Re: holy smoke

Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Wed, 14 Oct 1998 11:35:58 -0400 

On Wed, Oct 14, 1998 at 04:04:04PM +0100, helena kim wrote:

> i would say that this is not a sign of strong faith in irish youth.

Oh, no -- me neither.  I didn't mean it as a sign of faith.  I meant it
as an indication of how ingrained was the Catholicism.  And of how easy
it is to be reduced back to a Catholic-school child mentality.  Even for
the "rebellious" among us.

I guess I didn't succeed in indicating how amusing I thought it was.

> 1) in ireland, all state schools, are, by default, catholic. unlike in the
> states, where the schools have no religion. when i was in the 6th grade at
> 12 years of age, we all made our confirmation. the only way to escape this
> was to get your parents' and the school's permission. thus, out of 150 kids
> in my year, 1 girl left primary school 'unconfirmed'. 

Ah, a lot like Brooklyn!

> the rythym of mass you mentioned isn't from regular mass going. it's from
> being forced to attend services in schools. the familiarity the kids you
> saw expressed for the format of the mass isin't a sign of a strong faith in
> god

I guess (boy, I must have been full of holes this morning 8-) I meant to
show that it was funny to me that I was taking my cues from the kids
around me who were themselves doing the robotic thing.
 
> 2) christmas and easter are times of the year when people who never
> ordinarily go to mass, go. i for one, go on those days, not from any degree
> of faith, but in order to keep my mum happy. she likes to think the system
> works. and *especially* midnight mass. 

Yup, it's like that here too.  That is what I was referring to about the
priest pointing out how people only show up semi-annually....

I used to tell my parents I was going to mass, but then go for a walk
in the park instead!

> go to after the pub kicks them out (serving hours stop at 11pm) and they
> are drunk and feel amotional and guilty and decide to go and pray for good
> things to happen to them in the new year. (bear in mind that there is,
> essentially, no control on drinking age here)

On my way to that church, I saw several people who were drunk and rowdy
getting kicked out of the pubs, and in fistfights (one huge woman threw
a prizewinning punch at a drunken wreck of a man and sent him flying
onto the hood of a parked car), and of course some of those people showed 
up at the church too.  But they all were worse than I; they lined up 
against the back wall as if they were facing a firing squad.

> imagine a nation where everybody went to a strict catholic school. now
> imagine how dysfunctional they'd be...
> 
> you get the idea. :)

Yes ... 12 years of Catholic school did it for me.

> what part of ireland were you in? i just find this fascinating, because
> i've lived here all my life, and am taking three theology courses this
> semester, and i don't think i've ever seen anyone who wasn't a child or
> senile, in the thrall of the church.

My family is in Kerry, in the towns of Tralee and Ballybunion and
Listowel and probably a couple of other towns I don't know about.

I will say that the older people (and because I was there at a time of a
funeral, I met a lot of older people) seemed genuinely to have the kind
of faith that I don't see often.  They weren't senile, and they were not
especially old -- it's just that the ones I saw had it ingrained and
seemed to be sincere in their belief.  It happens not to be a faith I
share, but I was a guest in my aunt's house and in the town, so I kept
my (infidel) thoughts to myself.

> ps. i'm very sorry about your uncle's death.

Thanks ... it saddens me to think about, and it was unnerving to help
carry his coffin to my family's plot (it was my first and only visit 
there), where I saw the names of so many people I had loved, and people 
I had never been able to meet.  But I felt good about restoring contact 
with relatives I had not seen in years, and in learning of some I had 
never known.
 
And the smell of the peat in the air was lovely.

--tim

ObSalinger reference: In the rainy days as I walked around the church
and the commercial part of the town, I thought a lot of "Esme" and that
little choir practice.