Mass cards: a peculiarly Irish institution, “guaranteeing” a blessing from a priest
If there were a phrase to capture the year just passed in Ireland, and perhaps the Celtic Tiger era that preceded it, it must be “mental reservation.” This was the process by which the former archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, misled people about his handling of abuse complaints against the Catholic church, without apparently offending his conscience. In the early 1990s, Connell loaned church money to a paedophile priest to compensate one of his victims; he subsequently denied having done so to reporters. Confronted about this later by the victim, Connell explained he had said that church funds “are” not used for compensation, rather than they “were” not so used. He “considered that there was an enormous difference between the two.”
It was perhaps surprising how much outrage this generated, given the totemic role of mental reservation in Irish public life. In 1927, having provoked a civil war in part over his refusal to countenance an oath of allegiance to the British king, Éamon de Valera re-entered the Irish parliament and took the oath. Later, though, he denied he had taken it. “I signed it in the same way as I signed an autograph for a newspaper,” he said. (Popular lore contends that he took it with his fingers crossed behind his back.)
Seventy years later, in 1997, another Fianna Fáil taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, showed a similar facility for self-deception when denouncing his former boss, Charlie Haughey, for taking payments from businessmen. Ahern said he “could not condone senior politicians seeking or receiving from a single donor large sums of money.” In 1993 and 1994 Ahern had received a total of IR£39,000 in gifts from associates. When this emerged in 2006, he claimed the payments were intended to help him through a bad period due to the break-up of his marriage (which had happened six years prior to the payments). When questioned in 2008 about further payments, he said they were “winnings” on the horses. This was widely ridiculed; he then claimed, in December 2009, that his comment about the horses was “a Bertieism that went wrong.”
There is a more straightforward term for mental reservation, of course: hypocrisy. That, though, is one of the terms disallowed in the Irish parliament, as also we learned in December, thanks to an outburst from Green deputy Paul Gogarty, who apologised in advance for using “unparliamentary language” before proceeding to shout “fuck you” at a member of the opposition. It transpired that the apology was unnecessary: “fuck you” is not unparliamentary language in Dublin, though any of “brat, buffoon, corner boy, coward, fascist, guttersnipe” are—as, of course, is “hypocrite.”
Mental reservation isn’t restricted to politics and religion. It infects that other pillar of Irish life: sport. When Thierry Henry audaciously trapped the ball with his hand (twice) in the Irish box, before crossing it to set up a goal which sent France to the World Cup, Irish captain Robbie Keane told the BBC that he “wouldn’t expect it from anyone”—apparently mentally reserving the words “except myself.” Earlier in the match, Keane had been penalised for trapping the ball with his arm in the French box, before taking a wayward shot.
Yet if it seemed the Irish were expending as much outrage on the sins of Henry as on those of Connell and his colleagues, bear in mind that there may have been more than sport at stake in the match against France. During the last period of national economic depression, in the late 1980s, football emerged as the beacon for a new, more confident nation: qualifying for Euro 88 and then Italia 90 has since been seen as having helped lay the psychological foundations for the Celtic Tiger.
The new consensus is that those foundations were made of sand; however, sport offers evidence of a more substantial legacy from the boom. In October the Cork hurler, Donal Óg Cusack, become the first elite Irish athlete to reveal that he is gay. After he went public, Cusack’s mother received a number of Mass cards in the post. These are a peculiarly Irish institution, used to convey sympathies and sold with a “guaranteed” blessing from a priest. Instead of condemning, the cards were used to congratulate her on her son’s bravery. Given that homosexuality is intractably opposed by the same church that licenses the Mass cards, one might accuse the senders of practising a certain mental reservation themselves.
This contradiction is further evidence of the weakening of Ireland’s institutional church. Battered by abuse scandals; undermined by a cultural shift away from religious observance; and exposed by a growing gulf between what it preaches—especially in matters sexual—and what ordinary people practise, it is beginning to seem as anachronistic as the oath de Valera once reluctantly swore (or didn’t). And yet, those Mass cards betray an enduring cultural affinity. As unemployment rises and social cohesion is threatened, people may yet seek solace in the church. Ironically, it may be easier to do so now the leadership has been so badly damaged, as people will be far less inclined to take their pronouncements as gospel.
If there were a phrase to capture the year just passed in Ireland, and perhaps the Celtic Tiger era that preceded it, it must be “mental reservation.” This was the process by which the former archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell, misled people about his handling of abuse complaints against the Catholic church, without apparently offending his conscience. In the early 1990s, Connell loaned church money to a paedophile priest to compensate one of his victims; he subsequently denied having done so to reporters. Confronted about this later by the victim, Connell explained he had said that church funds “are” not used for compensation, rather than they “were” not so used. He “considered that there was an enormous difference between the two.”
It was perhaps surprising how much outrage this generated, given the totemic role of mental reservation in Irish public life. In 1927, having provoked a civil war in part over his refusal to countenance an oath of allegiance to the British king, Éamon de Valera re-entered the Irish parliament and took the oath. Later, though, he denied he had taken it. “I signed it in the same way as I signed an autograph for a newspaper,” he said. (Popular lore contends that he took it with his fingers crossed behind his back.)
Seventy years later, in 1997, another Fianna Fáil taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, showed a similar facility for self-deception when denouncing his former boss, Charlie Haughey, for taking payments from businessmen. Ahern said he “could not condone senior politicians seeking or receiving from a single donor large sums of money.” In 1993 and 1994 Ahern had received a total of IR£39,000 in gifts from associates. When this emerged in 2006, he claimed the payments were intended to help him through a bad period due to the break-up of his marriage (which had happened six years prior to the payments). When questioned in 2008 about further payments, he said they were “winnings” on the horses. This was widely ridiculed; he then claimed, in December 2009, that his comment about the horses was “a Bertieism that went wrong.”
There is a more straightforward term for mental reservation, of course: hypocrisy. That, though, is one of the terms disallowed in the Irish parliament, as also we learned in December, thanks to an outburst from Green deputy Paul Gogarty, who apologised in advance for using “unparliamentary language” before proceeding to shout “fuck you” at a member of the opposition. It transpired that the apology was unnecessary: “fuck you” is not unparliamentary language in Dublin, though any of “brat, buffoon, corner boy, coward, fascist, guttersnipe” are—as, of course, is “hypocrite.”
Mental reservation isn’t restricted to politics and religion. It infects that other pillar of Irish life: sport. When Thierry Henry audaciously trapped the ball with his hand (twice) in the Irish box, before crossing it to set up a goal which sent France to the World Cup, Irish captain Robbie Keane told the BBC that he “wouldn’t expect it from anyone”—apparently mentally reserving the words “except myself.” Earlier in the match, Keane had been penalised for trapping the ball with his arm in the French box, before taking a wayward shot.
Yet if it seemed the Irish were expending as much outrage on the sins of Henry as on those of Connell and his colleagues, bear in mind that there may have been more than sport at stake in the match against France. During the last period of national economic depression, in the late 1980s, football emerged as the beacon for a new, more confident nation: qualifying for Euro 88 and then Italia 90 has since been seen as having helped lay the psychological foundations for the Celtic Tiger.
The new consensus is that those foundations were made of sand; however, sport offers evidence of a more substantial legacy from the boom. In October the Cork hurler, Donal Óg Cusack, become the first elite Irish athlete to reveal that he is gay. After he went public, Cusack’s mother received a number of Mass cards in the post. These are a peculiarly Irish institution, used to convey sympathies and sold with a “guaranteed” blessing from a priest. Instead of condemning, the cards were used to congratulate her on her son’s bravery. Given that homosexuality is intractably opposed by the same church that licenses the Mass cards, one might accuse the senders of practising a certain mental reservation themselves.
This contradiction is further evidence of the weakening of Ireland’s institutional church. Battered by abuse scandals; undermined by a cultural shift away from religious observance; and exposed by a growing gulf between what it preaches—especially in matters sexual—and what ordinary people practise, it is beginning to seem as anachronistic as the oath de Valera once reluctantly swore (or didn’t). And yet, those Mass cards betray an enduring cultural affinity. As unemployment rises and social cohesion is threatened, people may yet seek solace in the church. Ironically, it may be easier to do so now the leadership has been so badly damaged, as people will be far less inclined to take their pronouncements as gospel.
