papacy

papacy. The popes, as bishops of Rome, enjoyed a primacy in the western church. Its purpose was to ensure unity of faith. In 431 Pope Celestine (422–32) sent Palladius as bishop to the Christian Irish. Patrick does not appear to have been dispatched by the papacy. Over time the isolated Irish church developed distinctive practices, retaining, for instance, an older method of calculating the date of Easter. In the ensuing paschal controversy, Nativists (Hibernenses) clung to the old ways while Romanizers (Romani), encouraged by Pope Honorius I (625–38), who received an Irish embassy in 630–1, opted for the Roman practice. The Irish conformed to Rome after the Synod of Whitby (664). How deep this conformity was is difficult to say, but according to recent research an early 8th‐century brehon law text unambiguously endorsed Roman primacy.

There is little evidence of Roman‐Irish contact until the 11th century when the papacy embarked on a reform drive to strengthen its jurisdictional claims. In Ireland this culminated in the Synod of Kells (1152), presided over by Cardinal Paparo, which confirmed a European‐style diocesan system. In 1155 Hadrian IV's letter Laudabiliter, probably issued at the behest of Canterbury, placed Ireland under the lordship of Henry II, ostensibly in the hope of furthering reform. The incompleteness of the Anglo‐Norman conquest produced differences of organization and culture within the Irish church, and complicated papal relations with Ireland. The papacy continued to uphold the English title to the island; John XXII, for instance, rejected the argument of the 1317 Remonstrance that the failure of the English to honour the terms of Laudabiliter justified the Irish in transferring their allegiance to Edward Bruce. But the same pope urged Edward II and Edward III to treat Irish grievances seriously.

The loss of papal revenue during the popes' exile in Avignon (1305–78) and the loss of authority during the Great Schism affected Ireland. Hungry for revenues, papal bureaucrats granted dispensations for the ordination of sons of priests, and native Irish clergy in particular, among whom the hereditary system persisted, became accomplished ‘Rome‐runners’. By the early 16th century reform was in the air. In 1536 the Irish parliament declared Henry VIII supreme head of the church. The papal response was indecisive. Ecclesiastical penalties, such as Pius V's Regnans in excelsis (1570), and support for Counter‐Reformation crusaders like James FitzMaurice FitzGerald, were accompanied by internal reform initiatives. The Council of Trent (1545–63) elaborated reform programmes which slowly affected Ireland. The reformed papacy targeted episcopal appointments, establishing a special congregation for that purpose by 1572. It nominated bishops to Irish sees even where temporalities were alienated and the new bishops' faculties often extended beyond inherited ecclesiastical boundaries. In the absence of an established Catholic church, Irish affairs were channelled through the Nunciature in Brussels (see Nunziatura di Fiandra) to Propaganda in Rome. By the 1590s an Irish Counter‐Reformation religious community had been established, committed to the papacy.

The papacy was anxious lest Irish Catholics' efforts to find a political accommodation with the Protestant state might dilute its authority. These fears were realized during the complex political struggles of the 1640s, when Old English Gallicans were ready to compromise on papal authority, but the Old Irish, encouraged by the papal nuncio Rinuccini, pushed for an established Catholic church. Old English Gallicanism surfaced again in the Remonstrances of 1661 and 1666, but the Revolution of 1688 hardened attitudes. For the Irish Protestant state, continued loyalty to pope and Stuarts (see Jacobitism) made Catholics ineligible for basic civil rights. Throughout the era of the penal laws, the papacy remained active in Irish church affairs through episcopal appointments and the regulation of disputes between regular and secular clergy. Clement XIII's refusal to recognize the Stuart succession in 1766, ending the Stuart right to episcopal nomination, opened new possibilities for Irish relations with Rome.

As Catholics regained civil status the question of papal loyalty was again politically topical. In 1772 parliament approved an oath of loyalty for Catholics but its anti‐papal phraseology divided bishops and laity. Reform came anyway but the French Revolution and the insurrection of 1798 changed everything. The papacy swung in behind established authorities and during the veto controversy was more anxious than the Irish bishops to appease London. It was the genius of 19th‐century Irish Catholicism to blend domestic political liberalism with staunch ultramontanism. The papacy never intervened directly in Irish affairs but was the focus of ecclesiastical politicking as episcopal factions lobbied Rome on questions of church‐state co‐operation, notably in education. The Syllabus of Errors (1864) condemned the separation of church and state. Yet even Cardinal Cullen realized that separation with voluntary co‐operation was in fact the relationship that best served the interests of the Irish church. While most Irish bishops accepted the definition of papal infallibility (1870), they saw its limits when applied to political matters. When Leo XIII declared the Plan of Campaign unlawful in 1888, Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin made his objections known to Rome.

After independence, elements of social Catholicism found their way into legislation but their effect was minimal. The Eucharistic Congress (1932) probably marks the high point of Irish ultramontanism. A new phase of modernization in Irish society coincided with Vatican II. Apparent doctrinal confusion and pastoral indecisiveness followed, giving way to a period of consolidation under John Paul II, who visited Ireland in 1979. He paid special attention to episcopal appointments and doctrinal renewal.

Bibliography

Keogh, Dermot , Ireland and the Vatican: The Politics and Diplomacy of Church‐State Relations, 1922–1962 (1995)

Thomas O'Connor