One More Reason Not To Go To Mass

Today while I should’ve been at college I was listening to Joe Duffy’s morning show on RTE Radio One; something I’ve never actually done before, despite the shows popularity. Today’s show centred on Limerick priest Terry O’Connell who has openly opposed a Jesuit schools talent show which includes a magic show to raise funds for a trip to Lourdes. His grievance was that it was wrong for a magic show to be performed in a Christian/Catholic setting because “magic is considered an abhorrence in the Old Testament and it's appalling to think that it's being used to support a church trip”. I gathered that his argument was that only God or a prophet could perform miracles and that performing or believing in magic is some form of worshipping false gods or involvement in in some form of occultist practices. It could be argued that even giving the impression of doing something impossible- which is what magic and illusionary tricks do, can be seen as disrespectful to God, Jesus or the Bible, but you’d have to be one hell of a zealot to criticise a harmless magic show.

Throughout the show I thought the man was of questionable sanity. His on-air candour was one of smug holier-than-thou preaching and self assured shock. His opposition at the offending show was in theory understandable, but only from an extremely fundamental perspective. It is written in the bible that followers should not be involved in any forms of sorcery or magic for the reason that the followers should have no other “other worldly” beliefs or views other than what the bible tells them. Absolute faith is needed I order for a religion to succeed. Sadly some people remain so tied to the letter of the religious laws that they are incapable of forming their own ideas or thoughts. To Terry O’Connell the matter was as simple as “the Bible says it’s wrong to perform magic, so it’s wrong and if you are involved in this then you have no right to call yourself a Christian”. He also made no allowances for what was considered “magic”. To him magic encompassed everything from casting spells and devil worship to making a rabbit appear out of a hat or changing the colour of a handkerchief. It raised the question of how appropriate or wise is it to live your life and make your decisions according to the rules written in the Bible. The idea that the teachings of the Bible were open for interpretation was unacceptable for O’Connell. These are, after all, the words of God.

Many people rang in trying to make sense of his argument, which wasn’t available for compromise. Callers included people who performed magic tricks (who O’Connell referred to as “sorcerers”) who expressed how harmless their hobbies were, the distressed parents of the children involved and ordinary people giving their opinions on the priests statements. The most interesting responses came from fellow priests who were trying to get through to the priest that the magic show was an inoffensive entertaining act that the children had worked hard at to amuse their peers at a fund-raising event and that nothing “bad” or misleading was involved. One priest spoke on how he himself performed a few magic tricks and that it had never crossed his mind that there would be anything disrespectful to God involved. Terry O’Connell’s response was that any priest who performed anything like that should question their priesthood and they should be ashamed of themselves.

One “sorcerer” who had been performing for years to audiences of all ages and walks of life and very often as part of charity work was angered that the priest should question his Catholic authenticity. Joe Duffy also pointed out that it was a serious and wide teaching allegation to say that anyone who performed magic wasn’t a Catholic. One caller spelled out the word “context” to try and enlighten him. The point suggested at being that the nature of what the word “magic” means has changed over the course of the pat millennia. One priest, who knew Terry, appealed to him to see that he had made a misreading of a certain part of the Bible, that he had made a mistake which isn’t unusual for people to do. But through all this O’Connell remained unfazed in his beliefs.

Some of the callers did support his stand, but most of them sounded extreme, anti-modern and irrational. One man spoke about how the church’s power had suffered from including “gimmicks” like magic tricks in mass (although this wasn’t mentioned at all) and he even considered that music was unnecessary to the mass experience.

As the show progressed O’Connell included other practices that he considered “anti-Christian”. Those included yoga, reflexology and Harry Potter. His argument was that they taught doctrines which ran counter to the churches teaching and broke the “Thou shall not worship false gods” commandment. While I am no major Potter fan I cannot see how reading the books encourages an anti-Christian viewpoint or would make someone less Christian. To denounce therapeutic activities such as yoga and reflexology is irrational and unhelpful. These are pursuits which enrich and improve peoples lives and have no impact on their religious beliefs. The priest’s rants and blind adherence to the Bible became progressively more and more bizarre and despite the amount of people who tried to explain that what was happening in the school was innocent and inoffensive he wouldn’t relent. Perhaps he saw it as a test of his faith. Even when invited to the event he indignantly replied that he could not as a Christian watch the show and that it was an offence to God.

Finally towards the end of the show a senior member of the Church made a statement and announced the Church’s standing on the issue. Basically he said that he hoped that the event would be a success and that all the students involved would enjoy themselves, as this was the point of the whole event and also that he apologised for the “misunderstanding”. What exactly the “misunderstanding” was wasn’t clarified but this listener presumes it means “the ignorance of an over-zealous priest”. Of course a senior member of the Church cannot explicitly contradict the Bible. The show ended without Terry O’Connell withdrawing his opposition, and I didn’t expect him to.

In my humble opinion it’s because of people like Terry O’Connell that the Catholic Church is unpopular in Ireland. I think that people believe that backward priests who live in some kind of mental dark age are the norm, when in fact most priests (well, the ones I’ve met) are open-minded progressive men who are more than willing to listen to all peoples point of view. It’s only because crazy voices are always louder than sane and because the media will always focus on an interesting story that the impression of Catholicism does not reflect the reality. Most priests are very positive contributors to the community. Most priests will not shove doctrine down your throat or attack your beliefs. Most priests achieve their aim of making society a better place but sadly too much attention is given to the negative side of the Church. In a world that is becoming more materialistic and unfriendly I think religion has a lot to offer us, but our impressions of the Church is that it is oppressive and outdated. Which is sad because now there is a whole class of students who are going to take from this experience a skewed, mad vision of what religion means and offers.