I have learned a new word in time for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell, the leader of Catholic emancipation: eleutherophilia. It means a passion for liberty; but the term can also refer to a mental disorder: a manic or mad irresistible craving for freedom.
This mania – a dangerous belief that freedom means doing whatever you want – abounds in the modern world. And is just another form of modern slavery, where we are trapped by our worst desires.
Of course, our hearts crave freedom – and when we see this passion for liberty in others – it is very attractive. Hence the popularity of O’Connell ‘the great liberator’. Yet the Department of Culture issued a 1300-word press release, neglecting (as some commentators pointed out) to mention his role in Catholic emancipation. No surprise really. O’Connell once proclaimed the Catholic Church in Ireland “a national church”, its Catholic people “a nation” – hardly the kind of person who would be feted in Ireland these days.
In fashion
His views were once in fashion – and back on April 2, 1829, he was honoured with a grand banquet at Denvir’s Hotel in Downpatrick, Co. Down, for his role in the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act. This allowed Catholics to hold office in the UK Parliament.
As a barrister he had gone to Downpatrick to try a case in the courthouse, a place where men and women still struggle to be free – and not only because they are handcuffed in the dock. These troubled, and vulnerable souls, are, like many of us, not free in the spiritual sense. On many a Monday morning, they appear in the dock, miserable after a traumatic weekend. Addicted to alcohol or drugs, they have lashed out, usually against members of their own family.
Even after a guilty verdict, a sentence and a judge’s declaration, “That’s it finished”- I wonder how many leave in freedom. Very often, a good few are back in the dock, pretty quickly enslaved to alcohol, or drugs, or anger.
It is a tragic thing to watch when the antidote to all this suffering can be found a few streets away in the local church, with Jesus, the merciful judge. Jesus is not only truly present in the tabernacle, body, blood, soul and divinity but also, in the most amazing way, he is present in the Confessional. Jesus, though redeeming grace, empowered priests to hear our sins and grant absolution – the formal release from guilt or punishment.
The door to the confessional is the door to freedom, true spiritual freedom, freedom from the burden of sin”
What a gift that is. Before my own conversion, I regarded he confessional as ‘a torture chamber’ but having been set free many times from sin, I now prefer the description of Pope Francis: an embrace from God the Father. Indeed, the door to the confessional is the door to freedom, true spiritual freedom, freedom from the burden of sin. It’s a gift we lay Catholics, and perhaps many priests too, take for granted.
Of course, there are complex issues that can lead a man or woman to the courtroom, and frankly it could happen to any of us. For it is only by the grace of God that we are free.
Too many of us, sadly, live in a state of unforgiveness: we cannot forgive other people or indeed ourselves – and we remain on what Bob Dylan poetically calls “the highway of regret”.
All too often, though, the confessional is empty – it’s not easy to admit your mistakes, and who after all wants to be in the dock?
But it is here we confront the truth about ourselves, a truth we all hide from: our failings, our selfishness, our pride, our ability to be unkind, thoughtless, or even cruel.
Yet it’s in the confessional, a place sealed in trust, that we not only find acceptance, and God’s love, and we hear the words we long to hear: “Go in peace. I absolve you of your sins…”
Change
Although we regularly mess up again, and must return, each confession offers a chance to change, and the hope and joy of a new beginning with God, who never ceases to pardon.
A friend of mine Elaine Kelly followed Daniel O’Connell into the law, becoming a barrister. And, like many of us, she had modern notions about freedom. She recently addressed a group of priests about her own conversion. As a young law student at Queen’s, she had fallen away from Mass and the sacraments. She still believed in God though, and driving back from a legal consultation in Co. Armagh, she found herself unhappily on the highway of regret. “And, I heard these words spoken interiorly,” she recalled. “Elaine, you are either going to have to go back to Mass or you are going to die.”
“I was raised Catholic and I knew what I had to do. I drove straight to my parish priest and I asked him to hear my confession. And he did. And I went home free and at peace. That’s the power of the priesthood. And I went to Mass that night and I never looked back.”
Some years later, Elaine was called by Christ from the Bar to the courts of the Lord, and became Sr Elaine of the Heart of Jesus, entering the Sisters of Adoration on August 6, Daniel O’Connell’s birthday. In the Catholic calendar, it is also the Feast of the Transfiguration when Christ revealed his divinity on a high mountain.
While the closure of her convent, due to falling numbers, ultimately forced Elaine back into life as lay Catholic, she continued to maintain her freedom: by embracing God’s will in her life, without a word of complaint.
Now a Catholic chaplain in an all-male maximum security prison, she shows others the path to true freedom, a freedom not in a courthouse, or a Parliament, but in the most unlikely place: the sacrament of confession.
We Christians are not called to be eleutheromaniacs, to be trapped in a distorted desire for freedom.
We are called to be eleutherophiles, a people zealous for God’s will, a will which frees us from our worst desires, and gives us the glorious freedom of the children of God. The best kind of Catholic emancipation.
Speaking of confession, I erred last week when I wrote that the Sacred Heart parish of Omagh is in Clogher. In fact, it rests in the Diocese of Derry. While Jesus is the love between these neighbouring dioceses, there is still great pride in their respective areas. So I do hope I am forgiven! As Mahatma Gandhi would say: “True freedom is the freedom to make mistakes!”
With the passing of another Twelfth, it occurred to me that the ‘Kick the Pope’ bands might find a warm welcome in some quarters of the Catholic Church. Plenty of Catholics these days are all too willing to do the kicking. During the Francis era, a rather unhealthy root sprang up, an industry of podcasts, blogs and websites where the Pontiff was lambasted. Now, some critics, having built an audience, and a revenue stream, are reluctant to go away; rather they watch Pope Leo like vultures, or drama critics, waiting for a chance to carp that he is not Catholic enough, not conservative enough, not liberal enough. Yet we are not a political party but a universal Church, called to unity in Christ. There is a reason St Paul reminded us in 1 Corinthians, chapter three, that we are not to be divided around individuals. “Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos’, are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe…”
The glorious freedom of the children of God
I have learned a new word in time for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell, the leader of Catholic emancipation: eleutherophilia. It means a passion for liberty; but the term can also refer to a mental disorder: a manic or mad irresistible craving for freedom.
This mania – a dangerous belief that freedom means doing whatever you want – abounds in the modern world. And is just another form of modern slavery, where we are trapped by our worst desires.
Of course, our hearts crave freedom – and when we see this passion for liberty in others – it is very attractive. Hence the popularity of O’Connell ‘the great liberator’. Yet the Department of Culture issued a 1300-word press release, neglecting (as some commentators pointed out) to mention his role in Catholic emancipation. No surprise really. O’Connell once proclaimed the Catholic Church in Ireland “a national church”, its Catholic people “a nation” – hardly the kind of person who would be feted in Ireland these days.
In fashion
His views were once in fashion – and back on April 2, 1829, he was honoured with a grand banquet at Denvir’s Hotel in Downpatrick, Co. Down, for his role in the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act. This allowed Catholics to hold office in the UK Parliament.
As a barrister he had gone to Downpatrick to try a case in the courthouse, a place where men and women still struggle to be free – and not only because they are handcuffed in the dock. These troubled, and vulnerable souls, are, like many of us, not free in the spiritual sense. On many a Monday morning, they appear in the dock, miserable after a traumatic weekend. Addicted to alcohol or drugs, they have lashed out, usually against members of their own family.
Even after a guilty verdict, a sentence and a judge’s declaration, “That’s it finished”- I wonder how many leave in freedom. Very often, a good few are back in the dock, pretty quickly enslaved to alcohol, or drugs, or anger.
It is a tragic thing to watch when the antidote to all this suffering can be found a few streets away in the local church, with Jesus, the merciful judge. Jesus is not only truly present in the tabernacle, body, blood, soul and divinity but also, in the most amazing way, he is present in the Confessional. Jesus, though redeeming grace, empowered priests to hear our sins and grant absolution – the formal release from guilt or punishment.
What a gift that is. Before my own conversion, I regarded he confessional as ‘a torture chamber’ but having been set free many times from sin, I now prefer the description of Pope Francis: an embrace from God the Father. Indeed, the door to the confessional is the door to freedom, true spiritual freedom, freedom from the burden of sin. It’s a gift we lay Catholics, and perhaps many priests too, take for granted.
Of course, there are complex issues that can lead a man or woman to the courtroom, and frankly it could happen to any of us. For it is only by the grace of God that we are free.
Too many of us, sadly, live in a state of unforgiveness: we cannot forgive other people or indeed ourselves – and we remain on what Bob Dylan poetically calls “the highway of regret”.
All too often, though, the confessional is empty – it’s not easy to admit your mistakes, and who after all wants to be in the dock?
But it is here we confront the truth about ourselves, a truth we all hide from: our failings, our selfishness, our pride, our ability to be unkind, thoughtless, or even cruel.
Yet it’s in the confessional, a place sealed in trust, that we not only find acceptance, and God’s love, and we hear the words we long to hear: “Go in peace. I absolve you of your sins…”
Change
Although we regularly mess up again, and must return, each confession offers a chance to change, and the hope and joy of a new beginning with God, who never ceases to pardon.
A friend of mine Elaine Kelly followed Daniel O’Connell into the law, becoming a barrister. And, like many of us, she had modern notions about freedom. She recently addressed a group of priests about her own conversion. As a young law student at Queen’s, she had fallen away from Mass and the sacraments. She still believed in God though, and driving back from a legal consultation in Co. Armagh, she found herself unhappily on the highway of regret. “And, I heard these words spoken interiorly,” she recalled. “Elaine, you are either going to have to go back to Mass or you are going to die.”
“I was raised Catholic and I knew what I had to do. I drove straight to my parish priest and I asked him to hear my confession. And he did. And I went home free and at peace. That’s the power of the priesthood. And I went to Mass that night and I never looked back.”
Some years later, Elaine was called by Christ from the Bar to the courts of the Lord, and became Sr Elaine of the Heart of Jesus, entering the Sisters of Adoration on August 6, Daniel O’Connell’s birthday. In the Catholic calendar, it is also the Feast of the Transfiguration when Christ revealed his divinity on a high mountain.
While the closure of her convent, due to falling numbers, ultimately forced Elaine back into life as lay Catholic, she continued to maintain her freedom: by embracing God’s will in her life, without a word of complaint.
Now a Catholic chaplain in an all-male maximum security prison, she shows others the path to true freedom, a freedom not in a courthouse, or a Parliament, but in the most unlikely place: the sacrament of confession.
We Christians are not called to be eleutheromaniacs, to be trapped in a distorted desire for freedom.
We are called to be eleutherophiles, a people zealous for God’s will, a will which frees us from our worst desires, and gives us the glorious freedom of the children of God. The best kind of Catholic emancipation.
Speaking of confession, I erred last week when I wrote that the Sacred Heart parish of Omagh is in Clogher. In fact, it rests in the Diocese of Derry. While Jesus is the love between these neighbouring dioceses, there is still great pride in their respective areas. So I do hope I am forgiven! As Mahatma Gandhi would say: “True freedom is the freedom to make mistakes!”
With the passing of another Twelfth, it occurred to me that the ‘Kick the Pope’ bands might find a warm welcome in some quarters of the Catholic Church. Plenty of Catholics these days are all too willing to do the kicking. During the Francis era, a rather unhealthy root sprang up, an industry of podcasts, blogs and websites where the Pontiff was lambasted. Now, some critics, having built an audience, and a revenue stream, are reluctant to go away; rather they watch Pope Leo like vultures, or drama critics, waiting for a chance to carp that he is not Catholic enough, not conservative enough, not liberal enough. Yet we are not a political party but a universal Church, called to unity in Christ. There is a reason St Paul reminded us in 1 Corinthians, chapter three, that we are not to be divided around individuals. “Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos’, are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe…”
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