tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post7540652123772722075..comments2023-10-17T12:19:22.853+01:00Comments on The Catholic Heritage Association of Ireland: The Church at Kildare - a lost reality?Catholic Heritage Associationhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16931529213337535429noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post-83817849435817214402010-07-14T17:55:31.964+01:002010-07-14T17:55:31.964+01:00Dear Brigit, I congratulate you for your good work...Dear Brigit, I congratulate you for your good works on this site and your own. We need to gather forces of prayer and grace to bring Christ back to the centre of Celtic Spirituality.Virgo Potenshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11671675001264119757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post-48610987843240010132010-03-18T11:32:49.960+00:002010-03-18T11:32:49.960+00:00Yes, I agree with you and I am certainly not argui...Yes, I agree with you and I am certainly not arguing otherwise. In the past Protestants sought to argue that the Irish Church was independent of Rome and even hostile to it. It's an untenable thesis which although abandoned by serious scholars has, however, received a new lease of life among devotees of 'Celtic Christianity' keen to make the early church here fit into a contemporary mould. Such people portray the 'Celts' as free-spirited egalitarian souls who were not into negative concepts like sin or authority, which they blame big bad Rome for having introduced. It's bunk, of course, but because it taps into contemporary culture it's what a lot of people want to believe. If this scholar is right about the church at Kildare being deliberately modelled on Roman lines it portrays the Irish church not as something peripheral but as an integral part of western Christendom. <br /><br />Thanks for your comment which has inspired me to start working on a post on the topic of irish pilgrimage to Rome!Brigithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10500169174019662556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post-6675652806714090082010-03-17T23:24:28.273+00:002010-03-17T23:24:28.273+00:00Didn't St. Conlaeth die on pilgrimage to Rome?...Didn't St. Conlaeth die on pilgrimage to Rome? <br /><br />Without the obvious Roman references that are to be found the whole of Western Europe except Scotland and Ireland some of us are overlooking the obvious influence of Roman Christianity on the Church in Ireland but they have to paper over a lot of references starting with St. Patrick if not earlier. <br /><br />Where did St. Ailbe come from if not the Roman diaspora?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post-13279222929924648372010-03-13T17:02:31.927+00:002010-03-13T17:02:31.927+00:00I'm certainly not an expert in this area but i...I'm certainly not an expert in this area but it seems that the pendulum has swung back in favour of Roman influence on the Irish Church among scholars. In the past, the enthusiasm for a distinct 'Celtic church' which was supposedly independent of Rome and even opposed to it, denied the reality that the Irish were an integral part of the wider western Church. Yes, there were some distinctive practices in the matter of the dating of Pascha and in monastic practices like tonsure, for example, but scholars now argue that it was not as if everyone else in Europe had a uniformity of practice and the Irish alone were the odd ones out. You can see the Irish regard for Rome in all sorts of ways from the fact that many Irish saints were credited with going to Rome on pilgrimage to the 'threshold of the apostles' to the story that St Brigid herself sent to Rome for the latest liturgical texts. I thought that the theory of the church at Kildare being a deliberate imitatio Romae made sense. I've also been reading a good paper which argues that Rome was the major influence on Irish high crosses. Again in the past, this influence was attributed to Egypt and used to argue that the early Irish Church was more eastern than western. So, my sense is that scholars are now seeing the Irish church in a somewhat different context today.Brigithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10500169174019662556noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post-37830065298156995852010-03-13T13:33:56.892+00:002010-03-13T13:33:56.892+00:00This is a fascinating idea. Are there other exampl...This is a fascinating idea. Are there other examples of the Roman influence in Ireland? I know that there were some Christians in Ireland before Patrick and probably some Romans or peoples with Roman heritage but is there any evidence of a creeping Roman/esque influence in Ireland so early?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post-25820833252365796402010-03-10T02:37:51.410+00:002010-03-10T02:37:51.410+00:00This series is extremely informative and goes well...This series is extremely informative and goes well with the Priests sermon on the occasion of the Mass. Simon.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3503689522096376739.post-15180284991368764172010-03-08T22:19:56.237+00:002010-03-08T22:19:56.237+00:00Well done for another excellent post!Well done for another excellent post!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com