James Joyce, The Irish Catholic, and Irish Catholicism

Some years ago, as a diplomat at the Irish Embassy in Lisbon, I went ‘on mission’ to Rio de Janeiro because back then the Embassy also handled relations with Brazil. Following my return to Lisbon from one such expedition, I headed straight to a reception at the house of a Finnish colleague and spoke enthusiastically to a group of guests about my recent Rio experience. I remarked excitedly that one could see how Portugal had influenced Brazil a lot. A Portuguese diplomat politely corrected me – Portugal had influenced Brazil COMPLETELY.

It notes that at Joyce’s own request, while he was living in Rome, his Aunt Josephine sent him The Irish Catholic”

I wonder if the same couldn’t be said of Irish Catholicism and James Joyce?

A major event in Joyce studies is the recent publication of the late Frank Callanan’s new biography entitled James Joyce – A Political Life (Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 2026), which the world-renowned literary critic Terry Eagleton has described in the London Review of Books as “magnificently erudite”.

What particularly piqued my interest while leafing through the book in Hodges Figgis was seeing several references to The Irish Catholic. For example, it notes that at Joyce’s own request, while he was living in Rome, his Aunt Josephine sent him The Irish Catholic. George Orwell once told an old classmate that he subscribed to Catholic publications simply to “see what the enemy is up to”. Maybe that’s what motivated Joyce to ask his auntie for The Irish Catholic.

Parnell

The great parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell is very important in this overall context. FSL Lyons wrote in his biography of Parnell that Joyce “used the fall of Parnell repeatedly as a means of expressing his disgust at, and revulsion from, the Irish paralysis and the sources – priestly power, moral cowardice, social hypocrisy – which in his view fed that paralysis.”

Callanan goes into fascinating detail about the very strong position which The Irish Catholic took on the Parnell ‘Split’ issue. He writes that “The paper proclaimed that ‘finally and irretrievably [Parnell] has been banished from his once high place as leader of the Catholic people of this Catholic country’. It declared that ‘if the repudiation of Mr Parnell’s leadership meant civil war instead of merely the turmoil of electoral contention, the present is one of those occasions upon which honest citizens should not shrink from responsibility’.”

Callanan adds that “The relevance for Joyce lies in the hybridity of the position of The Irish Catholic. The paper invoked absolute Catholic moral prescriptions and timeless Irish fealty to the precepts of the Church but espoused in the same breath the imperatives of the Liberal-nationalist alliance”.

What can be said about Joyce, Irish Catholicism, and religion generally?

It is well known that Joyce rejected his faith while still a schoolboy, but as the old adage has it – attributed appropriately enough to the Jesuits – by whom Joyce was educated for almost the entirety of his school days: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”.

Joyce by no means despised all aspects of Catholicism. He praised Thomas Aquinas as being the greatest philosopher because his reasoning was like a sharp sword”

It’s not difficult to find critical references to Catholicism by Joyce. For example, in what could be excused as a throwaway remark, Joyce contrasted Catholicism in France with the Irish variety, declaring that “in Ireland Catholicism is black magic”.

However, Joyce by no means despised all aspects of Catholicism. He praised Thomas Aquinas as being the greatest philosopher because his reasoning was like a sharp sword. He also liked the Easter liturgy. And then there’s the notable judgement in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that Catholicism is logical and coherent, as compared to Protestantism.

In his book Ulysses and Us, Declan Kiberd – the leading Joycean scholar of his generation – writes eloquently about Joyce and religion. But I would take issue with part of his interpretation. Let me quote a short passage: “Joyce’s desire was not to destroy religion. He had far too much respect for the wisdom of the ages to want to do that. But he did wish to free the religious mind from its entrapment in discredited creeds and outworn social systems. He wished for a church which would cease trying to regulate human behaviour and would return instead to studying man’s relationship to God and fate.”

Human behaviour

The key phrase is “human behaviour”. Human behaviour is incredibly important, both at the individual and at the state level. Yes, the Catholic Church has been bedevilled – literally – by a series of odious abuse scandals and has been seriously weakened as a result. But the Church has made an incredible contribution to civilisation over so many centuries.

Prof. Kiberd’s interpretation of Joyce and religion reminded me of a book by Maurizio Viroli entitled Machiavelli’s God, which sought to explain away Machiavelli’s underlying contempt for Christianity.

Fast-forwarding much closer to our own day, the UCD economist Prof. Morgan Kelly – who wrote brilliantly about the Irish property crash and its implications – gave a lecture in 2014 to the college’s economics society. Without as such ‘going to bat’ for the Church, he expressed concern about the dangerous vacuum left as a result of the Church’s very serious travails.

He singled out the way in which the Church had at least imbued in its believers a sense of duty. What he saw as the collapse of Catholicism in Ireland – ‘collapse’ is too strong a term – “leaves us with very, very little by way of any sort of public morality in this society”. All too true.

As we’ve seen, Orwell is instructive on Joyce and religion. In a 1940 essay he wrote: “Joyce actually is more of a ‘pure artist’ than most writers. But Ulysses could not have been written by someone who was merely dabbling with word-patterns; it is the product of a special vision of life, the vision of a Catholic who has lost his faith. What Joyce is saying is ‘Here is life without God. Just look at it!’ and his technical innovations, important though they are, are primarily to serve this purpose.”

His opposition to clerical and episcopal interventions in Irish politics coexisted with a respect for the spiritual acquis of Catholicism”

Callanan declares that “Joyce eschewed anti-Catholicism. Though without belief, he retained a Catholic intellectual sensibility. He never ceased to be a student of ecclesiastical history and was alert to Catholic doctrines, rites, and popular beliefs. The patterns of his thought retained strong conceptual filiations to Catholicism. His opposition to clerical and episcopal interventions in Irish politics coexisted with a respect for the spiritual acquis of Catholicism.”

Isn’t all this a bit passive though, a bit decadent even, on Joyce’s part? Are Catholics somehow supposed to feel better that Joyce at least revered the spiritual acquis of their faith? Unlike the convert G.K. Chesterton, Joyce could not accept that “Catholicism is true”. But we can agree with Joyce’s biographer Richard Ellmann that Joyce lived a life of dignity and high dedication.

Michael Sanfey is a Researcher at the Institute of Political Studies, Católica University Lisbon.