DUBLIN'S RELIGIOUS ASPECT

New Zealand Tablet, 7 December 1911, Page 2487

DUBLIN'S RELIGIOUS ASPECT

PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC CHURCHES * COMPARED. -U The following extracts are taken from an article on ‘ Dublin’s Religious Aspects,’ written by the special correspondent of the Daily News ‘-P.P.W;’ who has accompanied the Eighty Club in their tour. In describing the ‘ Failure of the Union against Rome,’ the writer’s comparison between the Protestant and Catholic Churches is interesting and significant. ‘ Having discussed,’ he says, ‘ the religious aspect of Home Rule with many leading Protestants, Unionists as well as Nationalists, I set forth on Sunday morning to see what could be seen of religion as it actually appeals to the citizens of Dublin. Incomparably the noblest fabrics in a town full of churches are the two ancient Cathedrals of St. Christ Church, built in a gracious Gothic of Strongbow’s days, but now Protestant, though disestablished. On approaching these venerable piles one scarcely knew whether or not service was proceeding — some of the more obvious doors were closed— on obtaining entrance at last one heard the tender and pleading melodies of the English Prayer Book gently echoing over a congregation which did not fill the nave, let alone the aisles and transepts of the edifice. The worshippers were reverent and devout; well-dressed every one of them ; I could not detect a hint of poverty as poverty is known in Dublin. “If,” said my guide, “you see a man here with a top hat, you know he is going to a Protestant church or chapel.” That is one of two contrasting pictures. Look now at the next.

‘We visited the Catholic Pro-Cathedral and two other Catholic churches, one conducted by the Carmelite Order, and the other by the Jesuitsall of them vast structures in the Italian manner. Turning off Sackville street, we ran into what in London I should describe as a football —hundreds of working men, a fair number of women and girls, and children not a few. What, I asked myself, can be the excitement that people should gather like this on a Sunday morning ? : It was the Pro-Cathedral emptying after Mass. We entered, but, strange to say, the church was as full as ever. A new service, with a new congregation, had commenced. So it was with the other churches, one Mass followed another from 6 o’clock onwards till noon, and the people, the workers, men as numerous as women, filling, nay, crowding, the churches every time. Various are the estimates of the percentage of Catholics who attend Mass every week. It is apparently agreed that there is a clear majority, and some put the figure as high as 90 per cent, of availables. Rich and poor attend the same churches, but a differentiation is sometimes secured by the charge of a few coppers for admission to certain seats. Still, the poor give their pennies, toofor the privilege of standing behind barriers■ and all this money is, I am told, allocated to the upkeep of the edifices. One looked around upon these serried Masses of Catholic Worshippers, hundreds of them haggard with privation and toil, and then one thought of the saying, “Home Rule means Rome Rule.” What worlds has the Ascendancy left for Rome to conquer ? Whatever may be the position under a national Parliament, it is certain that under Unionism the faith and message of Protestantism have not a chance of general acceptance in Ireland. The Roman Church, practically untouched by modernism, and overloaded with mediaeval traditions, is to-day beloved and

revered because a strange evolution has identified it with the people in their sorrows and aspirations. It is the working men themselves who collect the dues for the priests, who run the Confraternities and Sodalities which meet monthly, and even weekly, -to promote devotion, who talk to one quite simply of their creed, what it means to them in difficulty, and how they encourage each other in it. One of the most prosperous Sodalities consists of barmen, as they would be called in England, or "grocers' assistants," who labor in the composite public houses. Whatever may be true of France and Spain, of Portugal, there is no trace in Ireland that one can discover either of scepticism masquerading under the convenient cloak of Catholicism, or of a rift between the Roman Church and the people. The very difficulty of the Protestants is that the Catholics believe so intensely, and the grievances of Protestants, be they real or be they exaggerated, mean that, in the opinion of Unionists themselves, the Union has failed as a safeguard.'