Within a Europe that is abandoning its traditional values as decisively as an iceberg in the Caribbean, no country seems to be changing as irreversibly as Ireland. A land that not so long ago saw itself as a moral rival to the Vatican has effectively abandoned Catholicism for doctrinaire secularism, the narrow-mindedness of which is almost a mirror image of what it left behind. What both Irelands have in common is an official pseudo-tolerance that pretends to respect “diversity” even as it demonises dissent. There is no “populist” party in Ireland such as Alt-fur-Deutschland or Reform in the UK, and why would there be? After all, everything is tiptop and perfectly well in the state of Ireland, just as it was for Humpty Dumpty.
Yes, most thinking people know that this new Ireland is a sham, just as the same can be said about this new Europe. The heart is hollow. What is gone is any generic sense of a worthwhile future for which this generation lives and breeds. Previous generations strove towards tomorrow: Now we live solely for the present. Quite simply, any society that treats homosexual marriage as being equal to the traditional kind and abortion on demand as a fundamental human right is probably doomed within a couple of generations. The incorporation of these two existential rejections of Christian traditions into living law serve as markers of the total triumph of dogmatic, liberal secularism throughout society.
This may loosely but appositely summarised within the DEI heresy, for dei is also the Latin plural for gods, which is precisely what those liberal precepts have become. The values themselves are now more important than the lives that they rule, which of course makes them gods. And how can mere humans change those values that are themselves gods? Moreover, any public indulgence in old fashioned Christianity will be ruthlessly attacked by secular-vigilantes who have inherited the mantle of vicious intolerance. The Ireland editor of Ireland’s best-selling daily newspaper, The Irish Independent, Fionnán Sheahan recently discovered the price of bearing the traditional cross on his forehead on Ash Wednesday – namely, ferocious on-line mockery and abuse. What was once an almost unanimous (and not inaccurate) national declaration of personal and spiritual modesty – from ashes we come and to ashes we shall return – became the perfect opportunity for Ireland’s secularist bigots to lynch him on-line. One can be absolutely sure that no Muslims would be vilified for celebrating their religion in such modest, low-key fashion. Secularists are only secular about Christianity: In their eyes, Islam is a religion of peace, and Islamophobia is an evil curse upon personkind.
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