A priest writes: John F Deane helped rid me of the guilt of Irish Catholicism
Irish Times 14 Aug 2023: Rite and Reason: The poet’s work shows us how to be ‘exuberantly open’ to life
For those of us in later life, who grew up in traditional Catholic Ireland, especially in rural areas, our story of religious belief has been interesting, and often difficult. Many of our age group grew tired of all the commandments and threats of eternal damnation, and ceased believing. Others accepted the doctrines and practices, and lived their lives as best they could in allegiance to them.
Some of us, without losing faith – faith in God, as distinct from a faith that equated with adherence to rules – struggled to find a more meaningful image of God, based on the words of Jesus: that he is the way, the truth and the life. A new book, just published, by poet John F Deane, Song of the Goldfinch, is the best description I have read of a life journey from a narrow religious belief to one that, in his own words, seeks to be “exuberantly open to the world”.
Link to article in the Irish Times:
Growing up on Achill Island, he developed a deep love of nature in all its manifestations. After five years boarding in a Jesuit school he spent a few years in a seminary, but left well before making any final commitment. Gradually he began to question the church, and most especially the image of a distant and judgmental God it presented.
The Green Plover: A new poem by John F Deane
Reviews: Give Dust a Tongue: A Faith & Poetry Memoir and Semibreve by John F Deane
“Down through the centuries the beautiful house of Christ had been slowly but surely swallowed up by all the scaffolding the church, as institution, had been building up around it, and that we had spent too much time up on that scaffolding, scraping and painting, and looking down from on high on the passersby below. But the way, the truth and the life that Christ had shown us all had been hidden and lost behind walls and barriers of authoritarian and institutional demands.”
The God he came to know more deeply was in and around all of creation and that same spirit imbued his own life
Discovering the writings of Teilhard de Chardin at this point in his life began to open for him a new and greater vision of the Christian message. De Chardin was probably the first to apply the evolutionary understanding of the universe to the spiritual life. It dramatically changed the traditional understanding we in the Catholic Church had of God, as distant, unchanging and, while Jesus had talked constantly of the love of the Father, we still managed to project this distant God as severe and dispassionate.
John F Deane quotes de Chardin: “By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us and moulds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers. In eco vivimus.”
This understanding of a divine presence in all of creation put a new perspective on life. Deane’s love of the natural world, far from being an obstacle to the spiritual life, became one of the greatest openings to the divine presence. The God he now came to know more deeply was in and around all of creation and that same spirit imbued his own life:
“To call oneself a Roman Catholic is perfectly fine, but I prefer now to touch on the wider sense of catholicity, to see my faith as all-embracing, to include all peoples, all honestly held belief and unbelief, all work that moves to forward humanity in peace, justice and harmony. To be a Christian, then, is to be aware that the whole cosmos is moving and evolving as one, that all through time something new is being continuously formed and reformed through the force of evolution. To be part of this Christian thinking is to be aware that creation has been moving forward from the first moment… and we are invited to be part of that incredibly wonderful process.”
The truth and the life that Christ had shown us all had been hidden and lost behind walls and barriers of authoritarian and institutional demands
I believe that John F Deane has done a great service to many of us, myself included, who have tried to rid ourselves of the baggage of guilt and fear which, unfortunately was part of the traditional Irish version of Catholicism. He shows us the pathway, to use his own words, on how “to evolve from fenced-in faith to one that is exuberantly open to the world”. If we read this book, we might stop worrying about the future of the churches because, to quote, Gerard Manley Hopkins: “The Holy Ghost, over the bent world broods.”
Fr Tony Flannery is a Redemptorist priest. Song of the Goldfinch, by John F Deane, is published by Veritas.
“Down through the centuries the beautiful house of Christ had been slowly but surely swallowed up by all the scaffolding the church, as institution, had been building up around it, and that we had spent too much time up on that scaffolding, scraping and painting, and looking down from on high on the passersby below. But the way, the truth and the life that Christ had shown us all had been hidden and lost behind walls and barriers of authoritarian and institutional demands.”
What a wonderful metaphor and so true.
I realise now that de Chardin was the early runner with the idea of the divine presence in all of creation.
There may be others but for me Fr. Diarmuid Ó Murchú’s “Incarnation. A New Evolutionary Threshold” was a genuine enlightenment.
And, Tony, I will always be in your debt for pointing me in his direction.
“I believe that John F Deane has done a great service to many of us, myself included, who have tried to rid ourselves of the baggage of guilt and fear which, unfortunately was part of the traditional Irish version of Catholicism.”
This is an experience frequently referred to, and it is important that it be heard, whether from people who have given up on the Catholic Church, or from people who remain within.
It is also important that it be heard that it is not the experience of every Catholic. It is not my personal experience. It is not the version of faith I observed in my parents, nor in my teachers in the Christian Brothers’ School in Synge Street in Dublin, nor from priests in the parish where I grew up. It was not a “fenced-in faith” that I heard, but one where we were encouraged to think for ourselves, one which communicated a God of love and mercy. I can’t take credit for this, of course. It does not mean I see no cause for being critical of the Church or of those in positions of authority. Rather, the positive experience gives good ground for seeing where reform and renewal are needed.
This does not contradict what Tony Flannery or John F Deane have experienced and written about, but to say that it is not a universal experience.
How many Irish Catholics, I wonder, experienced predominantly a church where “the life that Christ had shown us had been hidden and lost behind walls and barriers of authoritarian and institutional demands”? Are they a majority? Why do we so rarely hear from those whose experience has been positive? How many people of other Christian traditions, I wonder, also found that the message of Jesus Christ was hidden and lost behind barriers of authoritarian and institutional demands?
The poet Séamus Heaney, who died just ten years ago, experienced his own difficulties in accepting the faith he heard of in the Catholic Church. The Tablet of 17 August marks this anniversary. Maggie Fergusson, its literary editor writes of an interview she did with Seamus Heaney in 1995:
‘And he remembered the “radiance” of his Catholic boyhood: “People talk about the effects of a Catholic upbringing in sociological terms: repression, guilt, prudery. What isn’t sufficiently acknowledged is the radiance of Catholicism. It gave everything in the world a meaning. It brought a tremendous sense of being, of the dimensions of reality, the shimmering edges of things. The older I get, the more I remember the benediction of it all.”’
Whatever the difficulties he encountered, his last words to his wife Marie before he died were words of Jesus: “Noli timere – Be not afraid.”
“It is not my personal experience. It is not the version of faith I observed in my parents, nor in my teachers in the Christian Brothers’ School in Synge Street in Dublin, nor from priests in the parish where I grew up. It was not a ‘fenced-in faith’ that I heard, but one where we were encouraged to think for ourselves, one which communicated a God of love and mercy.”
Well, Pádraig, you were obviously one of the very few lucky ones. If there had been more lucky ones like you we might not be seeing the Church dying before our eyes. “…encouraged to think for ourselves”, really!!!
“How many Irish Catholics, I wonder, experienced predominantly a church where ‘the life that Christ had shown us had been hidden and lost behind walls and barriers of authoritarian and institutional demands’? Are they a majority?”
Absolutely a majority. Come on now, Pádraig, you are a well informed, intelligent man with great experience in these matters.
So, I am finding it hard to believe that this is a genuine question from you.
Yes, Paddy, it is a genuine question.
My experience is that the voices of those who complain are more readily heard than the voices of many who, although they may have reason for complaint, are also aware of the positives, and do not make their voices heard. Which experience is the majority I have no way of knowing. Of the many people I have known while serving in a dozen parishes over the years, I have encountered many who expressed criticism, but I have encountered far more who, whatever the reason for their complaints, still held to the positive vision. The vast majority of people have been overwhelmingly supportive and positive. This, however, is again my personal experience, and, being anecdotal, is not a proof either way. Most of the published opinions I have read have been more in the line of what Tony Flannery and John F Deane write.
Regardless of where the majority lies, we need to enable both to be heard and valued in a constructive rather than confrontational way.
This is a Synodal way.
For us down in Cork in the 1960s, “To know Christ Jesus” (the title of a book a Christian brother recommended) was essentially devotion to the Sacred Heart, and recalling the vibrant piety of men’s and women’s Congregations of that time I think a vivid sense of Christ as mercy personified (“To Jesu, heart all burning, with fervent love for men”; “No heart can be so tender, no heart can love like Thee”) was deep-rooted among the faithful. Maynooth from 1966 was awash with the influx of Vatican II, and books like Teilhard’s “Le milieu divin” offered a tremendously inspiring vision. A much-used spiritual writer was Michel Quoist (Prayers of Life), and Thomas Merton was widely read. We had a Think-In with Sebastian Moore OSB and other such liberal figures. Daniel Berrigan SJ visited the college in 1971 or 1972 (invited I think by Pat O’Brien). The Charismatic Movement swept over Ireland in 1973-75 (before collapsing into a congeries of fundamentalisms, Catholic and Protestant), in its initial phases putting an end to a religion of commandments, guilt, and fear. Meanwhile, “Puritan Ireland’s dead and gone,/ A myth of O’Connor and O’Faolain” as John Montague wrote in 1963: https://www.independent.ie/life/the-weekend-when-sex-came-to-ireland/38684259.html and the youth of Ireland have been among the most liberal and relaxed in the world in the sixty years since then!