General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Irish Abortion Referendum : six days to go, and as dirty as I predicted. [View all]OnDoutside
(19,949 posts)You could say that the last implementation of the 19th century was the 8th Amendment Referendum in 1983. Since then we had the Church scandals of Bishop Eamon Casey, Father Michael Cleary, followed by the Child Sex abuse, Magdalene Laundry and Mother & Baby Home scandals, each of which has hit the Catholic Church hard. As bad as they were, the uncovering of the coverups, and refusal of the Church to accept a true and just financial atonement for what they did...and they are still not accepting. The fall off in Church attendance is directly related to them not facing up to their crimes.
Yes the young people in general have moved on from the Catholic Church, and use them mostly as reference points i.e. the Catholic Church still control 90% of primary schools in the state (5-13 years of age), so there has to be engagement with them for Communion/Confirmation, but they mostly pay lip service to them. That spell of control has been broken in all but the really rural areas. In some ways it's a pity that it came to this, because in small towns/villages where everyone knows each other, the focal points are the local Church, school and GAA club. It's a real community effort. I live in a city but my son goes to what is essentially a country school 10 miles away, where the school is next to the GAA club and across the road from the Church, with the pub a little further beyond. It has been a wonderful experience for him, and I can see the huge benefit in the entire community working together, having lived in cities all my life.
However, if I do go to Mass, the vast majority will be people over 55, followed by young kids (who would have no choice but to go) and a small percentage of those in between.
No, the Anti-campaign has a lot of young, university educated zealots as the public face. I liken them to stormtroopers. They are articulate and I would imagine have spent years on debating teams because their tactics are well honed. Even when they don't have a valid argument or have been caught lying, they usually will turn the debate into a shitfest, which then turns people off listening. One of the most active groups of young Antis is Youth Defence, the well funded (thanks to a lot of American money), Hitler Youth wing of the Catholic Church. I'd say a fair few of them like to give themselves a good ould flailing in private . They'd have a lot of 55 years old plus, Holy Joes and Josephines going door to door, those who'd know the parish very well. Another is "The Iona Institute", which isn't big but manage to have inserted themselves as the other side in a lot of debates over the years. They're older people, and work in the same way Tobacco companies have these "independent think-tanks".