Fr Seán Sheehy’s controversial sermon in Listowel two weeks ago has rekindled debate about the existence or otherwise of hell. But while hell may have been on a liturgical back-burner for a few decades in Ireland, the Catholic Church definitely does teach that it’s there, and that human beings who die in a state of mortal sin may find themselves in this ghastly place of suffering … for all eternity.
Other Christian sects also incorporate a belief in hell.
Three years ago, I stopped to listen to a man preaching on a Dublin street about the need to be “saved”.
He shrieked through a loudhailer that the walls of hell were a thousand miles thick, and described some of the torments inflicted by fiends and demons.
Availing of a lull in his delivery, I asked where he got the information on the dimensions of hell and what happened there.
He abruptly changed the subject and pushed a pamphlet at me that contained similar claims about hell but alas offered no evidence for any of them.
I’m not an atheist or materialist. On the basis of what paranormal researchers have discovered I’m open to the idea of an afterlife. Near death experiences point to an existence after death, and mediums tested under laboratory-like conditions have provided evidence that we do indeed survive in some form after we ‘pop our clogs’.
The results of the Scole Experiment, which involved mediums and extra sensory tests, conducted over a five-year period, pointed strongly to an afterlife.
However, none of the paranormal research that I’ve read about (I’m open to correction if anyone knows otherwise) has found any evidence to support the belief in a hell of the kind that Fr Sheehy and his co-religionists embrace as part of their faith.
I’ve heard it argued that hell was beneficial in that it may have deterred the commission of terrible sins or crimes. But has it? It didn’t prevent the Holocaust, or any of the gruesome murders or acts of horrific cruelty that have marred our species. Nor, for that matter, did it prevent the widespread abuse — sexual, physical and emotional — perpetrated by clerics who themselves supposedly accepted the existence of hell, or at least paid lip service to it from the altar.
The Catholic Church needs to ditch hell completely. It got rid of limbo, a doctrine that wrecked the lives of countless women over the centuries who believed that their beloved babies who died without baptism could never see the light of heaven. It has tweaked or abandoned other doctrines too.
It’s time for all branches of the Christian faith to stop peddling this scare tactic that just doesn’t work anymore.
Eternal damnation has had a hell of a good run, but is way past its sell-by date. Let’s kick it into the bowels of hell (the metaphorical one) where it belongs.
John Fitzgerald
Callan
Co Kilkenny
Rape is a crime, not a Church ‘scandal’
In his podcast interview with Mick Clifford, David Quinn of the Iona Institute repeatedly refers to “the scandals” besetting the Catholic Church and letting down ordinary mass-goers, “never mind the victims”.
Let’s be absolutely clear here: Rape and sexual abuse of children are not mere scandals — they are crimes. They are crimes against the most vulnerable members of our society, which, in many cases, were concealed by the religious orders and senior members of the Church.
No one should be allowed to minimise these criminal acts, a great many of which are only now coming to light.
Mr Quinn complains that the backlash against the Church “stops rational debate taking place”.
I suggest that the continued refusal to acknowledge the full extent of harm done by the Church and its officers is far more detrimental to honest discourse. Truth must out.
Bernie Linnane
Dromahair
Co Leitrim
Ireland doesn’t need to be part of Remembrance Day
Each year, Irish society is forced to endure sterile and divisive controversy concerning Armistice Day, poppy wearing, and the commemoration of the thousands of Irish who died serving with British forces during the Great War.
Can we take it that Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who wore a poppy badge on Armistice Day at the British Irish Council Summit in Blackpool (Irish Examiner, November 11), to honour those Irish in British uniform who gave their lives fighting for the rights of small nations in the Great War, will wear the Easter lily to honour those in Irish uniform who gave their lives fighting for the rights of this small nation at the same time?
It is inconceivable that Mr Martin is unaware that monies collected from the sale and wearing of the poppy is used to provide material support for British soldiers who fought in the recent illegal invasion of Iraq and also the conflict in Afghanistan.
Soldiers involved in the Troubles in the North, including the events of Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy, are recipients of such funds collected by the sale of poppies. Have we no shame?
Suggestions that we ignore the courage and valour of our forefathers is nonsense. Public ceremonies are held annually in Ireland to honour those who went away to fight in the Great War and never returned. The first Sunday of July each year is set aside as the National Day of Commemoration whereby Ireland commemorates, with respect and dignity, those Irish who died in both world wars and on service with the United Nations.
These ceremonies are attended by the President, the Taoiseach, leaders of the opposition parties and the leaders of all the main Churches, and is an appropriate, dignified and solemn event. Unfortunately this ceremony, which is devoid of the military jingoism associated with similar commemorations in the UK, does not appear to satisfy everyone as there continues to be a demand for the full participation of the Irish State in Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Why is Ireland’s National Day of Commemoration, which remembers with dignity the barbarism inflicted on our great grandparents’ generation, not sufficient? The sacrifice of those who gave their lives in such appalling conflict is being used most cynically by those who espouse the restoration of formal links with the crown.
The memory of those who were mass murdered in such an inglorious imperialist conflict as the Great War should be protected from these political opportunists. The Irish State and Defence Forces should have no dealings with the royal British legion other than at the National Day of Commemoration. This will ensure at least that protocol and ceremonial are controlled by the sovereign Irish State, thereby ensuring that Ireland does not appear as some sort of devolved British colonial administration.
It is unfortunate that the sacrifice of these brave men and women continues to be used as an emotional and dishonest basis for propaganda purposes.
Tom Cooper
Pearse Street
Dublin 2
Hobson’s choice in the North?
Unionists and Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland have become so staunch and unrelenting in their opposing faiths that new religions have been created: Unionism at any cost come what may and Irish nationalism at any cost come what may.
What is the difference between a unitary Irish State and union with Britain? It’s much easier to imagine the similarities. What are the differences between a pre-Brexit and a post-Brexit Northern Ireland, for example? A whole political culture built around two ideas which are essentially identical in outcome. We think we live in a free society yet our choices have been limited deliberately to these two aspirations. It’s either union with Britain or a united Ireland and both are absolutely the same. Ireland is never going to be the Ireland romanticised by Irish romanticists and the Union with Britain is beyond romanticising.
Louis Shawcross
Hillsborough
Co Down
Irony of protest by defacement of art
It seems ironic that the newest trend in Cork is the defacement of public art with bright green food products. Wasting food seems counterproductive to the eco warrior manifesto of sustainability; there are many hungry citizens who could have used this soup.
Also, the process of making soup and the materials used to contain this soup are resource- and energy-heavy: aluminium cans, energy for production, etc, Perhaps they should be throwing soup at the soup cans.
Liam Cronin
Kilmurry
Feenagh
Co Limerick
Going soft on rules makes rugby hard
I refereed rugby matches for several years on the continent and for a couple of years when I came to Ireland about 25 years ago. Matches are so strange now that I wrote to the IRFU to ask if there had been many changes to the laws of the game since I ceased reffing. They said no. If I had still been blowing the whistle, most matches would see seven or eight players sent off for foul play and/or violence. I feel very sad for the way the game has been allowed to descend into such violence — presumably to please the spectators and increase TV viewers — and thus the income to the sport.
Richard Barton
Maynooth
Co Kildare
