A group of people, purportedly there to support the people of Gaza, took it upon themselves to interrupt Mass in Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral on Sunday morning.
The officiating priest made a short statement pointing out the inappropriateness of the protest and requesting that they leave having made whatever point it was they were supposed to have been there to make, and to allow the congregation to proceed with their ceremony. It did not appear from the video that the protestors did as requested.
The comments on the Catholic Arena Twitter page which shared the videos made it clear that people were not just upset but angry over this blatant provocation of people who are in no way responsible for what is happening in Gaza.
What sort of idiots would even imagine that the Catholic Church in Ireland or Catholics attending Mass have even the slightest blame for what is going on, or might have any influence on the Israeli forces? It is they who are carrying out the bombings more than a year and tens of thousands of deaths after the October 2023 attacks. A military operation which has turned whatever retaliation against Hamas might have been justifiable into an act of vengeance in which no one is safe.
Besides all of that, Catholics in Gaza have themselves been the victims of the Israelis. In July the Holy Family Church school was bombed with the loss of at least 17 people. The Catholic Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem condemned the action as an unjustifiable attack on “non combatants.”
The statement was carried on the official Vatican news site and the Vatican has also made it clear that it “rejected the “just war” argument legitimizing the devastation and killing of civilians in response to Hamas’ attacks of October 7.”
Are the Irish reds and hangers on ignorant of all this, or do they even care? Is it simply another excuse to attack part of what we are, part of what most of them are in fact despite their all consuming self-hatred and deracinated rage against their own traditions and families.
The question must also be posed: Are all religious ceremonies fair game for this sort of protest now? Will these people be turning up at a Dublin synagogue for example to make their point? You may be sure that they will not nor under any circumstances would that be acceptable.
The reason it would not be acceptable apart from basic decency and respect for Irish Jews is that for the reds it would raise uncomfortable comparisons with the interference with Jewish ceremonies in other circumstances and at other times of history. And not just in Nazi Germany and the countries it occupied, but in the Soviet Union and its vassal states in the late 1940s and early 1950s when Stalin was in the midst of preparing a mass purge and murder of Jews.
Likewise, none of them would think it a good idea to turn up mob handed at the Clonskeagh Mosque to protest about Female Genital Mutilation or various examples of Islamic doctrine and practice inimical you might imagine to the left liberal conscience, except of course that their cultural relativist view of the world means that such unfortunate lapses get a bye ball. We have two former leftist MEPs who turned up in the Iranian embassy here to celebrate the anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
Nor, it ought to be stressed, ought any such violation of any person or congregation’s religious practices be tolerated. Be they Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish. Methodist. Mormon or any other. And that ought to include Catholic Churches.
It is not that long ago that Catholic Churches were the targets of assault by Ulster loyalists. On one famous occasion the founding members of the Provisional military organisation that gave birth to Sinn Féin defended St. Matthew’s Church in the Short Strand. Some of that party’s members would be more likely found to be in the assault group these days.
There was also a time when the very practice of the Catholic faith, the religion of the vast majority of our people, was outlawed. The many Carraig an Aifrinn, Mass Rocks, around the country testify to the determination of our people to defend that faith.
Some people still place a candle in their window at Christmas. It is traditionally a sign of welcome for the Christ child and his parents. In our people’s tradition it also served a practical and subversive purpose. It was a sign to priests on the run from the English militia and spies that the house with the candle was a refuge among people of the Faith.
The Catholic Church itself is partly responsible for allowing its enemies to feel that it may attack it with impunity where the Left feels that it has a licence to desecrate its very places of worship from Seattle to Paris and now Dublin. The Dublin diocese itself might also look at some of the projects and individuals who have benefitted from Crosscare funding.