Paul Gill to finish 25-day blasphemy walk today

Today, Monday May 31st, Paul Gill of Atheist Ireland will finish his 25-day walk the length of Ireland to raise support for the promised blasphemy referendum. Please send him a text now to congratulate him at +35386 7325365.

Also, if you are in Ireland today, why not join Paul on the last leg of his epic walk? You can meet him at the Malin Hotel, Malin between 3:30-4:00pm on Monday 31st May. Malin to Malin Head is a 12km walk so should take about 2 & 1/2hrs to complete. If you can’t make it then he’ll see you at Sandino’s Bar, Derry at 8:30pm.

Throughout the length of Ireland from Cork to Donegal, Paul has failed to find a single person who supports the blasphemy law. On one occasion, he thought he had found one person who wanted blasphemy outlawed, but it turned out that person had got blasphemy mixed up with bigamy!

People all along the west coast have been incredibly supportive. Many people have refused to take payment for meals and staying at campsites. Comedian Tommy Tiernan met Paul to express his support. And you can give Paul a boost by joining him today, either on the final leg of the walk or later in Sandino’s bar, or else by texting him a message of congratulations to +35386 7325365.

Here’s Paul starting his walk in Cork on May 6th. The first few daily videos of his walk are also online on the Atheist Ireland YouTube channel. Tom Kennedy,who travelled with paul to video the walk, will gradually put the rest of the daily videos online over the coming weeks.

(If you can’t see this video, please go here to the original post.)

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Jesus the raging ruler of Revelation

Moderate Christians sometimes argue that Jesus changed the violent message of the Old Testament God. But this argument ignores the New Testament portrayal of Jesus as the raging ruler of Revelation.

A prophet called John believed that Jesus appeared to him on the Greek island of Patmos, to show him what the end of the world would be like. Jesus had white hair and eyes like flames, a sharp two-edged sword came out of his mouth, he wore a golden sash over a full-length garment, his feet were like brass, he carried seven stars in his hand to represent seven angels, and he stood between seven golden candlesticks that represented seven churches in Turkey. Jesus dictated letters to the angels of each of these churches. These included some strong rebukes. He told the angel of one church that a woman called Jezebel had seduced his servants to fornicate, so he was going to kill her children with death.

After dictating these letters, Jesus brought John to Heaven through a door in the sky. God was sitting on a throne being worshipped by twenty four elders with gold crowns, and four beasts with six wings each. God had a book sealed with seven seals, and nobody was worthy enough to open it except Jesus, who now appeared as a lamb. Jesus took the book from God, and opened the first six seals. Four horsemen brought disasters to the earth, but 144,000 Israelites were saved. Jesus then opened the seventh seal, and seven angels brought more disasters to earth, with various beasts killing some people and torturing others but not letting them die.

The angels in Heaven then cast the Devil down to earth in the form of a dragon with seven heads and ten horns. The dragon attacked a pregnant woman, but the earth protected her. Then a beast arose from the sea, and the dragon gave the beast his power and authority. The number of the beast was 666. Seven more angels then poured seven golden vials of God’s wrath onto the earth, bringing seven more plagues. The seas and rivers turned to blood, people were scorched with fire, and giant hailstones fell from the sky. A woman, the whore of Babylon, was sitting on the back of the beast, and an angel destroyed the city of Babylon.

Jesus himself then went to war with the beast. Jesus was on a white horse, and his robe was soaked in blood. Jesus cast the beast and his false prophet into a lake of fire burning with brimstone, and killed the beast’s army using the sword that came out of his mouth. An angel then jailed the Devil in a bottomless pit for a thousand years, after which the Devil returned and deceived various nations. God cast those nations, the Devil, Hell and Death itself into the lake of burning brimstone for eternity. God then sent a new Jerusalem, made out of gold, from Heaven to earth, and the righteous lived there in peace for eternity. Finally, Jesus assured John that the time for all of these prophecies to happen was soon coming.

Jesus as the raging ruler of Revelation is inconvenient to moderate Christians, because he is just as vengeful and violent as was the Jewish Jehovah of the Old Testament. Even before he brought John to Heaven, Jesus was threatening to kill the innocent children of the prophetess Jezebel because of the sins of their mother, which is straight out of Old Testament morality.

Of course, this Jesus may have been just a vision that appeared to John on the island of Patmos, but he was either as real, or else as imaginary, as the Jesus that appeared in a vision to Paul on the road to Damascus. There is no valid reason to give either of these hallucinations any more or less credibility than the other.

And this Jesus was adamant that his message was not to be revised: before he left, he told John that God would curse anyone who either added to or removed any of his words. So there’s not much room there for cherry-picking the bits that sound nice.

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Time for action on child sex abuse report

A year after the Ryan Report was published, we must not forget the decades of crimes it uncovered by Irish religious orders against children in their care. A new coalition of children’s groups is now calling for faster government action on the report. And two men are on hunger strike outside the palace of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin seeking arrests and an international criminal investigation.

Between 1936 and 1970, about 170,000 children were sent to about fifty industrial schools, and were kept there for an average of seven years. The religious orders systematically abused the children in their care. They hit, beat, flogged and kicked children. They scalded and burned children and held them under water. They sexually molested and raped children. They told children they were worthless, and lied to them that their parents were dead. They left sick and injured children untreated. They neglected to provide children with basic standards of care, food and clothes. They shaved, beat and humiliated children who ran away and were caught.

The religious orders did all of this as a matter of policy, treating and beating children in similar ways in different schools. They wanted to create a climate of daily terror, with children not knowing where the next beating was coming from. They knew their behaviour was illegal: they reported abusive lay workers to the police, but protected priests, brothers and nuns. The Department of Education failed in its duty to inspect and monitor these schools. Despite knowing that violence was endemic, it saw its role as facilitating the religious orders.

The two men on hunger strike outside the Catholic Archbishop’s palace are John Ayres and Kevin Flanagan. John was physically abused and seriously beaten as a child, both by his parents and in institutions. Kevin’s brother Mickey was assaulted with a brush in Artane industrial school, suffering concussion and a broken arm, and was then locked in a shed for sixty hours and denied medical assistance.

The new coalition of eight groups who have come together to lobby the Government to carry out the Ryan Implementation plan are Barnardos, CARI, Children’s Rights Alliance, Irish Association of Young People in Care, ISPCC, One in Four, Rape Crisis Network of Ireland and the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. Here’s what they want the Irish Government to do:

• Ensure that a referendum to strengthen children’s rights in the Constitution is held;
• Speed up the legislation to place Children First on a statutory basis and widen its remit to include all organisations and individuals, including faith organisations, sports bodies and volunteer groups;
• Ensure children’s voices are heard in all matters affecting them. Develop the necessary legislative and policy framework to make statutory provision for the right of children’s voices to be heard in judicial proceedings affecting them;
• Introduce and progress the National Vetting Bureau Bill, ensuring that the Bill provides adequately for the sharing of information between relevant agencies;
• Ensure all children in care have an allocated social worker and care plan;
• Evaluate the National Children’s Strategy 2000-2010 and begin the consultation process in preparation for the development of the next Strategy;
• Provide the necessary funding to those providing support services to survivors of institutional child abuse;
• Amend the Child Care Act 1991 via the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2009 to place a statutory obligation on the State to provide aftercare for all children who need it and develop a comprehensive national aftercare policy;
• Ensure that separated children moving into care placements are provided with adequate supports to meet their specific needs. Ensure these children have access to aftercare services;
• Publish the promised national review of current practice in relation to Section 5 of the Child Care Act 1991 to establish current practices and gaps in the system for children experiencing homelessness;
• Commence the Health Act 2007 to allow independent inspection of foster carers and all children’s residential centres as a matter of urgency;
• Grant the Health Information and Quality Authority more independence and robust powers to enforce compliance with child care regulations, through a range of mechanisms, including penalties, sanctions and fines.

They have a website called Saving Childhood Ryan, which has a form that allows you to email your local TDs and Senators with a request for immediate action.

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Visionary has double vision of Virgin Mary

Joe Coleman claims to get messages from the mother of the son of the creator of the universe. People who believe him have damaged their eyes by staring into the sun. Last Friday Coleman was on RTE’s Late Late Show, promoting a book about his alleged visions. But his stories while being interviewed do not match up to what he has written in his book.

Let’s start with page one of chapter one. Coleman says he had his first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the age of twelve, when he was looking at a picture of her in his grandmother’s house. Now, you would imagine that such a momentous event would be indelibly imprinted on his memory. But you would be mistaken.

In his book, Coleman describes the event as “a scene of utter silence” in which the image of Mary seemed to float towards him in a hazy cloud, then beamed at him with a beautiful smile, and “then it was over just as quickly as it had begun.”

But on the Late Late Show, Coleman says “She told me she was my blessed mother, and I was going to work for her in years to come, and I have to prepare myself”. When Ryan Tubridy volunteers the phrase “She said brace yourself”, Coleman replies “She said brace yourself, my child. It was the first time she called me my child. She said, you have come back to the earth, you have to work for me, but I didn’t understand that, because I didn’t even know who she was.”

So, based on his Late Late Show interview, Coleman believes the image of the Virgin Mary told him specific things when she first appeared to him, things that were central to his later role as a messenger of her visions. Yet he fails to mention any of these comments in his book. Instead, he specifically describes “a scene of utter silence” in which the apparition smiles at him and “then it was over just as quickly as it had begun.”

This leaves three broad possibilities: (a) while writing, revising and editing the first page of chapter one of a book about being visited by the mother of the son of the creator of the universe, Joe Coleman forgot that she had told him these very important things; or (b) he remembered that she had told him these things, but thought this too trivial to include in his book; or (c) he is making up or embellishing his stories as he goes along.

I know which option I am leaning towards.

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Moral without God? Video of debate

Many people mistakenly believe morality comes from religion. In March 2010, I debated with John Murray, director of the Iona Institute for Religion and Society, on the motion that one cannot be truly moral without God. The debate took place in Maynooth University, and was organized by the Maynooth Christian Union and the Maynooth Literary and Debating Society.

(if you can’t see any of these videos, please go here to the original post.)

Here’s my opening contribution:

And here is a playlist of the full debate, which takes about an hour and forty minutes:

If you want to skip to any particular section, you can use the arrows on the right and left of the above playlist to view any of the following parts of the debate:

Opening speeches
1/12 – John Murray opening speech
2/12 – Michael Nugent opening speech
3/12 – Student speeches for motion
4/12 – Student speeches against motion

Questions and answers
5/12 – Relative morality in the Bible
6/12 – Can we live without God?
7/12 – Interpreting morality in the Bible
8/12 – Human rights and true morality
9/12 – Can we be moral with God?
10/12 – Science, morality and animals

Closing speeches
11/12 – John Murray summary
12/12 – Michael Nugent summary

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New blasphemous art exhibition opens in Dublin

A new art exhibition titled Blasphemous opened on Good Friday in the Irish Museum of Contemporary Art (IMOCA) in Lad Lane, off Baggott Street, Dublin 2. It’s the second art exhibition to highlight and challenge the new Irish blasphemy law, which became active on 1st January 2010.

Since then, the Irish Justice Minister has responded to the campaign against the law by saying that he will propose a referendum, later this year, to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Irish Constitution, thus enabling the blasphemy law to be repealed.

This makes the new exhibition in IMOCA not just a challenge to the blasphemy law, but also a celebration of artistic freedom, and freedom of expression generally. The exhibition runs until 25 April and is open from 12 noon to 5 pm every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, or by appointment through contacting IMOCA.

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Pope’s letter protects church, not its victims

The Pope’s letter on child sexual abuse holds lessons for civic society.

What he writes to Catholics about religion is a matter between him and them. But the Catholic church also operates within civic society, acts as a quasi-State at the United Nations, and sends ambassadors to real States.

And the Pope’s letter includes assertions about secular society that are factually wrong.

Having read the full letter, the following seems clear:

1. The Pope’s main priority is to protect the church, not its victims
2. The Pope wrongly blames secularism for priests raping children
3. The Pope’s apologies are incomplete and his appeals are self-serving
4. The Pope’s “concrete initiatives” are a distraction not a solution
5. The Pope is evading the church’s responsibilities to civic society

1. The Pope’s main priority is to protect the church, not its victims

In a letter of close to five thousand words, the phrase “sexual abuse” appears only three times, and nowhere is it used as an active verb describing an action that Catholic priests have done to children. Instead it is twice described abstractly as “the problem of child sexual abuse”, and once passively as “the victims of child sexual abuse.” By contrast, the word “church” appears more than fifty times. Needless to say, the words “rape” and “cover-up” do not appear anywhere in the letter.

One of the three uses of the phrase “sexual abuse” is: “Since the time when the gravity and extent of the problem of child sexual abuse in Catholic institutions first began to be fully grasped, the church has done an immense amount of work in many parts of the world in order to address and remedy it.” This assertion is simply untrue. The Catholic church has known for centuries that some priests have been raping children, and they have known for centuries that raping children is gravely wrong, both as a sin in their religion and a crime in civic society.

The Pope does not even acknowledge (never mind apologise for) the Catholic church policy of bishops covering up the repeated rape of children by priests. Instead he refers euphemistically to “mistakes” made by bishops in responding to allegations, and he does not even include the Vatican or himself as making any of these “mistakes”. In using this evasive language, he is actually moving the church backwards from last December, when the Irish bishops admitted that the Murphy report indicated a widespread culture in the church of covering up child sexual abuse by priests.

In a statement issued during their December 2009 meeting in Maynooth, the Irish bishops said: “We are deeply shocked by the scale and depravity of abuse as described in the report. We are shamed by the extent to which child sexual abuse was covered up in the archdiocese of Dublin and recognise that this indicates a culture that was widespread in the church. The avoidance of scandal, the preservation of the reputations of individuals and of the church, took precedence over the safety and welfare of children. This should never have happened and must never be allowed to happen again. We humbly ask for forgiveness.”

Despite this explicit admission last December by the Irish bishops, the Pope’s pastoral letter begins with some subliminal hints of what concerns him most about this issue. In Section 1, the Pope writes: “I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children…” How much stronger that opening sentence would be if it simply read: “I have been deeply disturbed by the abuse of children…” How much stronger it would have been if he had then used the same type of language as the Irish bishops did last December.

Instead, in Section 2, the Pope writes that: “In order to recover from this grievous wound, the church in Ireland must first acknowledge before the Lord and before others the serious sins committed against defenceless children. Such an acknowledgement, accompanied by sincere sorrow for the damage caused to these victims and their families, must lead to a concerted effort to ensure the protection of children from similar crimes in the future.”

On the face if it, this looks commendable. But read it again for its nuances. The reason that sins against children must be acknowledged is to allow the church (not the victims) to recover from “this grievous wound”. It is only as a follow-up point that this must be accompanied by sorrow for the damage caused to the victims. If you parse the language throughout this letter, these same priorities are repeated again and again. The priority of this letter is to revitalise the Catholic church, not to pursue justice for or make reparation to its victims.

2. The Pope wrongly blames secularism for priests raping children

Section 3 is a brief potted history, from the Pope’s perspective, of Irish Catholicism and the impact of Irish Catholic missionaries on Europe and other continents. As an overview, he suggests that, for centuries, Irish clerics “dedicated their lives to Christ, sharing the gift of faith with others, and putting that faith into action in loving service of God and neighbour.”

In Section 4, the Pope asserts that this has all changed in recent decades, because of “new and serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid transformation and secularization of Irish society.” He writes that “fast-paced social change” has led to Irish Catholics going to confession less often and praying less often, and Irish priests “assessing secular realities without sufficient reference to the Gospel.” This included “a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations.”

This, the Pope writes, is the “overall context” in which “we must try to understand the disturbing problem of child sexual abuse, which has contributed in no small measure to the weakening of faith and the loss of respect for the church and her teachings.” Look again at the nuances of this language. The pope is suggesting that secularization of society is the context in which we must understand priests raping children, which in turn weakens faith and respect for the church. This is self-serving nonsense. The reality is almost the exact opposite.

Catholic priests were raping children, and Catholic bishops and the Vatican were covering up these crimes, long before Irish society became more secular. What secularisation has done is empower the victims of these crimes to speak out about their experiences, and more importantly be heard and believed. And secularisation has helped to reveal the traditional methods used by the Catholic hierarchy to cover up these crimes, such as swearing children to secrecy and moving the criminals to another parish, diocese or country where they could rape more children.

The Pope then lists four specific factors that he says contributed to the problem. Three are within the control of the church: procedures for selecting priests; training in seminaries, and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties. Notably, he does not include as a factor the failure by bishops to report serious crimes to the police. And the Pope’s fourth contributory factor is “a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures”. But how could secularism possibly cause this tendency? In fact, it has done almost the exact opposite.

The Pope’s muddled and manifestly false claim about secularism is part of a pattern of the Catholic church denying responsibility for its own actions. Earlier this month the Vatican’s official exorcist (!) blamed “Satan at work in the Vatican” for priests raping children. And last September, the Vatican’s representative at the UN argued that child sexual abuse was common among Jews; that fewer than 5% of Catholic clergy were sex abusers; and that most of them are actually ephebophiles and not paedophiles, because they are attracted to adolescent males. This evasion has to stop. It is time the Catholic church stopped blaming others for its own crimes.

3. The Pope’s apologies are incomplete and his appeals are self-serving

In Section 5, the Pope writes that he has met with victims of sexual abuse, and is ready to do so again. He says that he has already asked the Irish bishops to establish the truth of what happened in the past, to prevent it from happening again, and to bring justice and healing to the victims of these crimes. He then introduces a series of paragraphs aimed directly at victims, their abusers, parents, children and young people, priests and religious, bishops and all the faithful in Ireland. None of these serves the purpose of bringing justice and healing to the victims of these crimes.

3(a) Victims and priests who abused them

In Section 6, the Pope finally addresses the victims of abuse and their families. He apologises for their suffering, but describes the abuse in the passive tense: “You have suffered… the wrong you have endured… your trust has been betrayed… your dignity has been violated…” He seems unable to bring himself to directly take responsibility for the church actively doing things. This would take the form of “We have caused you to suffer… we have betrayed your trust…” etc. The Pope then moves away from the real world by telling the victims that Jesus understands their pain because he too was a victim of injustice, but that the very wounds of Jesus broke the power of evil and people were reborn. He concludes that the victims can find peace “by drawing nearer to Christ and by participating in the life of his church.” Two points arise here: firstly, the Pope should have apologised to the victims at the start of the letter, not as point number 6. And secondly, the suggestion that they can best find peace, by participating in the church that is still covering up the crimes against them and other children around the world, is deeply offensive.

In Section 7, the Pope addresses priests and religious who have abused children. He says they have betrayed the trust placed in them by children, and “must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals.” He does not specify what the ambiguous phrase “properly constituted tribunals” means. He tells them they have done great damage to the church and the public perception of the priesthood. He says that Christ can forgive them for the gravest of sins, but that “God’s justice” demands they conceal nothing about their actions. He urges them to “openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God’s mercy.” Given that the preceding sentence refers to “God’s justice” it is unclear whether or not the “submitting yourselves to the demands of justice” means handing yourself in to the police and admitting your crimes.

3(b) Other Irish priests and Irish bishops

In Section 10, the Pope addresses the Irish priests and religious. He tells them that: “All of us are suffering as a result of the sins of our confreres who betrayed a sacred trust or failed to deal justly and responsibly with allegations of abuse.” Notably, the Pope does not include himself among those who “failed to deal justly and responsibly with allegations of abuse.” This is perhaps the most significant sentence in the letter, with a crucial point hidden away indirectly in the making of a different point. Because, until the Pope accepts that he bears ultimate responsibility for the cover-up of these crimes, both as Pope and in his former roles as Cardinal and Bishop, he will be unable to address this issue in the way that it needs to be addressed.

In Section 11, the Pope finally addresses his “brother bishops” in Ireland. This should really be Section 2, after the apology to the victims, which should be Section 1. In this Section, the Pope writes that some bishops “failed, at times grievously”, to apply canon law to the (presumably canon law) crime of child abuse. He adds that: “I recognize how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice.” This is complete nonsense. The “problem” was not at all complex. If you are aware that a man is repeatedly raping children, and you have even a minimally functioning moral compass, you know that this is a serious crime that you must report to the police.

The Pope then tells the Irish bishops: “Besides fully implementing the norms of canon law in addressing cases of child abuse, continue to cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence.” We can note here the order of priority: canon law first, civil authorities second, and civil authorities is qualified by the condescending phrase “in their area of competence.” The priority of canon law appears again the next sentence: bishops are to ensure that child safety laws be applied fully and impartially “in conformity with canon law.’ There is no parallel reference to “in conformity with civic law.” The pope then asks for “decisive action carried out with complete honesty and transparency,” but the stated purpose of this decisive action is not to bring about justice or reparation, but to restore the reputation of the church.

The Pope does not repeat to the bishops the things that he said to the priests whose crimes the bishops covered up. He does not tell the bishops that they have betrayed the trust placed in them by children, and “must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals.” He does not tell the bishops that “God’s justice” demands they conceal nothing about their actions. He does not tell the bishops to “openly acknowledge your guilt [and] submit yourselves to the demands of justice.” This is because the Pope sees “the problem of child sexual abuse” as being caused by individual priests, and he clearly does not accept the findings of independent inquiries that the church, on an institutional level, covered up these horrific crimes.

3(c) Parents, children and the faithful

In Sections 8 and 9, the Pope addresses parents and young people. He says that parents are in the first place responsible for bringing up their children, educating them in authentic moral values, and inspiring them with the truth of the Catholic faith. He says that parents should do this while the church “continues to implement the measures adopted in recent years to protect young people in parish and school environments.” And he tells children and young people to seek a personal relationship with Jesus within the church, because Jesus will never betray them. He concludes by asking young people to be faithful disciples in rebuilding and renewing the church.

In Section 12 and 13, the Pope addresses the Catholic faithful in Ireland. He again attacks “our increasingly secularised society, where even we Christians often find it difficult to speak of the transcendent dimension of our existence.” This is simply not true, and the Pope must know this. A secular society does not prevent people from speaking of any transcendent beliefs they may have. It simply prevents such beliefs from being the basis on which civic policy is formulated. The Pope then writes that, while “measures to deal justly with individual crimes are essential, on their own they are not enough.” as they must be augmented by a new vision based on following the commandments of the Gospel. The Pope concludes by saying that he is praying in solidarity with all of his brothers and sisters in Christ.

4. The Pope’s “concrete initiatives” are a distraction not a solution

In Section 14, by far the longest Section, the Pope proposes what he calls “some concrete initiatives to address the situation.” These initiatives turn out to be: asking all Irish Catholics to pray more often and go to confession more often for a period of one year; having an apostolic visitation of certain dioceses and seminaries in Ireland; having a Mission for Irish bishops and priests through the intercession of a 19th century French priest who preached total obedience to the hierarchy and who engaged in bodily mortification; and writing a new prayer for the church in Ireland. That is the sum total of the Pope’s “concrete initiatives”.

4(a) More prayer and more confession

The Pope’s first “concrete initiative” is to ask all Irish Catholics, for a period of one year, between now and Easter 2011, to devote their Friday penances to praying for “an outpouring of God’s mercy and the Holy Spirit’s gifts and strength” upon the church in Ireland. He asks Irish Catholics to fast, pray, read scripture and do works of mercy for this specific purpose; to go to Confession more frequently; and to worship the Holy Eucharist outside of Mass. The Pope says that, by such intense prayer, all Irish Catholics “can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm”.

Let’s examine each aspect of this proposal. All Irish Catholics are asked to pray more often and intensely, not for the children who were raped by Catholic priests, but for a rebirth of the Catholic church in Ireland. They are asked to offer up works of mercy, not for the purpose of being merciful, but again for a rebirth of the Irish church. The Pope says that this, plus more Confession and more worship of the Eucharist, can “make reparation for the sins of abuse”. But why should all Irish Catholics be responsible for making reparation for priests raping children and bishops covering up those rapes?

This is not a concrete initiative at all, but an abstract appeal to all Irish Catholics to share the blame for the crimes of priests and the cover-ups of bishops. Scientific studies have shown that prayer does not impact on the natural world. The Pope’s proposed prayers have an arbitrary timetable of “a period of one year”, which coincidentally matches his arbitrary one-year offer of free plenary indulgences to Catholics who visited Lourdes during 2009. And the focus on worshiping the Holy Eucharist outside Mass highlights the most superstitious aspect of Catholic teaching.

4(b) An apostolic visitation and a mission

The Pope’s second “concrete initiative” is that Vatican officials will visit certain dioceses and seminaries and religious institutions in Ireland. The stated purpose is not to make reparation to children raped by priests, but “to assist the local church on her path to renewal.” The Pope’s third “concrete initiative” is that all Irish bishops, priests and religious should attend a nationwide Mission at which they could re-learn about their vocations and recent pontifical teachings. Here the Pope commends to Irish bishops and priests the example of Saint John Vianney, and says that the proposed Mission should operate through Vianney’s intercession.

So who is this model saint whose example the Pope commends to Irish bishops and priests? A Vatican encyclical by Pope John XXIII says that Vianney was “outstanding in the virtue of obedience… we are offering clerics this total obedience as a model… the effectiveness of any apostolate has constant and faithful obedience to the hierarchy as its solid foundation”. The same encyclical says that Vianney was “outstanding in a unique way in voluntary affliction of his body… this led him to abstain almost completely from food and from sleep [and] to carry out the harshest kinds of penances… he brought his body into subjection through voluntary mortification”. Is this type of fundamentalism really the foundation on which to revitalise the Irish Catholic church today?

The Pope concludes his letter with a prayer for the church in Ireland. He wants Irish Catholics to make use of this prayer in their families, parishes and communities. The prayer asks God to renew Irish Catholics in faith hope and charity. It asks Jesus to help the Catholic church in Ireland to educate young people in the way truth and goodness. It asks the Holy Spirit to inspire a new springtime of holiness and apostolic zeal in Ireland. It asks that the sorrow and tears of Irish catholics as they attempt to address past wrongs, should cause grace that will deepen the Catholic faith in Ireland. And it ends by entrusting to the Triune God “ourselves, our children, and the needs of the church in Ireland.” Nowhere in this prayer do the words victim, sexual abuse, rape, crime, cover-up or apology appear. Unsurprisingly, in tune with the overall tone of the letter, the prayer concludes by focusing on “the needs of the church”.

5. The Pope is evading the church’s responsibilities to civic society

Having read the full pastoral letter, the following seems clear:

1. The Pope’s main priority is to protect the church, not its victims
2. The Pope wrongly blames secularism for priests raping children
3. The Pope’s apologies are incomplete and his appeals are self-serving
4. The Pope’s “concrete initiatives” are a distraction not a solution
5. The Pope is evading the church’s responsibilities to civic society

All of the Pope’s proposed initiatives are a distraction from the types of initiatives that could really make a difference. These could include voluntarily acknowledging that the church is subject to the same democratic civic laws as the rest of us; openly accepting the findings of the various Irish enquiries; voluntarily acknowledging that the Catholic church at an institutional level has covered up crimes by priests against children; voluntarily making public all church files that victims wish to have public about these crimes and about the cover-up of these crimes; voluntarily selling church property to voluntarily compensate victims; voluntarily reporting to the police all priests who have committed crimes and all bishops who have covered up these crimes, and voluntarily pleading guilty to whatever crimes were committed.

The Pope may conclude his letter with a prayer, but his church continues to switch between being a religion when it suits them to being a State it suits them. The mechanism for this is its quasi-State in the Vatican City, which has none of the attributes of a State such as citizenry, territory and economy, but nevertheless sends ambassadors to real States and is treated almost like a real State by the United Nations. What the Catholic church does as a religion is its own business. But it is clearly still in deep denial about the impact of its behaviour on wider society, so the rest of us should recognise that in our interactions with this church.

The Irish DPP and police should take steps now to ensure that bishops who covered up serious crimes against children are brought before the law. The Irish Government should take steps to remove the influence of the Catholic church on our health and education system. In particular, the human rights of nonreligious parents to have a secular education system should be vindicated in every area of the country. The Government should review its relations with the Catholic church’s quasi-State in the Vatican City. The Government should seek to have the United Nations treat the Catholic church like any other religion, by listening to it as a nongovernmental organisation, and not by treating it as a quasi-State.

If the Catholic church will not voluntarily face up to its responsibilities within civic society, then the institutions of State must ensure that it does so. And we the people should lobby our politicians to make this happen sooner rather than later.

Photo: Pope Benedict by Roblisameehan (cc)

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Ahern proposes referendum on blasphemy

Atheist Ireland welcomes the statement from Dermot Ahern, the Irish Justice Minister, that he is proposing a referendum this Autumn to remove the offence of blasphemy from the Irish Constitution, along with two other referendums that the government is already committed to.

The Minister has told the Sunday Times that “I was only doing my duty” in bringing in the new blasphemy law, and that “there was an incredibly sophisticated campaign [against me], mainly on the internet.”

Atheist Ireland thanks everyone who has helped to make the campaign against this new law as effective as it has been to date. It is now important we maintain the pressure on this issue to ensure that the referendum happens as proposed and, more importantly, that it is won.

We reiterate our position that this law is both silly and dangerous: silly because it is introducing medieval canon law offence into a modern plularist republic; and dangerous because it incentives religious outrage and because its wording has already been adopted by Islamic States as part of their campaign to make blasphemy a crime internationally.

The following is the text of the article in today’s Sunday Times:

Ahern proposes a referendum on scrapping blasphemy law

Dermot Ahern, the justice minister, is proposing that a vote to remove the criminal offence of blasphemy be held as part of a planned series of referendums this autumn, writes Stephen O’Brien.

Ahern, who was criticised for increasing the fine for blasphemy to €25,000 last year, said he never regarded the provision in the new Defamation Bill as anything more than a short-term solution.

“There was a lot of nonsense about that blasphemy issue and people making me out to be a complete right-winger at the time,” he said. “There was an incredibly sophisticated campaign [against me], mainly on the internet. I was only doing my duty in relation to it, because clearly it is in the constitution. The attorney general said ‘there is this absolute, mandatory thing… it is an offence, punishable by law.”

A final decision on a blasphemy referendum rests with the cabinet, but if Ahern remains justice minister after this month’s reshuffle, he is likely to propose that it be added to the autumn list. The government is already committed to referendums on children’s rights and establishing a permanent court of civil appeal.

The plebiscites are expected to take place in October, on the same day as the a vote for a new directly elected mayor of Dublin, and three Dail by-elections in Donegal South-West, Dublin South and Waterford.

“I said [last year] that I didn’t want a wasteful standalone referendum on blasphemy in the middle of an economic crisis,” said Ahern. “My preference was to reform [the blasphemy provision] in the short term and to have a referendum in the medium term when it could be bundled with a number of others.”

A defamation bill was already in preparation when Ahern became justice minister in May 2008.

Ahern then said he had three options: to abandon the bill; to hold a single-issue referendum to remove the constitutional reference to blasphemy; or to update the references in the 1961 Defamation Act.

Opting for reform, he said he had removed the seven-year jail sentence from the old legislation.

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Cardinal Brady’s meetings with paedophile priest

Cardinal Sean Brady, Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland, should resign today. Last December he told RTE that he would resign if a child had been abused as a result of a failure on his part. He has now admitted that he attended meetings in 1975 at which teenage victims of the paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth were sworn to silence about the crimes committed against them.

At the time Cardinal Brady was a priest, and was investigating the complaints in his capacity as Secretary to the Bishop of Kilmore. Brady now says that he believed the victims were telling the truth but was only following orders from his Bishop in how he dealt with them. The Cardinal’s office said yesterday:

“In 1975, Fr Sean Brady, as he then was, was the part-time secretary to the then Bishop of Kilmore, the late Bishop Francis McKiernan. At the direction of Bishop McKiernan, Fr Brady attended two meetings: in the Dundalk meeting Fr Brady acted as recording secretary for the process involved and in the Ballyjamesduff meeting he asked the questions and recorded the answers given. At those meetings the complainants signed undertakings, on oath, to respect the confidentiality of the information gathering process. As instructed, and as a matter of urgency, Fr Brady passed both reports to Bishop McKiernan for his immediate action.”

As it happens, Bishop McKiernan’s “immediate action” was to report the matter to Smyth’s Abbott and withdraw Smyth’s right to hear confessions, but not to tell the police about the crimes that he was aware of. Cardinal Brady’s statement last December, which ironically was made when he was putting pressure on the Bishop of Limerick to resign over similar allegations, was:

“I would remember that child sex abuse is a very serious crime and very grave and if I found myself in a situation where I was aware that my failure to act had allowed or meant that other children were abused, well then, I think I would resign.”

Well, that is exactly the position Cardinal Brady now finds himself in. Father Brendan Smyth continued to sexually abuse children for almost two decades after those meetings with Brady. Cardinal Brady is now (and has for many years been) aware that his failure to act allowed or meant that other children were abused by one of Ireland’s most notorious paedophile priests.

Decades of sexually abusing children

It is not surprising that the then Father Brady believed the victims of Smyth’s crimes were telling the truth. Father Brendan Smyth had been sexually abusing children from at least the late 1950s. Whenever he faced complaints, the Church moved him to another diocese or another country. He was sent to and sent back from dioceses in Scotland, Wales, Rhode Island, North Dakota and various parts of Ireland.

A Father Bruno Mulvehill later told UTV’s Counterpoint show that father Smyth’s tendencies were common knowledge within his order in the 1960s. Father Mulvehill once found a decree from the Vatican in Smyth’s room, warning that Smyth was not to be left alone with children. And Father Mulvehill had written in 1974 to the Bishop of Kilmore (on whose behalf Father Brady met Smyth’s victims in 1975) saying:

“Ever since 1964 I have known that a member of the community, Father Brendan Smyth, is misbehaving: he is molesting children who attend bingo sessions. Two of them who are superficially known to me have told me of their troubles. I have brought the matter to the attention of the abbot but to no avail.”

The Bishop later denied receiving this letter, but admitted that he had known about Smyth’s behaviour since 1975. He said he had investigated the matter, substantiated the complaints, reported the matter to Smyth’s Abbott, and withdrawn Smyth’s right to hear confessions, but had not told the police.

Because of this lack of action by both the then Father Brady and his then Bishop, it took another two decades, until 1994, before the Belfast Crown Court jailed Smyth for four years after he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing children for more than three decades between 1964 and 1988. The children included both boys and girls, and were aged between eight and fourteen.

Two examples of Smyth’s horrific behaviour: he repeatedly abused one orphan girl for five years between 1972 and 1977, until she ran away from the home. When she was returned, she was moved to another home in the country, and Smyth came to see her there. And in one convent school, where Smyth had no function, he would call and ask for one of the girls to be sent to him in a private room. The girl would be brought from her class and Smyth would sexually abuse her. He was banned from the convent when one of the girls complained, but was back doing the same thing in the same convent ten years later.

In 1996, the Irish Director of Public Prosecutions told Smyth’s solicitor that his client would face another sixty charges of sexual abuse of children in the Republic of Ireland when he finished his jail term in Northern Ireland. In fact, Smyth was to plead guilty to another 74 charges of assaults in the Republic over a 35-year period to 1993. He had assaulted children in a hotel, a cinema, a convent and other venues in nine different counties.

Father Smyth died of a heart attack in prison in August 1997. The following Sunday, a number of people walked out of a mass in Sligo when their local priest, Father Sean Page, included Smyth in in his prayers for the dead. Father Page said that what Smyth had done was serious, but it was a matter between him and God.

Untrue statements by Church spokespersons

As an aside, after Smyth was jailed in 1994, two Catholic Church spokespersons made untrue statements to the media. The head of the Catholic Press Office, Jim Cantwell, told the Irish Times that the then Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Cahal Daly, had no intention of resigning:

“In the case of father Brendan Smyth, the Cardinal was only ever aware of one complaint and with regard to that he took the appropriate action by drawing the matter to the attention of his Superior, Father Kevin Smith, who gave assurances about Father Brendan Smyth”.

Yet, on the UTV Counterpoint programme that followed the case, journalist Chris Moore produced a letter from Cardinal Daly to the family of one of Smyth’s victims:

“There have been complaints about this priest before, and once I had to speak to the superior about him. It would seem that there has been no improvement. I shall speak to the superior again.”

And after the head of the Norbertines (Father Smyth’s Order) in Ireland resigned, the Dutch Abbot General of the Order, Father Marcel Van de Ven, met in Rome with Cardinal Daly.

The Abbot General denied that the meeting had happened, and only admitted it after a spokesperson for Cardinal Daly said it had. Van de Ven claimed that he had not lied because the church protocol was that he should not speak before the Cardinal did.

He said he had since rang the Cardinal and asked if it was known that they had met, and the Cardinal had said it was known, so he (the Abbot General) could now confirm it. “I hope you do not consider that as a lie,” he added.

Ireland’s most notorious paedophile priest

The behavior over the coming days of Cardinal Daly’s successor, Cardinal Sean Brady, should be viewed in the context of all of the above.

Brady may have spent several years working in Rome after his meeting with Father Smyth in 1975, but he could not have been unaware of the ongoing crimes of Father Smyth. Smyth’s arrest and conviction followed a delay in processing an extradition warrant from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, and the scandal led to the collapse of the Irish Government. Father Brendan Smyth was at the time by far the most notorious paedophile priest in Ireland.

Combine that with the fact that his crimes against were common knowledge within the church for decades, and it is inconceivable that Cardinal Brady could have been unaware of what had happened since his 1975 meeting. Cardinal Brady should arguably have resigned in either 1975 or 1994. He certainly should resign today.

Sources (subscription required)

• Priest sentenced to jail for four years for abusing children, Irish Times, 25 June 1994
• Tracing Father Brendan’s 40 Years of child abuse, Irish Times, 8 October 1994
• Abbot General changes statement on meeting with Dr Daly, Irish Times, 24 October 1994
• Bishop says he was informed of complaints about Smyth in 1975, Irish Times, 24 October 1995
• Paedophile priest affirms guilty pleas to 74 charges, Irish Times, 23 April 1997

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The case for a secular education system

This is the second in a series of articles on secular education and human rights law. The first article is here.

Secular schools are neither religious nor atheist

There are two reasons why State schools should be run on a secular basis. But first, it is important to explain that a secular school is not the same thing as an atheist school.

A religious school teaches that a god exists, an atheist school would teach that no gods exist, and a secular school is neutral on the question of religion: it does not teach that gods either do or do not exist.

Instead, a secular school teaches children in a neutral, objective way about the different beliefs that different people have about gods, and leaves it up to parents and churches to teach specific religious beliefs outside of school hours.

As a symbolic example, a recent European court case ruled that Italian schools should not display crucifixes on classroom walls. But removing the crucifixes would not turn the school into an atheist school: that would require replacing the crucifixes with signs saying that there is no god. A classroom wall with no religious symbols of any type would symbolise a secular school.

Secular schools are good for society

That said, here are the two reasons why State schools should be run on a secular basis.

Firstly, it is good for society for children to be educated together. We in Ireland can see from the recent history of Northern Ireland how separate schooling contributed to the problems of children understanding and respecting each other across religious divides.

Secular schools bring children together. They teach them the normal subjects that have a basis in scientific fact, like mathematics and languages and history and critical thinking. They teach them about different religious beliefs and help them to understand other beliefs and respect other people.

And, outside of school hours, the children’s parents and churches can teach them more about their own specific beliefs about the nature of reality and personal morality.

Secular schools respect human rights

Secondly, in practical terms, secular schools are the only way to ensure that everybody has their human rights respected with regard to education.

Under international human rights law, parents have a right to have their children educated in a way that is consistent with their religious or philosophical beliefs. I will outline in a later article the reasons why this is so.

At a minimum, this means that schools should not indoctrinate children with religious beliefs that conflict with those of their parents.

In theory, this could be done by having schools based on every religious view and atheism, and to have enough of these schools spread around the country so that, in practice, each child can attend one suitable to their circumstances.

In practice, this impossible to do. There is simply not enough money to provide so many schools, and even if there was it would be an administrative nightmare.

So that leaves the other option: have secular schools that are neutral with regard to religious beliefs, as I have described above. This option respects the human rights of all children equally. That is what a fair and just society would do.

The case for secular education

Combine both reasons, and the argument is clear. Secular schools are good for society, because they help children to understand differences and respect other people; and secular schools are the only way in practice to respect the human rights of all of our parents and children.

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Secular education and human rights law

Parents and children have a right to a secular education under international human rights law. This is the first in a series of posts outlining the issues involved.

International Human Rights Treaties

What are the main international human rights treaties? Founded in the aftermath of World War Two, the United Nations soon adopted the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This was later strengthened by two legally binding treaties: the 1976 International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Together, these three UN documents became known as the International Bill of Human Rights. By then Europe in 1950 and America in 1969 had already adopted regional human rights treaties, followed later by Africa in 1981. Islamic states signed a rival treaty in Cairo in 1990 based on Sharia law, which limits rather than protects many human rights. The UN has also brokered other treaties dealing with specific human rights issues including children, women, race, genocide, slavery and torture. So today, thanks to an ongoing process first triggered by the horrors of World War Two, many but not all people have someplace to turn to if their own State denies them their human rights.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration is built on the principle that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. You have the right to life, liberty and security of person; to not be enslaved or tortured; to be held equal before the law; to not be arbitrarily arrested; to be presumed innocent until found guilty by a fair trial; to have your privacy and reputation protected; to have a nationality and to move freely between countries, including asylum from persecution; to marry and to own property; to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, expression and peaceful assembly; to democratic government based on free and fair elections; to fairly paid work, rest and leisure, social security and a basic standard of living; to health and education, including free elementary education; to take part in the cultural life of your community; and to have all of these rights protected by law, and only limited to protect the rights of others.

International Covenants on Human Rights

Over 160 States have ratified the two main UN treaties that give these rights the force of law (about seventy more have signed but not yet ratified them). Under the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, States must respect and ensure the rights to life, liberty and security of person, equality and procedural fairness in law, individual liberties and political participation. And under the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, States must take steps, to the maximum of their available resources, to progressively realise the rights to work, social security, family life, an adequate standard of living, health and education, and participation in cultural life. States can also sign optional protocols to these treaties, to abolish the death penalty or to allow individual citizens to complain directly about violations of either treaty. The treaties are monitored by UN Committees that regularly consider compliance reports from States, and sometimes consider complaints from individuals.

European Treaties on Human Rights

Two separate alliances of European States also protect human rights. The Council of Europe, which includes 47 States, runs the European Court of Human Rights. This Court enforces the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights, as well as other treaties on specific human rights issues. Individual citizens can take a case to this Court, once they have exhausted domestic avenues, and the Court has the power to award them damages. The Court gives some leeway, called a margin of appreciation, to individual States in deciding how to protect and respect human rights.  And the European Union, which includes 27 States, runs the European Court of Justice. This Court enforces the Charter of Fundamental Rights which became law as part of the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. This Charter is binding on all EU institutions, as well as to member States when they are implementing EU law. While the Council of Europe and the European Union are separate bodies, they work together to promote European integration.

Secular Education and Human Rights Law

All of these treaties include clauses that balance the right to education with the right to freedom of religion and conscience. I will outline the clauses, and the test cases that have flowed from them, in a later post.

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European Lawyer journal debates blasphemy law

In the current edition of The European Lawyer magazine, I argue against the new Irish blasphemy law and Thomas Byrne TD of the Oireachtas Justice Committee argues in favour of it. I am publishing the text of both articles here, and I will analyse the arguments made by Thomas Byrne TD in a separate post.

(The European Lawyer is the leading monthly magazine for the legal profession across Europe. Its subscribers – predominately senior private practice and in-house lawyers – are based in jurisdictions across the European continent as well as the UK and North America.)

This is the argument for the law:

Necessary modernisation

Thomas Byrne TD is a solicitor and a member of the Oireachtas Justice Committee

Long awaited reform and modernisation of defamation law in Ireland has unfortunately been overshadowed by ill informed and somewhat hysterical campaigning over the arcane issue of blasphemy libel.

The Defamation Act 2009 came into operation at the beginning of this year and introduces a modern statutory framework, providing for:

• comprehensive reform;
• statutory expression to developments in the jurisprudence of Irish courts, and elsewhere, including the European Court of Human Rights;
• respect for the necessary balance between the competing rights of freedom of expression (article 40.6.1 of the Irish Constitution) and of respect for ones good name and reputation. (article 40.3).

In completing the reform and modernisation of defamation law, the Minister for Justice had to consider the provision on blasphemous libel contained in section 13 of the old Defamation Act 1961. That section provided for the offence to be punishable by monetary and prison penalties (a term of up to two years’ imprisonment was possible). The section gave expression to article 40.6.1.i. of the Constitution, which is its only criminal offence provision, stating: ‘The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.’

This issue has onlv come to prominence in the context of the reform of Ireland’s defamation legislation. The minister had previously explained in some detail, both before the Oireachtas (the parliament) and in the media, the position in relation to the constitutional obligation involved here.

The Irish government was required to respect the provision of our constitution. Successive attorneys general advised that until the constitution is amended, by referendum of the Irish people, it is necessary that blasphemous libel remain a crime and that legislation must make provision for sanctions for this crime. Thus, to proceed with the reform of defamation law, it was necessary to address this issue.

At the Dail (the lower house of parliament) committee stage examination of the Defamation Bill last May, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern made it clear that (we as legislators do not have the luxury of pursuing a do-nothing approach while we wait for an opportune moment to move a constitutional amendment’. He set out all the relevant elements involved and drew particular attention to the nature of the constitutional obligation imposed.

The government’s preference, which I believe was widely supported, was to proceed with reform of defamation legislation rather than postpone it to await a possible referendum on blasphemous libel. I have expressed the hope that sanctions in regard to blasphemous libel will be little, if ever, a point of issue in the future. This was the case in the past under the provisions of the previous Defamation Act of 1961.

It is important to understand, despite claims to the contrary, that the provisions in the Defamation Act 2009 are not designed for the protection or promotion of any particular religion. I received no representations from any particular religion in regard to the drafting of those provisions.

Despite the criticism directed towards Mr Ahern by some, as a minister he is not in a position to advise anyone as to any potential breach of the law nor to offer a view as to any possible prosecution. Prosecution of criminal offences in Ireland is a matter solely for the independent Director of Public Prosecutions.

I hope that we will not have to wait a long time before a suitable occasion arises to put a proposal to the Irish people to delete the reference to blasphemy from our constitution. This course of action was proposed by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution in July 2008, which suggested that we might avail of any appropriate opportunity in the future.

However, I am not necessarily convinced that a referendum needs to be held as a matter of urgency, given the other serious challenges facing our country. I should also point out that one should not anticipate a positive result in a referendum.

And this is the argument against the law:

Blaspheme and be damned

Michael Nugent is an Irish writer and chairperson of the advocacy group Atheist Ireland.

Why has the Irish Government introduced a medieval canon law offence into the criminal law of a modern pluralist democratic republic? Officially, it is because blasphemy is an offence under the Irish Constitution. But in 1999, the Supreme Court had found that the existing law was unenforceable, as blasphemy was not defined. However, between 1996 and 2008, four Constitution Review Committees had called for the deletion of religious references, including blasphemy, from the Constitution.

And in 2008, the Venice Commission, the body that advises the Council of Europe on constitutional matters, recommended that incitement to hatred, including religious hatred, should be a crime; that insult to religious feelings should not be a crime; and that the offence of blasphemy should be abolished (which is already the case in most European States) and should not be reintroduced.

In this context, nobody in Ireland expected the offence of blasphemy to survive the recent updating of the Defamation Act which contained it. The Justice Minister had three options: to leave the law as it was, to seek a referendum to remove blasphemy from the Constitution, or to make the law enforceable by defining blasphemy. He chose the third option. And so, for the first time, Ireland now has an enforceable blasphemy law.

This new law is both dangerous and silly. It incentivises religious outrage by making it the first test of blasphemy, in a Europe where cartoons or novels can trigger such harmful behaviour. The new law also treats religious beliefs as more valuable than secular, scientific or political beliefs. But the criminal law should protect people from harm, not ideas from criticism. In any case, we should be removing 1930s religious references from our Constitution, not legislating to enforce them. For example, you cannot become President or a Judge in Ireland without taking a religious oath.

Even if the Minister felt obliged to bring in a blasphemy law, he was certainly not obliged to bring in this particular one. It is too vague to enable citizens to regulate their conduct, and is discriminatory in its ambiguities. For example, what is “a substantial number of adherents” of a religion? If it is an actual number, it discriminates against smaller religions. If it is a proportion, it discriminates against larger religions.

In 2007, the English High Court held that it was the prevention of imminent public disorder that made the old English blasphemy law compatible with Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights. But “causing outrage” is a far lower hurdle than the risk of public disorder. If the Irish Supreme Court were to use the same criteria as the English High Court, it could find this law unconstitutional.

The new law also discriminates against atheists. In 1999, the Irish Supreme Court said the old common law of blasphemy would have to be adapted to the circumstances of a modern State which guarantees freedom of conscience and of religion. The new law attempts to do this by redefining blasphemy as protection from outrage and extending such protection to citizens of any religion. However, it arbitrarily excludes such protection from citizens whose fundamental belief system is based on no religion.

Under political pressure, the Minister reduced the fine from €100,000 to €25,000 and introduced some safeguards that merely add more problems. The ‘genuine value’ defence shifts the burden of proof to the defendant in a criminal trial. And the exclusion of so-called ‘cults’ from being classified as religions is an arbitrary interference in the constitutional rights to freedom of religion and from discrimination.

The Minister just doesn’t get it. The problem with a blasphemy law in a modern republic is its existence, not its detail. On the day it became operational, Atheist Ireland published 25 blasphemous statements on our website. If we are prosecuted, we will challenge the constitutionality of the law. If we are not prosecuted, it strengthens the political case for the repeal of a law that serves no purpose.

Worryingly, this law is also harmful outside Ireland. In recent years, Islamic States have been trying to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level. Ireland has voted with our fellow EU States against this concept. Now Pakistan, on behalf of the Islamic States, has adopted the wording of the new Irish law to advance their agenda at UN level. This silly and dangerous Irish law will eventually be repealed. For everybody’s sake and for the reputation of Ireland, this should happen sooner rather than later.

As mentioned earlier, I will analyse the arguments made by Thomas Byrne TD in a separate post.

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Hot Press tackles blasphemy law

Hot Press magazine has published a comprehensive feature on the new Irish blasphemy law. In it, Valerie Flynn argues that, in truth, Ireland’s ludicrous new blasphemy laws are no laughing matter and, what’s worse, there is now a move to get others to copy us!

2010: Yeah, it sounds like the future, but my hover skateboard and phaser gun seem to have gone missing! Instead, out here on the farthest, weirdest edge of Europe, we’re keeping things nice and retro in this sci-fi sounding year by reintroducing some Middle Ages-style blasphemy laws.

To quote: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €25,000. He or she publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion.”

Hot Press asked Michael Nugent, of campaigning secularist group Atheist Ireland, what he thinks of this absurd new addition to the Irish statute book.

“Well, there are two categories of concern. One is that it’s a silly law,” says Nugent. “Blasphemy is a theological concept and it shouldn’t have any place in the criminal law of a pluralistic country. When there are a number of religions it doesn’t make sense – any one religion’s stated beliefs are blasphemous to another religion’s stated beliefs.”

For example: in 2006 Pope Benedict XVI quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor – and caused quite a bit of offence – when he said: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman.”

On January 1, Atheist Ireland marked the introduction of the new law by publishing this sentence on their website – one of 25 (arguably) ‘blasphemous’ quotations thus enshrined. Also on the list was “Actually, I’m a bit gay” – that one from ‘Jesus’ in Jerry Springer: The Opera. A law that criminalises that kind of joke sounds like a joke itself. But Irish Independent cartoonist Aongus Collins reckons there’s a real and serious dimension to the blasphemy law when it comes to freedom of speech.

Here’s why: the maximum fine for blaspheming is €25,000. The only possible defence, under the terms of the law, is that “a reasonable person would find genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific, or academic value in the matter to which the offence relates.”

According to Collins: “The problem is that you have to defend yourself in court. A national broadcaster or a national newspaper will have a libel fund. But a small book publisher or a small magazine could be literally bankrupted because legal costs are so high in Ireland. What it does is that any small publisher of, say, [militant atheist] Richard Dawkins in Ireland would have to go to a barrister before publishing. It is intended to have a chilling effect on free speech.”

Collins believes that for non-mainstream publishers – bloggers, freelance journalists, left-field magazines, smaller or radical publishing houses – the new law, with its hefty fine, will be a meaningful and material inhibition to freedom of expression.

“I work for the Irish Independent, the Irish Times and the [Sunday] Tribune, but I got started working in smaller magazines like In Dublin. In the 1980s, I did a few cartoons that were a bit close to the bone in terms of the Catholic Church. I didn’t think twice in my 20s or 30s – but I would now. A small magazine would have to decide if it can afford to go to court.”

Another disturbing aspect of this law, and one that has been very much under-reported since the Bill was first announced last year, is the powers given to the Gardaí. Where a garda has reason to believe that copies of a “blasphemous statement” are to be found at a premises – including a dwelling – he or she is authorised, “if necessary by the use of reasonable force… to seize and remove any copies.”

“I’m a cartoonist and it’s very easy to offend, for example, Islam,” Aongus says. “The definition of blasphemy is so subjective. It’s carte blanche for some religious extremist to make a complaint to the guards. If they make a complaint, the guards can enter a business premises or even enter your house and grab all copies of this statement. So they could take your PC.”

For many Irish people, the blasphemy law seems like a depressingly familiar throwback to the days when Monty Python’s Life of Brian was banned. That’s not so far from living memory, kids – 1987 to be precise. But Michael Nugent believes we shouldn’t just look at this law just in the context of our own, fairly miserable, history of censorship and of the cultural dominance of the church. We should pay close attention to the international implications.

“At the UN for the last 10 years, the Islamic countries have been trying to make defamation of religion a crime and the western states, including Ireland, are opposing those attempts. But now they have the opportunity to say, ‘Here’s one of your own countries doing this’,” says Nugent.

The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) – the collective body representing Muslim states – has already adopted the wording of Ireland’s blasphemy law for the purposes of lobbying the UN General Assembly to introduce an international treaty criminalising defamation of religion. Now there is a contribution to the campaign for Freedom of Ideas!

So you’re probably wondering why in the name of god (oops – blasphemy?) this law was enacted? It’s a bit of a mystery. Before news of the blasphemy Bill came out last year, Foreign Affairs Minister Mícheál Martin had been actively opposing the OIC’s attempts to have blasphemy declared a crime. Surprisingly, there is no evidence to suggest that the Catholic Church lobbied for this new law. Neither did the Protestant churches, nor the Islamic community in Ireland – although the latter subsequently welcomed it.

The official line from Justice Minister Dermot Ahern (he wasn’t available for interview) seems to be that his hands were tied: previously, blasphemy was prohibited by the Constitution but there was no corresponding crime on the statute books.

Fianna Fáil TD Seán Connick, convenor of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, told Hot Press the Government had a choice between a referendum on the blasphemy provision in the Constitution and reform of the existing law. It was the Minister’s choice, and he went down the road of ‘reform’. Too much is being “read into” this piece of legislation, he added.

Connick denies the blasphemy law will stifle free speech, using as a (slightly mystifying) example, last year’s pseudo-scandal, Portraitgate – when a nudey picture of the Taoiseach was hung on the wall of the National Gallery. But RTÉ was pressurised into issuing a full apology for reporting that story. “What one person finds humorous, another person might find offensive,” responds Connick.

Words of wisdom indeed – which underline very well the dangerous side to this blasphemy law.

By all accounts, Dermot Ahern is highly conservative. He (in)famously spoke against the de-criminalisation of homosexuality in the Dáil in 1993 (“We have a duty to legislate for the standards and norms which we regard as appropriate for the Irish people.”) In light of this, some observers have speculated that the influence of hardcore Catholic organisation Opus Dei within the public service might have been a factor behind the blasphemy law. We are unlikely to find out.

Whatever the impetus, it’s pretty clear that anyone publishing or broadcasting in Ireland on the topic of religion is going to have this law at the back of their mind. Michael Nugent says most media organisations have shied away from printing the exact words of Atheist Ireland’s 25 ‘blasphemous’ quotations. And Hot Press has already spoken to one frequent participant on RTÉ’s The Panel, who said he was reminded to be aware of the new law – even before it was enacted on January 1.

So far, one month and two weeks into 2010, no one has yet been prosecuted yet for ‘grossly offending’ Jesus, Allah, Yahweh or any other deity. As they say in the clearly aberrant and thoroughly blasphemous Life of Brian: “Always look on the bright side of life.”

This article appeared in the Feb 3-24 print edition of Hot Press magazine. It is is online, along with further analysis of the blasphemy law, on the Hot Press website.

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Blasphemy art exhibition in Dublin

The blasphemy exhibition in the Oonagh Young Gallery is on until Saturday 27 February, and is open from 12 to 6pm every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It’s a fascinating show, and well worth a visit.

This Wednesday at 7pm there is a special screening of Rocky Road to Dublin and The Making of Rocky Road to Dublin, which should be watched by anyone interested in secularism and censorship in Ireland.

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Atheist Conference in Denmark in June

I look forward to speaking at an international atheist conference titled “Gods & Politics” in Copenhagen, Denmark, from June 18-20, 2010.

It is the first Atheist Alliance International conference to be held in Europe, and is co-hosted by AAI and the Danish Atheist Society.

The venue is the Royal Danish Library also known as “The Black Diamond”.

It would be great if as many atheist activists as possible from Europe and beyond can attend this conference, as atheism is a concept that crosses national boundaries and we can all learn from each other and support each other in our advocacy work in our respective countries.

The full list of speakers is:
AC Grayling (UK)
Aroup Chatterjee (UK)
Brian Arly Jacobsen (DK)
Christer Sturmark (SE)
Dan Barker (US)
Gregory Paul (US)
Ivana Bacik (IRE)
Jens Morten Hansen (DK)
Lone Frank (DK)
Michael Nugent (IRE)
Mikael Rothstein (DK)
PZ Myers (US)
Paula Kirby (UK)
Per Bilde (DK)
Rebecca Goldstein (US)
Rebecca Watson (UK)
Richard Wiseman (UK)
Robin Ince (UK)
Simon Bressendorff (DK)
Taslima Nasrin (US)
Victor Stenger (US)

You can get further information at http://www.godsandpolitics.eu

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