Back in the West, we were brought up to see Protestants as pitiable creatures to be treated with special compassion on account of their ineluctable rendezvous with damnation. I remember watching the handful of Protestants you would see around town with a sense of awe and sorrow at their seeming obliviousness to their fate. We were taught to be pleasant and charitable towards them on the grounds that they had enough troubles arising from being destined to burn in Hell for all eternity.
An encouraging aspect of last week's furore about Cardinal Desmond Connell's widely reported giving of "offence" to his Church of Ireland counterpart, Archbishop Walton Empey, was the reassurance it offered that this compassionate tradition remains alive. It will be recalled that Cardinal Connell got himself quoted in a newly-published book as observing that Archbishop Empey "wouldn't have much theological competence" and was not one of his church's "high flyers". To suggest that a Protestant archbishop might lack theological competence is bad enough, but to imply that he has failed to qualify as a pilot is shocking indeed.
It is a good job the Cardinal did not make reference to the Church of Ireland Archbishop's "simple mind" or suggest that there were perhaps more erudite people than Archbishop Empey to whom an interviewer might speak.
Imagine if he had said something like this: "Archbishop Empey is no scholar . . . Whatever gifts he may have, I am afraid they are pastoral more than scholarly." Such an assessment of Archbishop Empey was left to, well, Archbishop Empey, who described himself to the same interviewer as follows: "I am no scholar. In fact, it's one of the things I find most difficult about my position. Whatever gifts I may have, I am afraid it's rather pastoral more than scholarly and I do find that to be, quite frankly, a drawback."
Archbishop Empey also made reference to "my simple mind" and suggested that the interviewer might speak to "far more erudite people than I am".
But the veracity of Cardinal Connell's assessment is not admissible. It would be a sorry day indeed if senior members of the Catholic Hierarchy felt free to speak truthfully in public.
Luckily, Cardinal Connell rapidly bent the knee. "In the context of the perfectly understandable differences in theological perspective between us", he said in a subsequent statement, "I referred to Archbishop Empey in a way which might have appeared to denigrate him. I want to make it as clear as I possibly can that this was never my intention, and I profoundly regret if such an impression has been given. It would be surprising if we did not take different theological positions on important questions. Given our different formation, it would also be surprising if we did not approach these questions in a different way. But these are not, and should not be, personal differences."
It is worrying, however, that the Cardinal is clearly labouring under the impression that differences of opinion are to be tolerated. The notion, for example, that there might be "different theological positions" is deeply old-fashioned. There is only one true position these days, just as there was once only One True Church. That position is as expressed by an Irish Times editorial-writer who, fortunately for Irish public decency, was at hand on Thursday to deliver a sharp rebuke. The writer firstly acknowledged the Cardinal's rapid contrition: "It would be churlish not to acknowledge his confession that 'I am too aware that I myself sometimes say things in the course of an interview without sufficiently adverting to the reactions of others'. And few would doubt his words 'when the result is the giving of offence, no one is more regretful than I am and this is so in the present time'." Absolution, however, was withheld. "But, sadly", the leader-writer went on, "it all has about it a by now wearying familiarity."
The Cardinal would do well not to make weary the writers of Irish Times editorials. Be wary of such fellows if weary they be!
This sleepy scribe continued with the painful task of chastising Cardinal Connell. In December 1997, it was recalled, when President McAleese received communion in Dublin's Christ Church Cathedral, Cardinal Connell, in another exhibition of his perplexing insistence on expressing opinions, said it was a "sham" for a Catholic to receive communion in a Protestant church. Days later, the editorial-writer reminded us, he apologised for the comment and was "sorry for any offence caused".
This and other instances of the Cardinal saying something and then retracting under pressure from correct-thinking people had given rise to what the Irish Times editorial-writer described as "a widespread 'here we go again' reaction" to his comments about Archbishop Empey.
Quite right, too. Although it is some comfort to observe Cardinal Connell's willingness to prostrate himself rapidly before the new custodians of public thought, it remains disquieting that he has not yet learned to avoid giving voice to thoughts which suggest a belief that he has the same right to express opinions as, for example, journalists. The Irish public can be thankful for whatever brief pause occurred in the continuing obliteration of Afghanistan to enable the Irish Times leader-writer to turn his mind to this vital matter.
And Protestants among us may take comfort from the fact that, for all our inability to save them from eternal damnation, there is no shortage of people in this society prepared to defend their theological and aeronautical capabilities.
jwaters@irish-times.ie