The Influence of Ther Catholic Church on Iriish Social Policy

After a few years of relative peace where papal power and authority continued to erode, the nationalistic movement in Italy prevailed and by 1870 Italian troops took the Papal States. This event sealed the fate of Pius IX and future popes by limiting their power with sovereignty limited to a few small jurisdictions including the Vatican. In opposition to these new political ideas, Pius IX issued the Quanta cura and Syllabus of Errors, which directed loyal Catholics to reject these new ideas. A couple of notable issues included the rejection of the position that the church and state must be separate and that the Roman pontiff must accept progress, liberalism, and modern civilization. As a result, as the Roman Catholic Church entered the twentieth century and two future world wars, Protestantism and Catholicism

highlights the poverty of the families and the Roman Catholics in 18th century Ireland. This

     Nineteenth-century Ireland was the most densely populated country in Europe: in 1800, its population was 4.5 million, and by 1841, it had risen to eight million (Kinealy 15). Yet much of this population existed in condition of sorrow and misery lay in the dependence of the peasantry on just one staple crop, the potato; in western countries like Mayo and Galway, nine-tenths of the people ate nothing else (MacManus 602). Here was a disaster waiting to happen, made worst by the rapid rise in population in the first half of the century which forced the peasants to subsist on smaller plots of land (O Grada, The Great Irish Famine 63).

K.H. Connell, in his paper “Land and Population in Ireland, 1780-1845”, describes and explains the significant population growth in Ireland prior to the famine of 1845 and how the uses of the Irish land changed with the population growth.

From the article entitled Catholic Social Teaching – Convictions and Connections by Russell Connors (Catherine Core Reader, 2011)

The Irish people would have freight, terror, death and eventually peace with these changes. The potato famine started with blight being discovered by European farmers. The Irish government started to export potatoes and grains to continental Europe to help the Europeans avoid a famine (Smith, 2011). By the end of August of 1845, Ireland was freighted to find out that blight had found its way to their produce (Smith, 2011). The blight in Ireland set off a chain of events that led to the Irish people dying in more ways to get out of Ireland. The government started trying to feed their people by importing corn and grains for food (Smith, 2011). This was not enough to help the young, old and sick. Many of theIrish people were led to complete financial ruin. By the end of 1851 more than a million Irish had died due to hunger and disease exacerbated by malnutrition(Smith, 2011).The only answer for many Irish families was to take a risk and get on a coffin boat and flee to another country. North America was a safe haven for many Irish people. They dreamed of the life they would live in the U.S.A. Nearly 1 million people arrived in many cities which include New York, and Boston (Smith, 2011). When the Irish people arrived, it was a sad reality they did not think they would face. The conditions were despicable. Many families were moved into small rooms with no sanitation, ventilation, day light or electricity (Smith, 2011). The families were charged about $1.50 per week to live in extreme poverty (Smith, 2011). This led to unsanitary conditions for the communities. Diseases were able to thrive in those conditions and one of the more common disease was cholera . The Irish people usually stayed in close proximity to each other and would make a small Irish community. The Irish community strived to make money. They were only hired for unskilled jobs

Even with the advantage of knowing English, the famine-era Irish had much going against them in America. They had few marketable skills, little education, and no money. Substantial social disorganization, poverty, crime, disease, alcoholism, and family dissolution – accompanied their resettlement in America (241).

Since potatoes constituted the main dietary staple for most people this left them in dire conditions. As many as 1.5 million people died of starvation and the illnesses which ensued from the epidemics which accompanied the famine itself are believed to have lead to another 1 million. This brought upon the mass exodus from Ireland to the U.S. for survival; from the mid 1840’s to 1860 about 1.7 million Irish immigrants made it to the U.S. (overall numbers from 1820-1900 are at approximately 4 million total)(Rapple,

In this deeper analysis of Irish population arriving during the Famine, it is apparent that protestant and Catholic both suffered from poverty after coming to Toronto. Certainly, a majority of immigrants were of Catholic descent, but there were certainly Protestant Irish being forced off their land in Ireland during the Famine. These are important details that define why Toronto was not nearly as hostile as Belfast, since the similar aspects of poverty, Irish nationalism, and Irish culture were shared values in the overall disposition of Irish immigrants

The start of the Irish’ peoples struggles began when the British came and destroyed their way of life. The Penal laws of 1691 stripped Irish Catholics of their freedoms by taking away their rights to become officers

It can be argued that the reason the government failed to react as it should in time of crisis is because of the widespread belief of laissez-faire. This argument is flawed, as the strict rules against the government’s invasion of personal matters were broken on numerous occasions to benefit the British landlords, who hired the police force to guard the ports while ships full of food left a starving Ireland. John Mitchel, the leader of the Young Ireland Movement, wrote the following in 1860: The British Prime Minister had “violated every pledge previously made on arriving at place and power… but the pity was that the minister was permitted to act so with impunity” (NJCHE 4). The twisted version of laissez-faire that had corrupted the government was so normal and such a popular opinion, that they were accumsed to the prominent wrongs the leaders were invoking on the Irish people. Not only that, but there was an unspoken agreement that the concept of laissez-faire was only a strict policy when concerning the Irish, but when regarding the British people there was extreme flexibility. Furthermore, Kinealy, in her book The Great Calamity, wrote, “The underlying philosophy of the relief efforts was that they should be kept to a minimalist level; in fact they actually decreased as the Famine progressed” (NJCHE 4). By the time the blight

Many people might not have known that oppression is present in regard to religion. There have been many times over the past decades were overt forms of oppression have been present when a dominant religious group takes over a subordinated group. In a reading this week, Christian Privilege is talked about. This type of privilege surprised me because I did not even know it existed. The reading talked about how dominant religious would punish individuals who went against their religion and tried to force others out so they would be on top. It is absurd to me that individuals would go to such great lengths to make sure that people were following their religion and not another. A topic that really enforced this type of oppression is the marginalization of the Catholic religion. I have never noticed that unless you are in a public school, one never has off for holidays unless it is a Catholic holiday. It is preposterous that some students need to be excused from school just to celebrate any over their religious holidays. I could not believe that so much of our school system is centered on a Christian denomination. This reading really helped open my eyes to the oppression that many religions have to face (Blumenfeld, 2010).

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The Catholic Church had condemned the radical movements of Ireland in the 1930s. High officials in the church also condemned Irish groups that included the Irish Republican army and the Saor Eire. Their church continued to be a dominant voice in the matters and whereabouts in the free state. The Church formed their own education system in addition to providing health and welfare services through their hospitals, homes for senior citizens and children, hostels for the homeless people, and voluntary agencies. In Northern Ireland, the catholic church operated in similar ways by making exclusive catholic organizations. The hostile environment of the Protestant pushed the catholic church in the north to create a sense of “apartheid” or separation

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