Rite&Reason: Time for bishops to speak out about 1916 violence
Ireland has paid a high price for their hesitation to separate Jesus and Patrick Pearse
“That Patrick Pearse had been totally captured by that pre-Christian myth of redemptive violence is clear.” Photograph courtesy of the National Archives of Ireland
Jesus of Nazareth did not declare himself head of a sovereign Zion. He did not instruct his followers to seize control of Jerusalem, killing anyone who resisted. Contrary to the hopes of his closest followers, he submitted to arrest by the occupying Roman authority and healed the only injury caused on his behalf. He then accepted an ignominious death – and his followers dispersed in disillusionment.
All of this is clear from the Gospel text. Yet, in the lifetime of this Irish Catholic (born in 1943), none of this has ever been explicated by any Irish Catholic prelate in a commentary on the 1916 Rising.