Catholocism as we know differs from country to country. When I was in Germany I attended mass probably on an average of three times a week. It wasn’t my Catholic church. Where was La Virgen? What was up with the men and women sitting seperatly? Where were all the icons? Come on now, they don’t even kiss their fingers when they cross themselves!
The Irish Eagle asks “How Catholic were the Irish?” The Irish Eagle offers a quote from The Irish Echo that reminds me a lot of the way we might describe Mexican Catholocism, ¿no?
A century and a half ago, two clerics embarked on an ambitious project: to transform the Irish people into practicing Catholics. Archbishop Paul Cullen in Dublin and Archbishop John Hughes in New York were deeply distressed by the lack of devotion and orthodoxy among their respective flocks.
In pre-Famine Ireland, for example, only 30 to 40 percent of the population attended Mass and many who identified themselves as Catholic had virtually no knowledge of the faith’s dogma and practices. Worse still, many still clung to pre-Christian pagan rituals and beliefs that had never fully died out after Ireland was converted to Christianity by Patrick and his successor missionaries. The response of Cullen and Hughes was to launch a campaign to instill faith, orthodoxy, and obedience among the people, a process historian Emmet Larkin famously dubbed, the “devotional revolution.”
Elenamary,
I will send you a copy of the disc you asked for tomorrow–it is really good–hope you like it.
If you are still up for sending me the DJ Spooky disc my address and (real) name:
**REMOVED**
Thanks!