Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hi, I'm sending you this Undeception single from my holidays. I'm on beautiful Pittwater, just north of Sydney. If you're listening from overseas, do Google Pittwater. It's one of Australia's best waterways. And I'm on a friend's jetty, so I apologise in advance for the creaking and the boats going by.
I tell you, I feel a long way from my topic today. Last week was the anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, the treaty signed in mid-April 1998 that ended the 30 years Northern Ireland troubles, a conflict that took over three and a half thousand lives.
There are, of course, big questions to raise about the Troubles. Was it really Catholics and Protestants fighting over religion? Or was it more nationalists, who happen to be Catholics, and British loyalists, who happen to be Protestants, fighting over land? We're not going to resolve that in this short single.
But here's something I recorded a few weeks ago for my new book that explores parts of the Troubles that are much misunderstood or mostly forgotten. The contrast between the Troubles and the peace of my beach holiday could hardly be greater. I believe I have their support because I am an uncompromising Protestant.
Christopher Hitchens famously included the troubles in his list of the religiously inspired cruelty that he had witnessed in his long career as a journalist.
And as the fighting grew more bloody, petrol bombs ominously replaced stones as the main weapons. For him, it's evidence of the almost endless capacity of religion to wreak havoc on individuals and nations. Oh God, visit Ulster at this time. Remove from us the tyrant who would seek to take away our liberty. If I thought it would bring justice to the people of this country, I would be quite prepared to give my life.
But this is an argument out of all proportion to the facts. Even if we were to accept that the Troubles were religiously inspired, I doubt they would rate a mention in any history of cruelty of the last 500 years or even the last 100 years. With the deepest of affection for my friends in Northern Ireland, 3,600 deaths over a 30-year period hardly supports the thesis that religion poisons everything.
Naturally, one killing in the name of Christ is a blasphemy. But the scale of loss in the Troubles was a tiny fraction of the losses encountered in conflicts during exactly the same period, 1968 to 1998. Think of the Vietnam War, the Six-Day War, the Soviet-Afghan War, the First Gulf War, the Yugoslav Wars and the Rwandan Genocide.
And to recall an earlier historic example, the Terror of the French Revolution executed almost five times as many people in nine months as the Troubles did in 30 years. The Terror killed more people than did the Troubles and the Spanish Inquisition combined. In any case, the Troubles cannot really be said to be inspired by religion.
Religion certainly laid the groundwork for the conflict. The bitter disputes of the Reformation were imposed on the Irish by successive plantations in the 17th century. The Irish Catholic identity was thus set in opposition to the English and Scottish Protestant identity. But after more than three centuries, disputes over religion per se were not at the forefront of anyone's mind.
The words Catholic and Protestant now marked out distinct communities living in separate areas with very little meaningful interaction with one another, rarely intermarrying, for example. Religious identity had morphed into political identity. Catholic meant Irish nationalist or separatist. Protestant meant British loyalist or unionist.
It's fascinating to wander around Belfast, as you can do freely today, and look at the many surviving murals from the Troubles. Hardly any of them contain religious imagery or language. It is tribal and political, not at all theological.
It's even more striking to read through the Good Friday Agreement itself and note how little mention there is of anything religious. The topic isn't avoided. The word religion appears twice and religious just once in the 35-page text, each time in connection with the principle of political and spiritual liberty. The words Catholic, Protestant, Church and so on don't appear at all. Instead, refer
references made to Irish nationalists and unionists. It is overwhelmingly a political, judicial and cultural document, not a settlement about religion. One of the things Belfast locals like to point out is that Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in the middle of hostilities and pleaded with everyone to end the violence and follow the way of love.
One third of Ireland's population turned out to see him. The Pope's speech in the town of Drogheda, 30 miles south of Belfast, on Saturday 29th September 1979, is quite something. Worth reading, even if you don't much like religion.
After referencing St. Patrick, the 5th century founder of Christianity in Ireland, John Paul II thanks church leaders from both Catholic and Protestant congregations for their kind invitation to visit their ancient land.
He then confronts the proverbial elephant in the room by mentioning the sufferings of recent years and insists that the tragic events taking place in Northern Ireland do not have their source in the fact of belonging to different churches and confession, that this is not, despite what is so often repeated before world opinion, a religious war, a struggle between Catholics and Protestants.
On the contrary, he says, the shared message of all churches is the love of Christ. I quote, Now I wish to speak to all men and women engaged in violence. I appeal to you in language of passionate pleading. On my knees, I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and to return to the ways of peace.
In the name of God, I beg you, return to Christ, who died so that men might live in forgiveness and peace. He is waiting for you, longing for each one of you to come to him so that he may say to each of you, your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.
The Pope's visit to Ireland was in 1979. It would be two more decades before the warring parties would sign a lasting peace. I doubt the Pope had much, if anything, to do with the final outcome, despite a 2018 documentary suggesting otherwise.
Yet there was a priest who did play a role in brokering the peace. Father Alec Reid's face was plastered on newspapers all over the world when he was photographed kneeling over the bloodied and near-naked body of a murdered British soldier, giving him the last rites. According to the BBC, the soldier had been tortured and shot in broad daylight after driving into the path of a Republican funeral.
The photo was published everywhere, but no one knew at the time that Father Reid was carrying with him that day an envelope containing secret documents outlining a potential roadmap to peace. Father Reid had been acting as a go-between to get the parties together and to convince the IRA to renounce violence in favour of negotiation.
His actions led to the Belfast Agreement, and Reid was present to witness the decommissioning of the IRA's arsenal, watching as members turned in their weapons for destruction. In an article in the New York Times, then Irish Prime Minister Charles Hawkey is said to have regarded Father Reid as the most important person in the entire peace process, bar none. MUSIC
The Pope's words and Father Reid's actions underscore the importance of not racing to conclude that a conflict with superficially religious language, Catholic and Protestant, has much to do with religion itself. MUSIC
We're hard at work on the next season of Undeceptions. We've got full episodes coming on pornography, the Crusades, human flourishing and much more. Until then, I hope you like these weekly Undeceptions singles. See ya. You've been listening to the Eternity Podcast Network.
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