Father Michael Sweetman SJ [2] His Story

Dublin Housing Action Committee Vs Gardai c 1968

This is a follow up to my article "Father Michael Sweetman SJ - declining to Baptise the Spirit of the Age"

Father Sweetman, Dad and the Dublin Housing Action Committee

During the early 1960s my father was a Garda Sergeant and Inspector based in Store Street Garda Station near Dublin City Centre. It was a period of agitation and protests and my father told me about a couple of baton charges that he led to clear the streets. At some stage he also mentioned the Dublin Housing Action Committee   - probably in connection with its links to Sinn Fein. At some stage I also realised that Fr Michael Sweetman had been a prominent member of the DHAC. After both had died (my father in 1994 and Fr Sweetman 2 years later) I put two and two together and jokingly told people (including  a local historian) that my father might have baton-charged Father Sweetman. I never actually believed that, because I understood that it would have made the headlines. BUT I certainly thought that my father had baton-charged the DHAC! In fact I see from the Wikipedia article that the group was set up by Sinn Fein in May 1967 - by which time Dad had been promoted to Garda Superintendent and transferred to County Clare. A nice illustration of the fallibility of human memory and the way we construct stories in order to make sense of our lives - or just to make events appear more dramatic than they actually were! 

[ Dad also told me about a struggle with a Sinn Fein member when he was Garda Inspector and policing a meeting outside the GPO c1964. The SF guy grabbed Dad's cane and tried to break it over his knee BUT it was a presentation stick made of walnut and wouldn't break! This may have contributed to my false memory regarding the DHAC ] 

According to a file made public by the National Archives in 2000,  Department of Justice mandarins viewed the Dublin Housing Action Committee as "an IRA offshoot"  Judging by the list of prominent members given in the Wikipedia article on DHAC, this judgement seems to be more or less correct. Secretary Dennis Dennehy was a member of the Irish Communist Organisation; Sean Mac Stiofain joined "Provisional" Sinn Fein after its 1970 split; Sean O'Cionnaith, Mairin de Burca and Prionsias de Rossa joined the Official Sinn Fein faction and the latter later broke away to form Democratic Left; Michael O'Riordan was founder of the Communist Party of Ireland - one of the smallest and also one of the most Stalinist in Europe! However much these people disagreed among themselves, their  bigotry and extremism remained constant. (Members of the relatively "moderate" Democratic Left brought down the Irish Government in 1994 by peddling fantasies about a supposed conspiracy between a Cardinal and a Catholic Attorney General to protect a paedophile priest.)

The decency and desire for social justice exhibited by Fr Sweetman and his Dominican colleague Fr Austin Flannery were exploited by people whose hatred of the existing social order far exceeded their concern for human rights.  To the accusation of being a communist, [Fr Flannery] would retort that sitting down with Michael O'Riordan no more made him a communist than sitting down with Michael Sweetman made him a Jesuit. I think they were both wrong on this issue, but I honour their memory in any event!

THE LIFE OF FATHER MICHAEL J SWEETMAN SJ

The main part of what follows is an article by Father Sweetman on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the launching of the Jesuit Quarterly Review Studies in 1912. Fr Sweetman himself was born in 1914 and so observes "I am almost the same age as Studies and so should be in a good position to write of our three-quarter century.". I preface his article with the Irish Times obituary dated 24 October 1996. Fr Sweetman was born the year the Great War broke out, joined the Jesuits in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power in Germany and was ordained a priest in 1945 the year World War 2 ended. He died in 1996 a few months after my mother and two years after my father so I lost a lot around that time, but I was 46 myself. 

I have highlighted in blue some striking passages from Fr Sweetman's article and undoubtedly the most relevant to this Blog is the following where he compares his own educational experiences with those of boys who were committed to Industrial Schools:
As a boy I experienced boarding school in Mount St. Benedict's, Gorey, and Clongowes Wood College. Later, as a priest, I had many contacts with boys who were in Daingean Reformatory or one of the Industrial Schools. When I described some of my experiences, and they turned out to be quite similar to theirs, I remember the astonishment with which they would say: 'And you paid to go there!' 

Another passage seems more innocuous but it bears comparison with former President Mary McAleese's thuggish comments on Catholic traditionalists - and her latest diatribe against Pope John Paul II:
Conservative people, and I do not use this term in a belittling sense, tended in the last couple of generations to lose creativity and seemed to think it enough to pass on the faith and its practice in exactly the same form as they had received it.

Father Sweetman was a bridge - between various social classes, generations and religious traditions. He has few successors in today's world!

(A) Irish Times Obituary of Fr Michael Sweetman (24 October 1996)

Social reformer Father Michael Sweetman dies at 82
  
The death has occurred of the Rev Michael Joseph Sweetman S.J.

Father Sweetman, who was 82, was prominently associated with social reform and the concept of a "just society". He was a member of the Dublin Housing Aid Society and CARE and wrote many articles on social and moral problems. His main ambition, he once said, was to see bad housing conditions eliminated.

He was born in Dublin on March 20th, 1914, and was the seventh child of Roger M. Sweetman , a member of the first Dail, and Katherine Sweetman. He was educated at Mount St. Benedict's, Gorey, Co Wexford, at Clongowes Wood College, Co Kildare, and at University College, Dublin. He studied philosophy and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin.

He joined the Jesuits in 1931 and was ordained a priest in 1945.

Father Sweetman did pastoral and social work up to 1972 and was the prime mover behind the establishment of the Los Angeles Homes, which were set up to house homeless boys. He also gave readily of his time to delinquent boys, often giving them legal advice and helping them with their financial problems.

He lived for a number of years in Dublin's inner city, where he operated an "open house" policy for anybody who needed help, and he also worked in Ballymun's Centre for Faith and Justice.

Father Sweetman was identified with the liberal wing of the Catholic Church and made many pronouncements on controversial issues of the day. He consistently rejected the hierarchical view that the use of contraception was against natural law.

He also argued that many of the problems affecting the disadvantaged were economic as well as religious or moral. He was, on more than one occasion, described as a priest who was "ahead of his time".

(B) A Personal Experience of Christianity: 1912-1987 Michael Sweetman, S.J. 

Michael Sweetman works in a deprived area of Dublin 
Source: Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 75, No. 300 (Winter, 1986)

I am almost the same age as Studies, and so should be in a good position to write of our three-quarter century. But it must be admitted that for the first' twenty years of its existence we were not aware of each other. After that I have been a fairly consistent reader. I certainly have changed a great deal during that period of rapid change. Usually I have zigzaged along merrily with the trends of the time, occasionally anticipating them, usually lagging far behind. A few times I have gone into sharp reverse, now and again I seem to have come full circle, and I have taken, also, an odd excursion down unapproved roads, where, I must say the view of the surrounding country was quite exciting. It is, I suppose, inevitable that in old age one discovers the truth of the cliche that the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Religion 

Yet some of the changes I have experienced are substantial, most of all in the area where I should be competent-  religion. I have been a Jesuit for fifty-five years and a priest for forty-one. The main purpose of religion is to guide and change life - one's own and other people's, in accordance with what you believe God to want. The full and perfect life is to find and do the will of God. The drive of religion, then, is to produce whole or holy people. It is precisely in the concept or image of the holy person, and specifically the Christian holy person or saint, that some of the greatest changes have taken place. The ideal most common among Christians when I was young was of a loving and totally unselfish person. This, I take it, remains the ultimate desideratum. But the qualities that implied and the methods by which it is to be attained have changed quite radically. While courage, sincerity and service were always held in high esteem, in the beginning of the century they were conceived of rather negatively: the perfect man, the saint, did not enjoy himself much, denied himself totally, was detached and passionless. He acted from supernatural motives and was hard on, if not contemptuous of, the flesh. This was true of her as well as him! Physical asceticism was much admired, and practised. Even when it was not fully achieved and only spasmodically acknowledged, the ascetic ideal at least produced its own peculiar brand of all-pervasive guilt. Conformity to a pre-conceived model was important, and dumb obedience to Ecclesiastical Authority advisable. The will of God was handed down along clear and rigid lines; adherence to this will was the essence of perfection. Some great-hearted and original men and women reached effective Christian perfection within these confines, or burst out of them with such unmistakable Spirit that no one could catch them; but lesser spirits were cramped and even warped by restriction and narrowness. 

The effort in the earlier years was to find God through strictly religious ways; later people seem to need to find Him in all things, everywhere. Staunch efforts were made to break through into the supernatural world; we extended ourselves, pushed ourselves, drove ourselves onward. The present tendency relies much more on being discovered by God, on starting from where we are, in our bodies, and looking inward rather than upward for direction.

Conservative people, and I do not use this term in a belittling sense, tended in the last couple of generations to lose creativity and seemed to think it enough to pass on the faith and its practice in exactly the same form as they had received it. There was a danger of dead formalism. This was inclined to put the next generation completely off. So they rejected everything, without giving consideration to the possibility of putting fresh life into the old substance. At worst the old forms were imposed in an authoritarian way, or worse still, perhaps, presented in an unconvinced and diffident way. 

Clergy 

There has been a deep and remarkable change in clerical style. It was an avowed'aim in former times to mould and produce a clerical type. Suitability for the vocation to priestly or religious life was essentially dependent on ability to conform, or at least to appear to conform, to a pre-ordained model. There is now much more respect for the freedom of the Spirit to blow where it wills. Within limits, there is tolerance for the unexpected, and room is allowed for making mistakes. Of course even in the old days genius did break out, and eccentricity established itself, but the hope remained that it would be eliminated in the next generation. This hope still holds; but the criteria of eccentricity have changed. 

Clergy felt bound to conform to certain standards of speech decorum, dress etc... and were expected by most of the laity to conform. This naturally led to a vein of hypocrisy on the one hand, and the elevating of people on to pedestals on the other. All this has largely gone, together with the top hats and frock coats. The humanity of the clergy is readily, admitted now; the wish to be superior, or even different, has been abandoned by many clergy. 

The only disadvantage I see in this change is that clergy may appear now to have nothing special to offer, because they demand nothing exceptional of themselves. Formerly priests and religious of both sexes were easily considered extraordinary, because they led such different lives. They got up at 5.30 a.m., meditated, observed silence, fasted and undertook ascetic exercises. They were witnesses to an ideal for which they were seen to be willing to sacrifice much else. Jean Genet admired St. Vincent de Paul for identifying himself with the galley slaves, the scum of that time: but he pushed it a bit far by saying: 'if he wanted really to be one of us, he should have committed our crimes. The modern religious person is more ready to admit that he or she does commit the crimes as well. But then where are we? All in the same boat? Who is to do the saving? A mystic might answer to that: well, Christ truly identified himself with sinners, and may still be willing to enter into the sleazy lives and the perverted sufferings of the down-trodden, more so than we give him credit for. Modern holy men and women are ready to risk getting muddied and having' their fingers burned, and yet hope that Christ will be with them through it all. 

Certainly it is no longer considered acceptable to edify people by putting on, or keeping up, a show. Personally I have a far deeper understanding now than I had in my more conventional phase, of what Christ really meant when he said that the harlots and sinners would go into the Kingdom of Heaven before the Pharisees and approved people of his time. I have, I think, recognized in some of them the special qualities that always merited His warmest commendation: impulsive generosity and humility. Religious persons are, necessarily, often in a dilemma, caught between the desire not to think themselves better, or be thought better than others, and yet to fulfil the injunction to be a light to the world, and salt to the earth. They may have to set a standard which puts people on edge. They are a challenge in non-Christian places. Perhaps they have become afraid of being an affront to the style accepted as normal in much of the Western world, and so they become counter signs to people who do not worship at the shrines of the idols of that world. With a bit of a groan we may have to admit to the wisdom of St. Thomas More in Utopia when he said 'Priests shall be of exceeding holiness, and therefore very few'. 

Missions

 I came to manhood in the papacy of Pius XI, the pope of the Missions, and was affected very much by the missionary urge. This was-to spread the faith, essential to the eternal salvation of souls. There was unquestioned confidence that this preaching would confer undiluted benefits on the converted people. Given a wise evangelization I still have no doubt about those benefits. Even in the days of more naive faith there was always a caring, healing aspect to the ideals of the missionaries. What we have gained now is a vastly increased respect for the cultures, customs and beliefs of other peoples and a more realistic skepticism about the advantages of bringing European civilization to 'primitive' cultures. The motivation involved in the belief that you would be removing the danger, or indeed the certainty, of eternal damnation from the people who were unbaptized, has gone. This has lessened the urgency, and so vocations have decieased. But I see now an equally urgent love taking shape in the mute demand that we save people from starvation, exile, exploitation and degradation or rather help them to save themselves. In this respect hell has shifted its base in time and space; vocations will perhaps begin to increase again. 

Readiness. to lay down one's life in the cause is undoubtedly at the heart of our faith. But readiness to lay down one's life so that `our side' may be victorious, because we are right and everyone else is wrong may too easily slip into readiness to kill for the cause, to repress, censor and persecute. The logic is that error has no rights. But we all surely know by now that totally logical people are always mad and usually dangerous. 

Morality, Sexuality

 In the cognate area of morality there have been two shifts of emphasis which I think have been towards the truth, but with attendant snags. In the first half of this century, and for several previous ones, it was commonly taught in seminaries, and so became the accepted doctrine in the Church, that every slightest indulgence in sexual activity, even in thought or phantasy, outside of a married relationship, was gravely wrong, and needed to be confessed before receiving the Eucharist. In the early sixties, conviction as to the tenability of this doctrine weakened,. was undermined and collapsed.

Looking back on it, it seems to me now that the fatal flaw in the teaching was the emphasis on pleasure as being the criterion of evil. The question 'did you take pleasure in it?' was seen as vital. It was a false criterion and infected the whole teaching. A period ensued which showed a great reluctance on the part of many counsellors and advisers to give any direction at all and so, it seems to me, there is too little guidance given now as to the harm that can be done to others by casually selfish, violent, deceptive and cynical exploitation of the sexual urge. The baby went out with the bath water. Pleasure became the sole criterion in many cases as to the desirability of any performance. A not altogether desirable volte-face. In literature, it might be noted, with the absence of ultimates in belief and sanctions, a good deal of the tension went out of the Catholic novel. I wonder to what extent Mauriac and Graham Greene are capable of being appreciated by the modern youth. 

Social Justice 

In matters of justice the older tradition spent almost all its time and expertise in teasing out the ways in which the Haves might be wronged, mostly by the Have Nots, and how they could succeed in getting restitution. It was acknowledged, in small print, that in extreme necessity everyone had a right to take what was required. When this principle was invoked and acted upon in the housing agitation of the late sixties some astonishment was expressed. Now justice is seen largely as the right of everyone to a decent human life. It takes no great perspicacity to see that the great idol worshipped as alternative to God is Mammon. 

The Church in its official documents has sharply and scientifically criticized and analysed this worship; but the one teaching that 'got across' universally in our country was that communism was the great enemy of the Christian ideal of social justice. Similarly in the area of sexual morality the one teaching that was universally known, even if not always accepted, was the 'evil' of contraception. Why some teachings are so successfully put across and others so ineffectively, is a mystery worth investigating. I have been impressed recently with the conviction expressed by some Catholics involved in the world of business and high finance, that their world is, as far as the influence of Christian principles goes, missionary territory. It is untouched, virginal in the worst sense of the word. 

Sacred Scripture 

A vital change in Christian understanding of its sources, and therefore of its ideal, came from the abandonment of a literal, fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. It was really no fault of anyone that I grew up in an era which taught that the world was created about 4,000 years before Christ or at least that Adam and Eve lived and committed their happy fault around that period. In the atmosphere of the time one could take that. But I remember as a university student setting out to read the Bible through. When I came to some of the so-called historical books and read the stories which, then, one was expected to accept literally, I closed the book and said to myself ;This is too much for me, and decided to wait until I did theology to make up my mind what to do. Fortunately by that time a wiser and deeper attitude prevailed, after the publication of the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu in 1949. 

While the strain on one's credulity was eased, the rapid development in Scriptural scholarship did not always help toward a convinced practice; everything seemed open to various interpretations. Of course crude instinct told one to be wary of following every latest theory as if it were the last word. Also one came to realise that no belief could be so eccentric and disastrous that it could not find some semblance of backing in Scripture. So that even in being guided by the Holy Book one needed large draughts of the Holy Spirit (St. Paul does speak somewhere of drinking the Holy Spirit). 

One influence seems to have disappeared as a result of biblical scholarship and that is the great lives of Jesus Christ. They had a huge influence on me and I'm sure on many thousands of others: Grandmaison, Prat, Lebreton, Lagrange, Guardini, Goodier, etc. I read them all; and without ever claiming expertise in scripture, I'm sure they gave me a great basic understanding of the Gospels, and helped life to become Christ-centred. Devotion to the Sacred Heart also helped in that. 

The Laity 

In recent orgies of self-criticism clerics are inclined to blame themselves for their supposed domination of the laity in the past. This coming era is foretold as the era of the Laity, so this is a serious self-accusation. There is one important area where they did not dominate, that was in the literary field. Here the men and women of influence were, if not predominantly lay, certainly noticeably so. The present laity are not so prominent here. Think of Chesterton and Belloc, Sheed and Ward, O'Rahilly, Maritain, Guitton, Mauriac, D. Day; also C.S. Lewis, Allison-Peers, and Chambers who were not Roman Catholics, S. Undset and the Russian novelists. The list could be endless. These were all hugely effective apologists and exposers of the Christian thing (as Belloc might have described it). 

Bishops were externally deferred to, but, with exceptions they did not make a notable contribution to the witness of living faith. Their frequent denunciations and deploring of modern trends was often seen as ridiculous and impotent. Skirts rose and fell in length, quite impervious to annual comments in Lenten Pastorals. Rome itself often seemed finicky and petty, concerned with the rubrics in liturgy and life rather than with the substance. The obligation of clerical celibacy was child's play compared to the obligation of saying the Divine Office and performing the liturgy without serious fault The professional anti-clericals developed their own rigid dogmas, their own predictable cliches and conventions, and produced, surely by artificial insemination, their own smug and closed establishment. 

Sociology 

One of the social changes that I have noticed through contact with many admirable social workers and theorists is the presumption that the care of the deprived, the sick, the old, and all the disadvantaged, should be undertaken on ,principle, and by preference, by the State, rather than by individuals and groups of inspired people. The defects of this latter system, which largely held until the coming of the Welfare State, are seen to be that the poor receive benefits out of charity from those who think themselves superior, and not out of justice and of right. This was rightly seen as humiliating to the recipient, and ego-inflationary to the donor. 

That is a good reason for the shift. But it should be noted that the system more in vogue now has its own glaring defects. Recipients of their rights from the State have usually to find their way through a bewildering entanglement of red tape, and are quite often the victims of arbitrary prejudices and caprice on the part of minor officials in the bureaucracy. There is no clear reason why individual kindness and care should degenerate into condescending `charity'; nor that the dispensing of civil and human rights to people by the State should invariably involve prolonged investigation and circular passing of the buck. Here in Ireland, where no ideology is completely dominant, there remains the hope that a fair balance between voluntary and statutory aid could be maintained; and the arrogance of the professional expert and the smugness of the voluntary do-gooder could both be kept in check.

New Classes 

It was pointed out to me for the first time, by Garret FitzGerald at the Kilkenny Conference on Poverty in 1972, that when the poor cease to be the majority in a democratic society by that very fact they lose political clout. That has happened during the life time of Studies. The fundamental class division is no longer between workers and bosses, the former being usually poorly paid and more or less exploited, but still a majority in the nation, but between all who have a secure, earned income, and those who are unemployed and dependent on welfare. These are now a minority, though unfortunately a large one, and so lack clout in our society. 

Education 

Here inequality, or variety, remains. As a boy I experienced boarding school in Mount St. Benedict's, Gorey, and Clongowes Wood College. Later, as a priest, I had many contacts with boys who were in Daingean Reformatory or one of the Industrial Schools. When I described some of my experiences, and they turned out to be quite similar to theirs, I remember the astonishment with which they would say: 'And you paid to go there!' Schools of all kinds were places, largely, of authoritarian attempts to impose, or even beat, knowledge into unwilling heads, and to teach manners to wayward or resistant bodies and hearts. Now schools seem to be predominantly places of co-operation and a good deal of happiness, where, if a child is badly treated, it is usually by his or her peers and not by the teachers. This seems to me to be a development along the lines of truly Christ like respect for children and away from the Biblical, Old Testament, theory of 'spare the rod and spoil the child'. 

Hopes for the Future 

When asked would I not write reminiscences, I have said that I would entitle them 'Between Two Stools'. I feel very conscious of not being single-minded, yet not exactly indecisive. I waver constantly between desiring to be fully where I am, and hankering for another seat. If I am slightly schizophrenic that, I flatter myself, keeps me more or less sane. In this present context I sometimes hanker after the certainties and fears of the 30s, relishing the drama of the absolutes, but I am in fact far more happy with the vaguer ideals of the 80s and the wider liberties. 

What then are the peculiar hopes that I would have for Ireland in the 90s Certainly I would like to see a vast increase of the influence of the Green People. Not, obviously, in the sense of super-nationalism but in respect for nature and the environment of all our people. That way lies health and happiness and an atmosphere favourable to belief in God, in ourselves and in everything beautiful. This would. require a curb to be put on the worship of money, for it is violent greed that is nearly always responsible for the threats to the environment and even to the very existence of mankind. The people I would like to see in charge of the preservation and development of the natural beauty of our country would be the Parks Department of the Dublin Corporation I have waited all these years to pay tribute to their consistent good taste, imagination and organized hard work. 

Two groups I think need special care. I would be happy to see our authorities and residents' associations listening to and co-operating with the Travellers, to see that they are given a chance of a decent human life. Equally important is the treatment of deprived and disturbed young people. Faith might well be shown in the wisdom of two reports: The Task Force Report on Child Welfare, and the Whitaker Report on Prisons. 

Finally I would be glad to see an increase in respect for and confidence in people in public life of proven integrity and compassion and less readiness to be impressed by the chancer and the glib manipulator. 

BUT FATHER SWEETMAN THE SNOB? (1949)

This is the beginning of an article in the Jesuit publication "The Irish Monthly" March 1949. Fr Sweetman is somewhat annoyed with the less than spiritual behavior of visitors to the monastic ruins of Glendalough in the Wicklow mountains south of Dublin. It was founded by St Kevin in the 6th century and its Abbot at the time of the Norman Conquest (1169) was St Laurence O'Toole who was also the first Irish Archbishop of Dublin. His predecessors had been Norseman or English and St Laurence was a somewhat premature symbol of the union of Irish, Norman and indeed European culture. In 1949 Fr Sweetman was a very highly educated young Jesuit and perhaps a bit snobbish about the religious practices of the laity. He was to become a symbol of union - between different social classes - himself but his hopes for the future proved to be vain. Perhaps like St Laurence O'Toole, his hopes will bear fruit at some time in the future!


 Why Go To Glendalough? by Michael Sweetman, SJ. (March 1949)

THIS valley must surely be a place of pilgrimage; it is the spiritual home of Dublin's Patrons, Saints Kevin and Laurence, receptacle of their sacrifices, engraved with the seven symbols  of their love. Certainly the crowds are here, see them streaming  down the road this Sunday, Feast of Kevin, in June, a long progression of buses, cars and cyclists. Then they take to the boats, cross the lake and climb precariously to the little hole in the cliff?  St. Kevin's Bed. Is this an ancient ritual to honour the Saint? Do  they pray there? Well, perhaps under cover of the " three wishes "  you are told to have while crouching in the narrow smooth-rocked  cave, some romantic boy or girl may ask for victory or vocation, to  be a Saint like Kevin or to die a martyr for Ireland and the Faith. Maybe. All that appears is vulgarity, very close to mockery. No,  even to-day no one is thinking of Kevin; even on this one day you  will not hear the solemn intonation of the Rosary wafted from the  boats gliding quietly across the lake in the evening; nor will you find  any of the Seven Churches filled with worshippers to honour his  work or seeking inspiration in his memory.


To-day, like every other day of the tourist season, there is a kind  of dance-hall happiness in the air, restless and self-centred; this crowd  would be more at home in Bray, with concrete esplanade and  saxophone blaring nonsense from the hill. This fastidious valley  really adds nothing to their self-conscious merriment, their joy is not  in it but in themselves, so it seems to withdraw its secrets from  their unsympathetic approach, to frown resentfully on their unconscious insults and to rebuff their well-meant but undiscerning heartiness. They could enjoy themselves as well elsewhere. I wish they would.....

I recall from my days in De La Salle Novitiate that ,at Christmas 1966, the novices attended Mass in the local Church in Castletown and we - budding experts in post Vatican II liturgy - were mildly shocked to see the local farmers praying their rosary beads during Mass! Our novitiate lasted 15 months. Fr Sweetman joined the Jesuits in 1931, aged 17 and was ordained priest in 1945 after a 14 YEAR period of spiritual and intellectual formation. He can be forgiven a little snobbery vs a vs the laity in 1949!

The Reason Why: Brother Maurice Kirk and I [Part 1]

Brother Maurice Kirk, De La Salle Novice Master and Provincial 1966-74

Introduction

I have written about Brother Maurice before in the "About Me" section of my old website www.IrishSalem.com and what follows in this article is an edited version. Some months ago I came across a second hand copy of a book by the late Brother John Towey F.S.C. "Irish De La Salle Brothers in Christian Education" (Dublin, De La Salle, 1980) that includes a longish section on Brother Maurice when he was head of the Irish Province of the De La Salle Brothers from 1968 until his death in a car accident in 1974.I will quote extracts from this book in a second article - and especially the tributes paid to Brother Maurice by the then Minister for Education Mr Richard Burke and the then Provincial of the Irish Jesuits (from 1968-75), Very Rev. Cecil McGarry. I have a feeling that Brother Maurice was not an uncritical admirer of Fr. McGarry!

It is interesting that Brother John barely mentions Brother Maurice role as Novice Master from 1966 to 68 - the role in which he had such a huge influence on my life - and concentrates on his period as head of the Irish Province. But that's how History operates!

Also I note that, after his death, the executive of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors decided to establish a burse to provide educational opportunity for De La Salle pupils but were unable to decide exactly how the money should be used. Perhaps that was symptomatic of the end of an era for the Brothers, the Catholic Church  and a great deal more. 

I think of Brother Maurice as one of the last figures in a line of educators that began with Thomas Arnold headmaster of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841, where he introduced a number of reforms that were widely copied by other prestigious public schools. As per Wikipedia "His reforms redefined standards of masculinity and achievement." Arnold was made famous posthumously by one of his pupils Thomas Hughes whose semi-autobiographical novel Tom Browne's Schooldays  [1] was based on his own time at Rugby. I am no Thomas Hughes but then I am writing about the end of that age! . 

[ The founder of the modern Olympic Games Baron de Coubertin [2] visited English public schools, including Rugby in 1886. When looking at Arnold's tomb in the school chapel he recalled he felt, suddenly, as if he were looking upon "the very cornerstone of the British empire". We are living in an era of endings! ]

Rory Connor
21 September 2019. 

[1]  The novel was not primarily written as an entertainment. As Hughes said:
Several persons, for whose judgment I have the highest respect, while saying very kind things about this book, have added, that the great fault of it is 'too much preaching'; but they hope I shall amend in this matter should I ever write again. Now this I most distinctly decline to do. Why, my whole object in writing at all was to get the chance of preaching! When a man comes to my time of life and has his bread to make, and very little time to spare, is it likely that he will spend almost the whole of his yearly vacation in writing a story just to amuse people? I think not. At any rate, I wouldn't do so myself.

[2] As per Wikipedia, "Coubertin is thought to have exaggerated the importance of sport to Thomas Arnold, whom he viewed as "one of the founders of athletic chivalry". The character-reforming influence of sport, with which Coubertin was so impressed, is more likely to have originated in the novel Tom Brown's School Days than exclusively in the ideas of Arnold himself." 
Thomas Hughes himself was a first class cricketer rather than a great scholar, so the enduring myth of Rugby may be as much his creation as Arnold's BUT Arnold was his inspiration! However, I believe that the "character-forming influence of sport" was a central idea for Brother Maurice.

A) Letter to Lady who Asked Me About My Motives

22 April 2003

Dear Ms ......

Thank you very much. The questions are a little difficult to answer by E mail. I have been pursuing this kind of issue for some years now and what seems obvious to me, may be difficult for a "newcomer" to grasp because I may be unconsciously assuming that other people know things with which I am very familiar. For example did you even hear of Nora Wall before and if not have I supplied sufficient background data?(The key factor is that she is a former nun - if  people don't realise that, then I must appear to be speaking in riddles).

My Background and Reasons for Action

I was a member of the De La Salle Brothers from about September 1966  to about March 1969: I was aged 16 to 19 and spent most of my time in training though I taught for several months in 3 schools (mainly filling in for absent teachers). The training period in the Novitiate in Castletown  was the formative experience of my life and the Novice master,  the late Br. Maurice Kirk influenced me as much as my parents, if not more so. I doubt if he regarded me as one of his most promising students and I think he would be very surprised by my metamorphosis (He became Provincial of the Brothers and was killed in a car crash about 1974).

I would say that this is by far the most important factor in my present Crusade - if you want to call it that. I was always annoyed at the tone of sneering abuse which our "liberal" intellectuals adopt when referring to the Catholic Church. Over the past several years their blood libels and false allegations of child abuse have driven me to distraction (I am perfectly well aware that there are true allegations of abuse as well - but by the same token, not everything Julius Streicher ** wrote about the Jews is false.)

The second reason for my actions is that around Christmas 1994 (? I think) I came across a boy whom I thought might be the victim of child abuse (by his step-father). I helped him to some extent but then became afraid that I would be the target of a bogus allegation myself. So I dropped him though he was lonely and expected to see me again. In normal circumstances I would have had no problem in approaching the Social Services and asking for a discreet investigation. However hysteria was already in the air and I thought I could not possibly make an accusation on the very limited evidence I had. (Remember what Dr. Moira Woods did to Eddie Hernon?). Also because of the hysteria, I felt I could not investigate further. It was a vicious circle. I spoke to a number of friends about this at the time and everyone told me not to get involved.

Finally for 6 months or so in 1995 I was involved in an extremely ugly confrontation at work with a female member of staff who ended up by accusing me of sexual harassment. I fought this issue all the way to the top and became a delegate to the Annual Delegate Conference of the Public Service Executive Union (April 1996?) for the specific purpose of moving a Motion on bogus allegations of sexual harassment (i.e. no-one else wanted that job). The full time officials of the Union opposed my Motion but I got it passed anyway. In my speech to the ADC I insisted on referring to a bogus allegation of child abuse made against an Irish Bishop. This probably hindered my case rather than helped it but I was making certain connections (for example where did that lady get her ideas from?).

Oddly enough I believe that this last issue is the least important and I believe I would have pursued my current campaign even if it never happened. (I had a half reconciliation with the lady afterwards but do not anticipate any with the likes of Patsy McGarry and Co).

This is getting too long and I will answer your other queries separately.

Regards

Rory Connor

** Nazi editor of Der Sturmer who accused the Jews of being sexual perverts who murdered Christian boys. (He also said that there were Jews in the Mafia and among Stalin's hencemen - that part is true).

(B) Extract from a Discussion on the Website www.reason.com

[ I recently copied this discussion into my blog article on Father Michael Sweetman. ]

Dear SR

You are absolutely right: The Black Internationale has got Tim! I was a De La Salle Brother from 1966 to 69 and it was the formative experience of my life. My novice master Brother Maurice Kirk was as important as my parents if not more so. (He became head of the De La Salle Order in Ireland and was killed in a car crash on 10 April 1974.)

In September 1967 at the end of our training a Jesuit priest Father Michael Sweetman gave us a 9 day Retreat (spiritual conference for you pagans). It's true what the Jesuits say: when they control a child's education they have him for life!

Rory

Comment by: Rory Connor at February 23, 2005 05:25 PM

[Actually this discussion to which this comment relates is HERE: The Reason Why - The Catholic Church and I (and Fr Paul Shanley) ]

(C) FATHER MICHEAL SWEETMAN SJ: Extract from Letter to Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) 16 Feb 2004

For the record, I will say a last word about my own motivation. I already mentioned Brother Maurice Kirk who was my Novice Master in the De La Salle Brothers from about September 1966 to November 1967 (I entered outside the normal stream of candidates so the dates are unusual). I also recall with great affection the late Father Michael Sweetman S.J. who gave us an 8 day retreat in early September 1967. He told us a lot about his corresponence with an Irish criminal in England who knew he was destroying himself but could see no way out. However the message Fr. Sweetman was giving us was one of optimism and hope. Even if that man died a criminal he would still not be a failure as a human being. I went to see Fr. Sweetman in Ballymun not long before his death. He spoke of young drug addicts there and said that they were doomed. I had not heard a priest talk in that way before and I was upset by his despair. 

I am not capable of inspiring people or helping them in the way that Brother Maurice and Father Sweetman did, or tried to do. However I am very strong minded (largely thanks to them) and I will defend their legacy in my own way.

(D) Brother Maurice Kirk FSC and Father Michael Sweetman S.J.

This is from an article on the website of Alliance Support (which supported victims of child abuse) dated September 2006
http://www.alliancesupport.org/news/archives/001460.html

[ Explanatory Note: I was a novice in the De La Salle Brothers in Castletown, Co. Laois, Ireland in the year 1966/1967. It was the peak experience of my life and the main reason why I have been engaged in the fight against false allegations of child abuse directed against Catholic clergy .

My novice master was Brother Maurice Kirk. In August/September 1967 a Jesuit priest Father Michael Sweetman gave us our final Retreat" (spiritual conference) before we were professed as De La Salle Brothers.

I left the Brothers in March 1969. Recently I deposited some material in archives and the following is part of a covering note.

Rory Connor]

As to the wider significance of these events, I was in the [De La Salle] Novitiate in 1966-67 at the time when vocations to the Catholic Church were at their height. This was immediately after Vatican 11 and just before the student revolts of 1968. Brother Maurice was, I suppose, a modernising conservative. Among the main texts we studied were A Map of Life which was a classic from the 1930s and also the Grail Simplified Documents of Vatican 11. I'm sure that Brother Maurice was trying to forge a link between tradition and the modern world. Father Michael Sweetman was something of a "radical priest" so inviting him to preach the Retreat before our profession would have been a daring act.

Obviously Brother Maurice did not succeed. I briefly met with a former fellow novice years later - Brother ..... I think who left like most of us. He told me he thought that Brother Maurice had been an "intellectual bully". Maybe that is true and maybe most leaders have to be. Maybe the increasing secularisation (and increasing viciousness) of society could not be overcome by any means. I think that Father Sweetman felt that at the end of his life - although I did not know him at all as well.

Another historical point. I recently read a review of a book about Pope Pius X11 and the Nazis which was written by a Jewish Rabbi. The Rabbi said that the lies about Pius as "Hitler's Pope" came from 3 separate sources [1]

• Stalinist propaganda during the Cold War (1940s and 50s)
• The "New Left" in the 1960s
• "Liberal" Catholics after the Vatican Council who saw Pius X11 as the hero of "reactionary" Catholics and demonised him as a way of demonising them.

I think that our child abuse hysteria originated in somewhat the same way. Pat Rabbitte and Judge Pat McCartan are former members of the Workers Party that was Stalinist in the most literal sense - party officials went on cosy visits to Kim Il Sung's North Korea. Doctor Moira Woods (who slandered Eddie Hernon) was also a member of this Party. I think that Mary Raftery was a member (though I can't swear to it). Doctor Noel Browne was not in the Workers Party but his hatred of the Catholic Church really took off in the late 1960s. John Horgan mentions in his biography of Browne that a savage article by Browne in the Irish Times in 1970 drew criticism from Father Michael Sweetman [2]! The late 1960s really do seem to be a critical time.

Regarding "liberal" Catholics I know that the National Catholic Reporter in the USA has thrown its full weight behind the child abuse witch-hunt. It even sees nothing wrong with convictions on the basis of "Recovered Memory Syndrome". This is voodoo brain science and is almost unknown in Ireland. The NCR sees the scandal as a useful way of gutting the traditional church and advancing its own "liberal" agenda. - in relation to women priests, gay priests, the laity etc. I don't know if there is an equivalent group in Ireland - I am concentrating my fire on journalists.

Maybe I am exaggerating the importance of my time in the De La Salle Novitiate. But then again maybe not!


Rory Connor
September 2006

Notes:
[1] The book is "The Myth of Hitler's Pope" by Rabbi David G. Dalin

[2] The date should be 1968 not 1970 which tends to prove my point! In "Noel Browne, Passionate Outsider" John Horgan writes:

" In 1968 [Browne] had written a speech for a meeting in Trinity College which contained a number of harsh criticisms of the Church, but had thought better of it and deleted them from the remarks he eventually delivered. The original speech, however, was published in the Irish Times, and for this he was mildly chastised by another speaker at the meeting, the radical Jesuit Fr Michael Sweetman". [The Irish Times, 6 December 1968].

This seems to be the last time that Noel Browne entertained any doubts about the Catholic Church. After that, it was shrieking denunciation all the way, with the Church being blamed for every evil in Irish society. I think that 1968 was the year our Irish "liberals" started to go crazy!