Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 6:20am

Quotes Suitable for Framing: John Ireland

Bishop_John_Ireland_of_Minnesota_as_a_young_man

Be ambitious, seek to elevate yourselves, to better your lot;  too often we are too easily satisfied.  When a man is poor, let him live in a hovel.  I esteem him;  at any moment I tend him the right hand of fellowship;  but if by labor, by energy, he can secure to his family comfort and respectability, and does not, then I despise him.

Father, later Archbishop, John Ireland, Saint Patrick’s Day sermon, St. Paul, Minnesota 1865

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Father of seven
Father of seven
Thursday, July 30, AD 2015 4:49am

Obviously, Bishop Ireland never belonged to the USCCB. If he were alive today, I’m quite sure his brother bishops would correct him in the error of his ways. In particular, his uncharitable, un-pastoral thoughts.

Don L
Thursday, July 30, AD 2015 5:32am

Poverty: that by which all things, both the good and bad, are done in its name.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit…..”

Cthemfly25
Cthemfly25
Thursday, July 30, AD 2015 5:49am

Clear thinking by a Bishop….it’s been a long time.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, July 30, AD 2015 7:07am

When Judas complained (sell and give to the poor) about the woman anointing Jesus with expensive oil perfume, Jesus told us, “. . . .the poor will always be with you, but . . . ”
.
Earlier when St. Peter verbally outburst against Jesus’ telling the Apostles he would suffer, “Get thee behind me , Satan. Thou savorest the things of the World not . . .”

bill bannon
bill bannon
Thursday, July 30, AD 2015 12:42pm

I think the last three words of that quote ruled out canonization. My car was ransacked of cash and a credit card last week which was the first time I ever left them in the car and first time leaving the car door unlocked. Now I consider the thief sent from God for me to pray monthly that God saves him from eternal damnation. I pray for many criminals I’ve encountered actually for decades now even if I almost killed two…and I would not pray for them if I despised them.

Patricia
Patricia
Thursday, July 30, AD 2015 9:41pm

A man with a family who could provide comfort (love/at least daily presence) but does not choose to try is the essential problem with the world going awry. John Ireland had good sense. One hundred fifty years have passed since that quote. So many fatherless children could benefit from hearing that sermon so that the emptiness would move to an understanding of what the problem is, rather than it moving to heartlessness. Despising what man does, does not preclude prayer for him. My guess is that some of our Lord’s time in the Garden of Gethsemane was just that.
Such sermons would serve well if read these days during the Liturgy of the Word – rather than what is made up to be ‘relevant’.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Friday, July 31, AD 2015 1:42am

The Archbishop, like St. Paul, didn’t much cotton to slackers. St Paul=no work, no eat.
John Ireland was a great social justice activist in a good way. He was able to move 4000 impoverished Irish families from New York by securing 400,000 of land for them in Minnesota according Wikipedia. He created opportunities for the poor to get out of poverty by helping them to help themselves. Compare that with Pope Francis ideas of income redistribution.

Tom
Tom
Friday, July 31, AD 2015 8:39am

Interesting. Ireland’s individualistic attitude is demonstrative of the Americanism of which he was a prime proponent. As Dr. Rao explains:

Two distinct Catholic viewpoints regarding the best method of protecting the Church and Catholics in America were in obvious conflict by the latter half of the nineteenth century. One of these was convinced that the battle between Catholicism and American society was an unnecessary one. It has long been labeled the Americanist position. This title is a justifiable one, as shall become clear below, since supporters of the Americanist position gradually grew close to the Americanist faith…. Three names stand out among its more significant proponents: Bishop John Keane of Richmond, sometime Rector of Catholic University; Msgr. Denis O’Connell of the North American College in Rome; and Bishop John Ireland of St. Paul. The opposing viewpoint took a much more critical attitude towards the possibilities of an American-Catholic rapprochement. It may simply be called the anti-Americanist outlook. Anti-Americanism had a very flexible set of supporters. Leaders of German-speaking Catholics frequently espoused it. So did several foreign faculty members at Catholic University. Bishops such as Corrigan of New York and McQuaid of Rochester were more comfortable with its skepticism than with the optimism of the Americanist school.

The Americanist camp clearly prevailed, and one can draw a straight philosophical/theological line from Irealand to John Courtney Murray. Murray, of course, was perhaps the most influential adherents of Americanism, managing to export Americanism into the heart of Vatican II, by authoring and advocating for “Dignitatis Humanae” which universalized the American notion of freedom of religion as a natural right of man and not simply a tolerated evil, and the unacceptability of the social Kingship of Christ being embodied in the laws and ethos of the state.

Ireland also rigorously objected to “Uniate” Eastern rite priests being allowed to function in America, as they were not interested in his project of integrating into American society, or in his ideas about religious liberty. Consequently, many uniates ended up breaking communion with Rome and becoming schismatics.

One small but sure sign of his Americanist, puritanical bent was his role as spokesman for the oxymoronically named “Catholic Total Abstinence Society.” One wonders how much fun GK Chesterton would have such an un-Catholic idea as “total abstinence.”

Tom D
Tom D
Friday, July 31, AD 2015 10:05am

Yes, John Ireland became known as “The Founder of the Orthodox Church in America” thanks to his persecution of Eastern Rite Catholics. About two million (!) of them left the Catholic Church for their Orthodox counterparts or created their own, the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the USA (which is under the authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople). All because, in violation of multiple Papal statements concerning the Eastern churches, he decided that ALL Catholic priests had to be celibate. It was too bad that he ultimately had his way with the Vatican.

Pope Francis has done a few things that might be questioned, but reversing the Ireland-inspired ban of married Eastern Catholic priests in America is not one of them.

Reader John
Friday, July 31, AD 2015 3:52pm

My favorite Archbishop Ireland quotes are “You’re not a real priest!” and “No Eastern Rite Liturgy!,” spoken to Father, now Saint, Alexis Toth, who thereupon led hundreds of thousands of Uniates back to the Orthodox faith (and became my parish‘s Patron Saint).

Tom D
Tom D
Saturday, August 1, AD 2015 2:33am

Don, I have to disagree. The establishment of hierarchies in the U.S. for the Eastern Rite was not the central issue, it was merely the resolution of the issue. The central issue was a lack of charity on the part of Latin rite bishops such as Ireland. To this day there are countries with Eastern rite parishes but without Eastern hierarchs, and Latin rite hierarchs substitute just fine for their Eastern brethren. For some reason Ireland did not see the Eastern rite bishops in Eastern Europe as brother bishops. The same can be said of Europe too, where the aftermath of the 1919-21 Polish-Soviet War saw Polish authorities arresting Ukrainian Catholic clergy because they wanted them to be Latinized. There seems to be no explanation other than xenophobia.

Tom D
Tom D
Saturday, August 1, AD 2015 2:43am

“Ah, the Orthodox, always willing to forgive and forget, in the true spirit of Christ!”

Now THAT I can agree with. I don’t blame the Orthodox for being angry about things like the sack of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade, but I hear crickets chirping when the subject of the Orthodox repression of the Copts in Egypt comes up, a persecution that led directly to the Islamic conquest. It turns out that demanding apologies are easier than issuing them.

Tom D
Tom D
Saturday, August 1, AD 2015 4:19pm

“Ethnic divisions within Latin Rite Catholics made the tasks no easier.”
True enough. The conflicts between ethnic groups were very real, with nearly everyone resenting the Irish for their language advantage (i.e., most Irish did not need to learn English). Just recently an Eastern European in-law of mine described her neighbors from the same country but Eastern rite as “a bunch of drunks”. In the end it largely worked out, and that outcome seems to make the divisions and conflicts all the more unnecessary and painful.

Tom
Tom
Saturday, August 1, AD 2015 8:48pm

For a “phantom heresy” Americanism sure as heck won the day in this country and at Vatican II with JC Murray’s magnum opus, Dignitatis Humanae, which is quintessential Americanism and would probably have been applauded by Ireland and his ilk. Unfortunately, it doesn’t square with Catholic orthodoxy, a problem widely noted, not just by “traditionalists.” But I guess to those who cheer on such things because, well, “America!”, it’s comforting to suppose that Leo XIII was just an idiot who didn’t know what he was talking about or was misled, yadda yadda. You know, same thing liberals always say when the Popes condemn their ideas. Cf, the Modernist movement, which similarly was “shocked, shocked” that Pius X thought anything amiss.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Sunday, August 2, AD 2015 8:41am

Archbishop Ireland was WRONG in his words and deeds to Fr. Alexis Toth. There is no getting around that.

Nevertheless, Fr. Toth was WRONG to take his flock and go join what is, in effect, a schismatic organization. The Church of Constantinople NEVER held the primary see of the Universal Church and its Archbishop was NEVER in charge in any way of the Universal Church. As a result of the Great Schism, the Church of Constantinople left itself open to heresies (remarriage after divorce!) and Constantinople fell under the control of Islam. We all know what has happened since then – divisions in Orthodoxy according to national lines and the constant squabbling between the Moscow Patriarch and the Patriarch of Constantinople.

It was the Catholic Pope of Rome who put an end to the iconoclasm heresy that befell the Christian East – now known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy (really!)

Fr. Toth was not the first Catholic priest to be treated like garbage by a Catholic bishop and he wasn’t the last one, either. I see his actions as taking countless Catholics out of the Church as nothing praiseworthy, to say the least.

Pittsburgh was at the epicenter of the ban on married Eastern Catholic priests that began in the 1920s. Parishes and families were split – and some remain so. The Pope was wrong to enact that edict and the Catholics who ran to Orthodoxy were wrong, too. When something goes wrong in the Church, you stay and you fight and you make things right. Running away is chicken ****.

The Latin Church has done a terrible job of educating its young about the history and the traditions of the Eastern Catholic Churches, but then the Latin Church has done a terrible job of educating its young about the Latin Church, too.

Poland’s long and bitter history with Ukraine, Orthodoxy and the Ukrainian Catholics and the Ruthenian Catholics cannot be summed up easily or quickly. Poland has ALWAYS seen itself as a Western nation and saw the East as a bunch of barbarians. Given the way the Czars ran Russia and that the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the largest empires in Europe, if not the world (at that time), it’s easy to understand that viewpoint.

Dr Rao is one of the writers of the Remnant. Dr. Rao goes off abut things, like Christopher Ferrara does about others, that make me think they have too much time on their hands and are guilty in their own way of wanting to establish a Utopia on Earth (or thinking the Habsburg Empire was just that). Tirades about Thanksgiving I find annoying, just like whining about the American Revolution rebelling against a “so-called legitimate” King George.

Tom
Tom
Monday, August 3, AD 2015 8:19am

Don, what you or I think might be an appropriate position for the Church on religious liberty is irrelevant. The fact is that the Church has never taught that error has rights in the public forum. DH apparently altered that perennial teaching, allowing for teaching and proselytization even in public, and discouraging the very recognition of the Social Kingship of Christ that you point out is rare. One reason it’s rare is that Ireland’s ideas won the day, and post Vatican II, the Holy See actively *discouraged* Catholic governments from according special privileges and protections to the Faith. Ireland and DH both hold the same error, that Truth is entitled to no special place in society, which should simply become a free market of ideas. This appeals to Americans, but is antithetical to Catholic teaching.

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