists and civilized farmers.

It was hardly insignificant that the Odyssey was composed or at any rate came into being during the great age of Greek colonisation; the Cyclops episode is loaded with the rhetoric used by colonisers when seeking to justify why they would be far better stewards of lands than the savages who live there now, squandering their resources.

Here, for instance, is the key passage in the Cyclops episode in Odyssey IX:

'And we came to the land of the Cyclopes, a fierce, lawless people who never lift a hand to plant or plough but just leave everything up to the immortal gods. All the crops they require spring up unsown and untilled, wheat and barley and vines with generous clusters that swell with the rain from heaven to yield wine. The Cyclopes have no assemblies for the making of laws, nor any established legal codes, but live in hollow caverns in the mountain heights, where each man is lawgiver to his own children and women, and nobody has the slightest interest in what his neighbours decide.'

The binary contrast being set up here is pretty obvious: the Cyclops are lazy and lawless, caring neither for the bountiful land in which they live or for any society beyond their own front doors. Greeks, on the other hand, are by implication industrious and law-embracing, the kind of people who would be responsible stewards of their gifts and who would care for their neighbours. If you ever want an idealisation of what the Greeks thought of themselves as a lawful people, have a glance at Pericles' funeral oration, as penned by Thucydides perhaps three hundred years after the Odyssey was written :

'Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.

The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty.

But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

[...]

We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it.

Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.'

Note especially that penultimate observation that those who concentrate solely on private matters rather than serving society in general are regarded not so much as unambitious as useless. The Greeks had a word for such people: Idiots.

The Cyclopes, then, would have been regarded by the ancient Greeks as lazy, selfish, lawless idiots, unworthy stewards of the land they inherited.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch...

Let's leap forward two thousand or so years from the Odyssey, taking us to the thirteenth century or thereabouts, when the Saga of Erik the Red was written, describing the Norse discovery of America, the most fertile part of which they referred to as Vinland, the land of wine.

'Karlsefni and his people sailed to the mouth of the river, and called the land Hop. There they found fields of wild wheat wherever there were low grounds; and the vine in all places were there was rough rising ground. Every rivulet there was full of fish. They made holes where the land and water joined and where the tide went highest; and when it ebbed they found halibut in the holes. There was great plenty of wild animals of every form in the wood. They were there half a month, amusing themselves, and not becoming aware of anything. Their cattle they had with them. And early one morning, as they looked around, they beheld nine canoes made of hides, and snout-like staves were being brandished from the boats, and they made a noise like flails, and twisted round in the direction of the sun's motion.

Then Karlsefni said, "What will this betoken?" Snorri answered him, "It may be that it is a token of peace; let us take a white shield and go to meet them." And so they did. Then did they in the canoes row forwards, and showed surprise at them, and came to land. They were short men, ill-looking, with their hair in disorderly fashion on their heads; they were large-eyed, and had broad cheeks. And they stayed there awhile in astonishment. Afterwards they rowed away to the south, off the headland.'

Suffice to say that the Scraelings, for so the native Americans will be called, don't come out of this well; they're described as mere ignorant savages, easily duped, quick to fight, and incapable of taking advantage of the paradise in which they dwell. And what a paradise! Wild animals and fish in abundance, wheat springing up from the soil unsown and untilled, and grape-bearing vines growing everywhere without even needing a hint of human effort. These Scraelings live in a land as bountiful as the land of the Cyclopes, and are as incapable or as disinclined to take care of their land, to use it as it should be used; why, of course the Vikings should settle there. Sure wouldn't they use it better? Wouldn't they prove far more responsible stewards of these wonderful gifts from heaven?

And there's the little matter of home...

A hundred or so years earlier, the Anglo-Normans and Cambro-Normans who'd begun settling Ireland had played the same game. Here, for example, are some passages from Distinction III Chapter X of Gerald of Wales' History and Topography of Ireland:

'As if to prove that what [nature] is able to form, she does not cease to shape also, she gives growth and proportions to these people, until they arrive at perfect vigour, tall and handsome in person, and with agreeable and ruddy countenances. But although they are richly endowed with the gifts of nature, their want of civilisation, shown both in their dress and mental culture makes them a barbarous people. For they wear but little woollen, and nearly all they use is black, that being the colour of the sheep in all this country. Their clothes are also made after a barbarous fashion...

The Irish are a rude people, subsisting on the produce of their cattle only, and living themselves like beasts - a people that has not yet departed from the primitive habits of pastoral life. In the common course of things, mankind progresses from the forest to the field, from the field to the town and to the social conditions of citizens; but this nation, holding agricultural labour in contempt, and little coveting the wealth of towns, as well as being exceedingly averse to civil institutions - lead the same life their fathers did in the woods and open pastures, neither willing to abandon their old habits or learn anything new. They, therefore, only make patches of tillage; their pastures are short of herbage; cultivation is very rare and there is scarcely any land sown. This want of tilled fields arises from the neglect of those who should cultivate them; for theirs are large tracts which are naturally fertile and productive. The whole habits of the people are contrary to agricultural pursuits, so that the rich glebe is barren for want of husbandmen, the fields demanding labour which is not forthcoming.

Very few sorts of fruit-trees are found in this country, a defect arising not from the nature of the soil, but from want of industry of planting them; for the lazy husbandman does not take the trouble to plant the foreign sorts which would grow very well here. Two of them are fruit-bearing trees, the chestnut and the beech; the other two, the arulus (or alarus - unsure of variety) and the box, though they bear no fruit, are serviceable for making cups and handles. Yews, with their bitter sap, are more frequently to be found in this country than in any other I have visited, but you will see them principally in old cemeteries and sacred places, where they were planted in ancient times by the hands of holy men to give them what ornament and beauty they could. The forests of Ireland also abound with fir-trees, producing frankincense and incense.

There are also veins of various kinds of metals ramifying in the bowels of the earth, which, from the same idle habits, are not worked and turned to account. Even gold, which the people require in large quantities and still covet in a way that speaks their Spanish origin, is brought here by the merchants who traverse the ocean for the purposes of commerce. They neither employ themselves in the manufacture of flax or wool or in any kind of trade or mechanical art; but abandoning themselves to idleness, and immersed, in sloth, their greatest delight is to be exempt from toil, their richest possession, the enjoyment of liberty.'

It's getting kind of familiar now, isn't it? The Irish are handsome, vigorous, and agreeable -- well, so far so accurate -- but are chronically lazy, and with no drive whatsoever to husband their country's marvellous resources in a responsible way. Okay, that bit might be true too, but I think we can accept that just because Gerald was right doesn't mean he wasn't also engaging in a frenzy of self-serving rhetoric.

Gerald goes on at great length here and elsewhere about the fertility of Ireland's soil, the multitude of fish and birds and animals to be caught, and the crops that grow as though unbidden, and is utterly scathing about the Irish disinclination to do anything that might impinge on their liberty and the time that is their own. Rude pastoralists, they didn't engage in agriculture let alone build towns -- most of Ireland's towns were Viking settlements.

In short, from the point of view of the twelfth-century interlopers, the Irish were savages who didn't deserve the marvellous land they'd inherited from their ancestors. Of course the Normans of England and Wales would be far more worthy stewards of such a beautiful and bountiful country. Of course. Why it was their duty to look after it as God would have wanted. The Irish couldn't be trusted. They were squandering God's gifts.

And it goes on...

You'll find exactly the same kind of rhetoric used by the Europeans who drove the natives on north and south America from their land time and time again from the sixteenth century on, and most egregiously by those engaged in the Scramble for Africa in the nineteenth century. It's the same line, whether used of Irish, Incas, Indians, or Africans: they're brutes who are wasting what they've got, so it's our obligation to go there and use those resources properly.

Yesterday one commenter observed of the Parthenon Sculptures that the main initial complaints about the Ottoman sale of things they did not own came from people who had treated the Acropolis as a quarry, and that Christian Athenians had damaged the Acropolis long before the Turks had come, while another said:

'To be perfectly blunt, if Greece can't even be bothered to preserve the Altar of the Twelve Gods, why on earth should we give them more antiquities to damage, destroy or otherwise fail to steward properly?

Rightful ownership is all well and good, but if the rightful owner is incapable or unwilling to adequately look after the property... '

Sound familiar?

The Parthenon Sculptures: A Reflection

The internet being the internet, Stephen Fry having added his voice to those calling for the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum to be returned to Athens will doubtless lead to a great clamour in his wake, largely from people who've hitherto not given the subject more than two minutes' thought.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It is, at any rate, not an unusual thing. 

Remember the invasion of the Falklands? Sue Townsend got it right in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾:

'10am. Woke my father up to tell him Argentina has invaded the Falklands. He shot out of bed because he thought the Falklands lay off the coast of Scotland. When I pointed out that they were eight thousand miles away he got back into bed and pulled the covers over his head.'

Fiction, sure, but one that reflected something all too true; despite all those nowadays who claim that the Falklands are as British as Whitehall, back in 1982 huge numbers of Britons had no idea where they were.* Still, in no time at all Mrs Thatcher had Britain crying out for their return, for reasons of national pride and strategic sheep purposes.

Having won her glorious victory over a few thousand ill-equipped Argentinian youths, she went back to the polls in 1983 and was rewarded by having her share of the vote drop to 42.4%, while the two main opposition parties garnered 53% of the vote between them. Of course, the British electoral system being a model of democracy and known for how it so accurately reflects the will of the people, this translated to a massive victory for the Conservatives.

If burglars sold your most treasured possessions...

But I digress. The important thing, at any rate, is that huge numbers of Britons knew nothing about the Falklands when they were invaded, but brushed up quickly. 

Likewise, even those who've never given the Parthenon Sculptures a moment's thought before Stephen Fry piped up will have been able to think quickly about this, do some research, and quickly realise that there's not really any good reason why they're in London rather than Athens.

No, it won't do to claim that they were bought fair and square from the legitimate rulers of Greece two hundred years ago. Greece was occupied by the Ottomans at the time, and the Greeks were far from happy about being under imposed foreign rule -- so unhappy, in fact, that within nine years of the Parthenon Sculptures being shipped overseas, the Greeks began a successful revolution that won them their independence.

The Parthenon Sculptures weren't the Ottomans' to sell. That so many of the Parthenon Sculptures are in London now is a simple case of receipt of stolen goods.

Yes, we all know they'd probably have gotten damaged had they been still on the Acropolis during the War of Independence, with the Turks using the Erechtheion as a munitions store, just as they'd so disastrously used the Parthenon a century and a half earlier during a war with the Venetians. That most of the sculptures were away safely in London at the time surely preserved them. That's great. The Greeks are genuinely grateful for this. And as a reward, the British people have had two hundred years to admire them. It's time to give them back.

It is, frankly, dishonourable to try to pretend that they belong in London. It's the kind of thing that utterly gives to lie to any supposed sense of 'British fair play'.

That said, it's important to understand that we shouldn't be talking about returning them to Greece. We should be talking about returning them to Athens. There'd not be much point in sending them back if they were to end up in Corinth or Thessaloniki.

Pull up your seats. This bit matters. I'll simplify, but not by much.

An Education to Greece

The Acropolis -- the 'high city' -- was the ancient historical heart of Athens, a safe hilltop settlement. As time went on, more and more people began living around the base of it and on nearby hills, such that it became the religious and ritual centre of the city, the city's temple precinct. During the Persian invasion of 480-479 BC, the Persians occupied the city and destroyed the temples on the Acropolis as an act of revenge for their humiliation at Athenian hands in the battle of Marathon a decade earlier. Having eventually driven off the Persians, the Athenians resolved to leave the Acropolis as it was, as a permanent memento of what they'd experienced and triumphed over.

A few decades later they had second thoughts, and under Pericles embarked on building programme that -- in tandem with much else -- was destined to make Athens not merely, as Pericles put it in his famous Funeral Oration, 'an education to Greece', but an education to the whole world.

On the Acropolis this led to the construction of the huge monumental gateway called the Propylaia, the small Temple of Athena Nike which stood beside it, the rather ornate Erechtheion -- one important part of which is also in the British Museum, a series of smaller shrines, and above all the Parthenon, the great temple to Athena the Virgin.

Designed by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates, who factored in a couple of marvellously subtle optical illusions that made the building even look more elegantly regular than it actually is, and with the whole project supervised by the sculptor Pheidias, later to become known as the creator of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia -- one of the seven wonders of the ancient world -- the Temple was an architectural and artistic eulogy to Athens.

It's crucial to understand this. The Parthenon wasn't just in Athens. It was of Athens. It was about Athens. Its whole purpose was to celebrate and glorify Athens. It makes no sense save in the context of Athens. It is this, more than anything else, that makes the Parthenon Sculptures a special case.

A City Immortalised in Marble

The first phase in the sculptural project was the carving of 92 metopes in high relief; the metopes were square marble slabs, just over five foot high, depicting battle scenes, placed high up around the exterior of the Parthenon. The first ones visitors to the temple precinct would see were a series of metopes showing Greeks fighting Amazons, but as they followed the images around the long northern side they'd see a series of fights and duels from the Trojan War, then an array of depictions of the Greek Gods fighting giants, and finally, along the long southern side they'd see episodes of combat between Greeks and Centaurs. 

Every single set of metopes is designed to convey the same message: Greeks are not barbarians -- strange and sometimes savage people who make weird 'Bar bar' noises when they speak --  and when Greeks fight barbarians, they win. The Greeks, the Parthenon was saying in none too subtle a way, are the best.

Why would visitors experience the metopes in that order? Well, that's because the order in which they followed the imagery was largely dictated by the inner Ionic frieze, carved in low relief around the main body of the building, and visible from a distance between the Doric columns. It's represented in blue in the following diagrams, with the metopes being in red.

More than five hundred feet long and more than three feet high, the frieze, carved after the metopes were complete, focuses sharply on Athens itself rather than Greece in general. Depicting an idealised version of the annual Panathenaic Procession, the main narrative of the frieze heads north from the south west corner and turn east along the temple's long northern flank, the procession culminating at the eastern end with a depiction of the Gods, and what seems to have been the presentation of the peplos -- or woman's robe -- to Athena; every four years the highlight of the procession was the decoration of Athens' main cult statue of Athena with a newly-woven peplos.

Of the 378 figures that were on the frieze, 192 were cavalrymen. This is no accident: they represent the 192 Athenians who fell defending Greece in the Athenian victory at Marathon, that victory that John Stuart Mill said was a more important event in British history than the Battle of Hastings. 

Those 192 Athenians were buried just twenty-six miles from the Parthenon, graced with the rare honour by the Athenians of having been buried where they'd fought and died, rather than being brought home. It's impossible to downplay how much Marathon meant to the Athenians; when Aeschylus, arguably the greatest of ancient dramatists, died, his epitaph said nothing about his many artistic achievements. Instead it said just one thing: that he had fought at Marathon.

If the Doric metopes had celebrated Greece and Greece's superiority over barbarians, using legendary victories to celebrate such recent triumphs as Salamis and Plataea, so the Ionic Frieze celebrates Athens, Athena, and the immeasurably great Athenian achievement in having defeated the Persians at Marathon. 

Don't think for a moment, by the way, that it would have been difficult to have seen the frieze, tucked away as it was high up behind the columns and under the shadow of the roof. Greek sculptures in Antiquity weren't the understated  white marble beauties we see today; they were painted in the most vibrant of colours and were designed to catch the eye. Here, for instance, is a reconstruction of part of a pediment from the temple of Aphaia on Aigina:

The Parthenon sculptures would have been just as brightly painted, and would have been quite clear from some distance.

At either end of the Parthenon were its own pedimental sculptures, rendered in green in the diagrams; carved in the round after the Ionic frieze was complete, these were among the supreme sculptural achievements of classical Greece. At the western end, visitors would see the famous conflict between Athena and Poseidon over who would have patronage of Athens -- and can you imagine a better visual boast for a city than a depiction of the Gods themselves competing to see who would have the honour of being associated with it? 

Supposedly it was the legendary King Cecrops who chose between the Gods, picking the one who gave the greatest gift. Poseidon drew forth sea water from the ground, offering the Athenians that mastery of the sea they would later use to beat the Persians at Salamis, but Athena simply planted an olive tree, giving the Athenians the plant that would be the source of much of their wealth from then on.

Pediment on top, Doric metopes below, Ionic frieze within, all facing out. Simples.

 The eastern pediment depicted the birth of Athena, fully armed and fully aware, from the head of her father Zeus. A war goddess, she was prudent with it, unlike the bloodthirsty Ares, and so it was that the Athenians were to see themselves as people who could and would fight with courage and skill, but would not dedicate their lives to combat. As Thucydides records Pericles as saying in his funeral oration:

'... we rely, not on secret weapons, but on our own real courage and loyalty... There are certain advantages, I think, in our way of meeting danger voluntarily, with an easy mind, instead of with a laborious training, with natural rather than state-induced courage.'

Inside, of course, was the giant chryselephantine statue of Athena herself, a wooden core plated with gold and ivory, just like Pheidias' later masterpiece at Olympia; alas, it has been lost to us for many centuries.

As it should be...

In the summer of 2010 I visited Athens for my fourth time, and on a memorable day that saw me twice giving directions to a flustered Dylan Moran and later walking into a lingering cloud of tear gas, I made my way to the new Acropolis Museum.

Situated just a few minutes walk from the Acropolis, with just the Theatre of Dionysus** between the two and with the Acropolis itself clearly visible from inside the museum, it's pretty much a model of what a museum should be.

Visitors to the museum walk in at ground level, looking down onto archaeological excavations of the classical city that's below nearly every footstep in central Athens, and work their way upwards through the museum, each floor representing and featuring artifacts from a later period, culminating, as you'd expect, with the Parthenon Gallery on the third floor. 

A few pieces of sculpture are all that's original there; otherwise plaster casts take the place of missing pieces, the vast majority of which are  in Bloomsbury but which are also scattered in the Louvre and elsewhere. Not merely do massive windows on all sides give a clear view of the Acropolis itself and the Athens guarded over by the Acropolis, but the gallery is arranged in such a way that the pieces -- or their replicas -- are placed in such a way that they can viewed in the same order that they were always meant to be viewed, seen in the same Greek light by which they were always meant to be seen.

Spaced out as they'd have been on the Parthenon itself, the pieces in the Acropolis Museum are organised in the correct order, facing outwards in glorious natural light, telling the same story they first told almost 2,500 years ago.

They're not crammed into a dimly-lit room, with the metopes huddled around the pedimental sculptures at the ends, and the frieze facing inwards in the centre.

Yes, I know people get to see them for free in London. That's wonderful. I'll genuinely miss them if they go back home, as they're something I make a point of visiting almost every time I'm in London. But I've seen them lots of times, and the British Museum will hardly be impoverished without them. No museum housing the Sutton Hoo or Mildenhall treasures -- or indeed the Lewis Chessmen -- could ever fall from the first rank of the world's museums; and I don't think there's any danger of the Rosetta Stone being credibly summoned back to Egypt.

The Parthenon Sculptures are about Athens. They only really make sense in Athens. We've had two hundred years to look at them. I think it's time the Greeks had their own chance.

And let's face it, they could do with the money.

______________________________________________________________________

*Down in the south Atlantic, if you're still wondering. Careful when you spread out your map, as the odd toastlet or biscuit crumb is liable to render them invisible.

** Not to be confused with the Theatre of Herodes Atticus, a mistake memorably made by Indiana Jones' fraudulent father.

Revisiting the Census

I'm afraid the census is still bugging me, notably Figure 36. Looking at it the other day, and the related tables 36 and 37 at the back of the CSO's publication, left me utterly baffled. Here's the offending figure, to begin with:

Now, unlike good charts, graphs, and figures, which are meant to make data clear, this just bamboozles. It seems to have been in response to this, moreso than to the claim on figure 35 that much of the 179,889-strong increase in the number of Ireland's Catholics was due to recent immigration, that the Irish Times claimed that:

'The result show Ireland is still a predominantly Catholic country. Some 84 per cent of people described themselves as Roman Catholic, an increase of almost 5 per cent which was driven mainly by Eastern Europeans moving here.'

My italics, obviously. As we've already seen, this is clearly rubbish.  Just under 39% of the increase was driven by non-Irish immigration, some of which was from such countries as the Philippines and Brazil. Fine, we know this. The Irish Times screwed up. Or, putting it another way, the increase in the number of people describing themselves as Roman Catholic was most definitely not driven by Eastern Europeans moving here.

Still, what's going on in Figure 36? The other day I stared at it till I got exhausted, thought I understood it and then in exhausted frustration cast aside my momentary comprehension. It's been pointed out to me in a comment that I was wrong to have done so, and true enough, exhausted as I was, my maths were all over the shop.

Perhaps, then, what's going on in Figure 36 is a chart that tries to do a lot, effectively compressing eighteen separate charts into one, each bar being an independent set of data points, the horizontal dark bars measuring the percentage increase of Irish members of a particular religious group, and the horizontal light bars measuring the percentage increase of non-Irish members of a particular religious group.

Obviously it's deeply misleading to compress this into one chart, as 1% of the 2006 figure for Irish Catholics would be about 34,000, 1% of the 2006 figure for Irish Orthodox Christians would be about 29, 1% of the 2006 figure for non-Irish Muslims would be 216, and 1% of the 2006 figures for non-Irish people of no religion being 684. These figures simply cannot be compared in any meaningful way.

Nonetheless, let's take a look at a compressed version of table 37, from the appendices, drawing also from the 2006 figures; this should shed useful light onto figure 36. Let's put aside the figure for Apostolic and Pentecostal Christians, as I can't see a 2006 figure for them, and likewise ignore the 'Christians' figure, as though that probably means 'all other Christians', I can't be sure.

On the face of it, this seems to explain everything. It's quite plausible that the dark and light bars for Catholics tally with the 3.4% and 32.5% increase figures we can see from the table; that looks about right. Likewise, I'll buy the 5.3% and 7.4% increases for Presbyterians. The 'Other religions' look fine too, as do the 'No religion' bars.

Unfortunately, the rest of the figure doesn't work. Look at the Muslims on figure 36: the chart looks just about right for the 35% increase in non-Irish Muslims, but it seems to be rather overstating the 60% increase in Irish Muslims.

The Church of Ireland are curiously rendered on figure 36. I'll buy that the dark bar represents a 7% increase in Irish membership, but there's no way that very tangible light bar represents the 2.3% decrease in non-Irish membership that actually took place. The chart makes it appear as though non-Irish membership rose, when it actually fell.

What about the Orthodox, then? We know their Irish membership increased by 194% between censuses, but figure 36 seems to suggest the increase was by no more than 120%; meanwhile their non-Irish membership rose by 107%, but the chart appears to be saying there was a mere 45% rise or thereabouts.

No, unless I'm even more confused than I was, I'd be pretty confident in saying that the CSO has made a pig's ear of this chart. 

Well, really.

Torturing the Census Data

Back in my misspent youth, I enjoyed a brief dalliance with Fine Gael membership -- yes, I know, but I think we can all be forgiven our childhood errors. Besides, I rightly suspected John Bruton had real potential and suspicions I had about Labour were to be vindicated a couple of months later when they merrily snuggled up against Fianna Fáil in the governmental bed.

Anyway, I went to meeting one evening in UCD in anticipation of Michael Noonan, the finance spokesman of the day, addressing us; Noonan couldn't come, alas, but Austen Currie, one of my own TDs, stepped into the breach. Speaking at length about the situation in the North, Currie described how he'd gotten tired over the years with people saying that in time Northern Irish Catholics would outbreed Northern Irish Protestants.

'Rabbit theory,' he called this, dismissing it as unhelpful and crude; his standard response to people in the North who'd taken this line had been to advise them to go home and start breeding, as they obviously weren't interested in discussing things and working in accord with justice and charity towards the common good of the Northern Irish people as a whole.

Unfortunately, to judge by comments I've seen earlier today in response to the national census figures, we're not immune to our own form of rabbit theory in the Republic.

'Increasing' doesn't mean 'big'

'No Religion up 45% in Irish census, despite census question that favoured religion,' say some.

Number of Catholics in Ireland up by 4.9%, say others. Ah, the first crowd tend to counter, but most of the new Catholics are immigrants, they say, as though immigrants don't count. The rise in disbelief is an Irish phenomenon, they insist: atheism is on the rise. Huzzah!

People need to catch on to themselves.  'Increasing' does not mean 'big', just as 'decreasing' doesn't mean 'small'. What's more, we need to recognise that while numbers matter, truth matters more. Societies shouldn't be dictated to by their minorities, but they should most certainly be judged by how they treat their minorities. A State which doesn't act in accord with justice is no more than an organised crime syndicate.

Yes, there were about 80,000 more people in Ireland in 2011 who were willing to say they've no religion -- whether because they're atheist, agnostic, or apathetic -- than there had been five years earlier. Big deal: remember when people used to get excited about the Green Party vote doubling, when it had just risen from a risible 1.4% to a laughable 2.8% of the national vote? Indeed, do you remember the Greens? Or the PDs, who averaged just under 6% of the vote in each of the six campaigns they fought? 


Some pictures really are worth a thousand words
More substantively, the number of people willing to self-identify as Christians had risen by about 230,000 in the same period. Yes, I know there's a reasonable case to be made that it's not fair that children are probably listed by their parents as Catholics or whatever, regardless of what they believe themselves, but we should be careful about assuming that religion is about what you think rather than -- as so often -- what you do or who you are.

180,000 of those new Christians are Catholics, and most of the increase in Catholics in particular and Christians in general is due to natural increase rather than immigration.

Yes, really. Pay attention at the back.

Let's look at the broad national picture, as shown in Figure 35 of the Census 2011 Highlights, published this morning.

Ignore the second sentence for now; it's overblown nonsense and I'll deal with it in a minute. Instead focus on the main story, as taken for all in all, it's quite striking: 84% Catholic; 6.25% other Christians; 6% atheists, agnostics, and those of no religion in whatever sense; 2.5% everybody of religions other than Christianity; and 1.5% all those who declined to answer the question.

Granted, other than that more than 90% of the Irish population self-identify as Christians, with more than 90% of those self-identifying as Catholic, we don't know what these figures mean; there are already people arguing that Mass rates suggest that many Catholics are Catholic in name only.

I'm not sure about this, as leaving aside the issue of sacramentality, I'm always uneasy with attempts to second-guess people's self-identification. It always seems to be those who are quickest to claim the 'no comment' and 'no religion' answerers as secret atheists who are also quickest to claim that most religious people are secret atheists too. You'd almost think they had an agenda, the way they go on.

So all we have really go on are the numbers.


Pay more attention to the numbers than to the pictures

Now, what about the relative increases? Here, unfortunately, there seems to be a false narrative already in danger of slipping into the mainstream. Here's the Irish Times, for instance:

'The result show Ireland is still a predominantly Catholic country. Some 84 per cent of people described themselves as Roman Catholic, an increase of almost 5 per cent which was driven mainly by Eastern Europeans moving here.'

This is obviously misleading in the sense that it suggests that in 2006 our population was 79% Catholic and is now 84% Catholic, whereas it's the number of Catholics that's risen by almost 5%, not the percentage of the Irish population espousing Catholicism, but more importantly, the article perpetuates what seems to be an error in the CSO document itself.

It's an error that gives the impression that growth in Irish Catholicism has stagnated, and that the Irish Church is dependent wholly on immigration for new blood, and an error that needs to be challenged.

Look at Figure 36 here, which aside from the kind of disingenous chart that'd give Edward Tufte heart failure, purports to show the percentage change in religion by nationality.

It's not very clear what this chart purports to show, and it's hardly surprising that the Irish Times has read it as saying that Ireland's Catholic increase is almost exclusively due to lots of Catholics having moved to Ireland since 2006, mainly from mainland Europe. That's certainly the most natural reading of it.

And that's not true.

Are alarm bells ringing yet?

They should be. How high do you think our immigration rates have been since 2006? They were massive before that, of course, such that there were Polish signs at Luas crossings and in the Tax Office, but since then? Immigration's not been insignificant since the economic downturn, but does anyone seriously think it's been high enough to explain away the greater number of 180,000 new Catholics? High enough to explain it being possible to fill Croke Park twice over with new Catholics? Really?

Table N, below, should cause us to wonder further. Seemingly since 2006, roughly 52,000 Poles have moved to Ireland, along with 10,000 Lithuanians, 6,000 Latvians, 4,500 Brazilians, and 4,000 Filipinos. That's 76,500 newcomers from countries with largely Catholic populations.You'd fill Old Trafford with that. You wouldn't fill Croke Park once, let alone twice.

154,000 more immigrants, more or less, in that five year period, including Romanians and Indians. But Figure 36, as we've seen, makes it seem as though almost all the 180,000 or so new Catholics were immigrants. What's going on?

Well, putting it bluntly, it looks as though the likes of the Irish Times has taken the CSO's summary and messed up whatever it was that the CSO was clumsily trying to communicate. In 2006, there appear to have been 213,412 non-Irish Catholics in Ireland. By 2011, this number had increased to 282,799. In other words, only 69,387 of Ireland's new Catholics are people who've moved to the country since 2006.

Now that's not a small number, of course -- it'd almost fill Old Trafford, to put it mildly, and constitutes more than 55% of the last five years' non-Irish immigrants, contrary to popular narratives about how we have to change our education system to accommodate the massive numbers of immigrants who aren't Catholic -- but let's not exaggerate its importance if doing so means we've to ignore the natural increase that'd comfortably fill Old Trafford again, and Goodison Park or Stamford Bridge too.

According to the CSO, in 2006 there were 3,644,965 Catholics in Ireland; by 2011 there were 3,831,187, such that it seems that Ireland's Catholic population rose by 186,222 in that period. 37% of this figure can be accounted for by immigration during those five years, but that still means that 63% of it is natural increase.

It looks to me as though somebody  looked at the total figures showing how many Catholics in Ireland are from the rest of Europe -- just over 162,000 -- and mistakenly treated them as though they'd all arrived since 2006, whereas the vast majority arrived before then and have since become well-established in Ireland.

It's disappointing to see such sloppiness from our Central Statistics Office. Disappointing too to see people recycling supposed data without crunching numbers for themselves. People should get beyond the graphs.

Torture the data. It'll tell you what you need to know.

Update: I no longer understand this at all. I went through a phase later this evening of thinking I'd misunderstood the chart and been unfair to the CSO, but now I'm left baffled as to what it means by any definition. That it's a mess with the Catholics is clear, but look at the Orthodox, for instance. It looks from Figure 36 as though three quarters of the 24,000-strong Orthodox increase are Irish, but if the chart's saying that it's clearly wrong as we know from the tables at the back that just under 27% of the increase was Irish. So it obviously can't mean what it most naturally would be taken as meaning.

Having squinted at the chart for a bit longer than the Irish Times has evidently done, though, I thought I'd figured out what's going on, reckoning that it was a chart that's trying to do a lot, but in a murky way and not comparing like with like in any sense. My guess was that it was intending to show two data sets, the dark bars showing the increases on a percentage basis of Irish people in each religious group, and the light bars showing the increases on a percentage basis of non-Irish people in each religious group.

I suspected that it would have been easier to decode had it been a grouped vertical bar chart, with nine pairs of columns showing the increases or decreases in each religious group by national and non-national criteria. What's more, I thought it'd have been more honest if it were based on total numbers, rather than by percentages, as though percentage increases are in any way comparable: a sect with five members gaining ten new ones would show a 200 per cent increase, but it'd still count for nothing!

The problem is that that doesn't work either. Again, take the Orthodox as an example. Given that there were 2,881 Irish Orthodox Christians in 2006, and that this rose to 8,465 in 2011, the chart should represent this with a 294% increase in the dark bars. Likewise, there having been 16,845 non-Irish Orthodox in 2006, rising to 34,854 of such in 2011, the chart should likewise show a 207% increase in the light bars...

Except that's not what's what's happened. The chart shows roughly a 120% increase in the dark bars representing Irish nationals, and a 45% or so increase in the light bars representing non-Irish nationals.

I have no idea whatsoever what this chart is meant to be telling us.