Church and State: columnist’s views challenged
For instance, speaking of this State, he wrote that “any laws or practices with a uniquely Catholic character were gone by the 1970s”.
What of divorce? It was banned here until November 1995 despite the fact it was allowed by every other Christian denomination and every other religion in Ireland except the Catholic Church.
Mr Mullen opposed that change to the constitution.
And what of the other ‘moral civil wars’ of the 1980s/’90s, prompted by the “uniquely Catholic character” of our laws, and in which Mr Mullen’s not-an-inch stance was consistent?
He made snide reference to Archbishop Neill. He wrote that this was a time “to reflect on all that had been achieved in the difficult field of ecumenism, and to look forward to what may yet be accomplished. For some (referring to Archbishop Neill) the need to look back remains strong all the same.”
Later he chides the archbishop and “those who recall past injustice not to exaggerate or overstate their case”.
This is gratuitously offensive to a man who has a tremendous record where ecumenism is concerned and who is prone, if anything, to understatement. He would never, for instance, make the sort of comments about fellow Christians that the former Catholic Archbishop of Dublin did, and which Mr Mullen defended with such conviction in his role as spokesman for the latter.
Besides, those matters of the past to which Mr Mullen referred were drawn down by me - not Archbishop Neill - in the interview which prompted Mr Mullen’s column.
But to come to the Tilson case. This Church of Ireland man wanted to raise his children in his own tradition but, as demanded by the Catholic Church’s mixed marriages 1908 Ne Temere decree, he had signed a written declaration before marriage that the children would be raised Catholic.
In 1950, he took a case to the High Court and lost. Judge Gavan Duffy said he was obliged to raise his children as Catholics because he had given a written promise to do so and cited then Article 44 of the constitution (removed in 1973) referring to the special position of the Catholic Church in this State as further support for the court’s decision.
Mr Tilson appealed to the Supreme Court and lost. He fought on the basis of a legal principle that the father had the right to determine his children’s education and religion. In a similar case in 1947, a Protestant father was allowed such a right.
Three of the four judges hearing the case against Mr Tilson were Catholic. The one dissenting judge, Mr Justice Black, was Church of Ireland.
Mr Mullen and others have recently taken to presenting this latter Supreme Court decision as one giant step forward for women. More likely it was influenced by the earlier High Court judgement and the changed political climate with a new Government headed by the devout Catholic, John A Costello. Certainly that was the view among Irish Protestants who now saw the Ne Temere decree as having the full backing of the State
Towards the end of his column, Mr Mullen referred to a recent debate at Trinity College in which he, Archbishop Neill, and I took part. At Trinity’s Historical Society, the motion was that ‘Religion has no place in Bunreacht na hÉireann.’ The archbishop and I spoke in favour. Mr Mullen opposed.
I raised the Tilson case as an example of what can happen when one religion/denomination is favoured over others in a constitution and as part of an argument that all religions should be equally respected by a constitution.
Mr Mullen suggested in his article that neither I nor the archbishop heard during that debate what, for him, was a convincing justification of the Supreme Court decision in the Tilson case.
He goes on to propose that we willfully ignored that justification because we wished to hold to our view as it helped put the Catholic Church in a bad light.
This is outrageous. Because we do not go along with his argument, our bona fides must be questioned? There’s a fundamentalist flavour to that.
Archbishop Neill, I am sure, is more than capable of defending himself, but in his favour I must say I have never heard the man utter the remotest criticism of the Catholic Church, nor have I sensed from him any hostility whatsoever towards that institution.
Indeed he and the current Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, relate on both personal and representative levels with a cordiality that has not been seen in Dublin before. And that is as it should be.
As for Mr Mullen, he is a man I know personally and like, but there are times when I would happily wring his neck. This is one such occasion.
Patsy McGarry
Religious Affairs Correspondent
The Irish Times
D’Olier Street
Dublin 2
