Another voice
Answer to Question 329
Auberon Waugh
In nearly 20 years of offering sage advice to the statesmen of the world I have so far avoided the temptation of suggesting any solution to the Ulster problem, or even of advising British politicians on how to comport themselves through it. The sanest attitude for a private citizen in the face of so obviously insoluble a problem has always been to thank God it is not his own particular problem. Nobody asked them, after all, to be politicians, to monarchise, be feared and kill with looks. It was all entirely their own decision. Let them get on with it.
However, having watched the behaviour of Cardinal Fee (or O'Fiaich) last week I think I may have some observations on the theological background to his antics which may be unfamiliar to Mr Humphrey Atkins and the Northern Irish office, and which might suggest a course of action which would not lead — heaven knows — to a solution of the problem, but to a means of reducing the present extreme posture of the tribal divide by upsetting the religious element in it, and ultimately of reducing communal antagonism to manageable proportions once again.
Last Thursday, it will be remembered, saw four developments in the never-ending crisis. The first and least important was that Mr Haughey called a general election for 11 June in the Republic, announcing that he sought the mandate for a political solution to the Northern Irish problem. As he did not specify what the political solution would be, I think we may dismiss this, along with Mr Benn's appeal to the UN and Mr Owen's deeply sincere appeal to the EEC, as part of what Mr Healey used to describe as the game of political silly buggers.
The second development was that the European Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg announced that it was to reopen its 1978 investigation into conditions at the Maze prison. Except to the extent that it illustrates foreign — and particularly European — determination to see Ulster in terms of a Protestant versus Catholic colonial war this development would seem to be outside the scope of the present article. In parenthesis, however, I would like to wonder why on earth the British government keeps its Ulster terrorists together in the Maze instead of scattering them throughout prisons on the mainland and sending a fair proportion of ordinary mainland prisoners to the Maze. Under those circumstances they could starve themselves to death, if that was what they wished to do, with a minimum of fuss and publicity; if a man wanted to live naked and befoul his cell, he would be unlikely to receive much encouragement from two cellmates who might he a Glaswegian GBH (grievous bodily harm), a West Indian arsonist, a Geordie Knifeman or even a Yorkshire Ripper. Mr Sutcliffe might easily welcome the opportunity of sharing a cell with some IRA hero who has probably murdered nearly as many people as he has.
The third development was that Mr Paisley's Democratic Unionists won a landslide victory over the Official Unionists in Ulster's local elections, thereby emphasising the religious element in the irreconcilable tribal divide which had already been dramatically illustrated by the Fermanagh by-election. Finally there was Cardinal Fee's bitter attack on the Government's 'rigid stance on prison dress and work', itself dramatically illustrated by the joint Roman Catholic-IRA military funeral of Mr Raymond McCreesh, the terrorist and apparent suicide, on Saturday. I quote from Cardinal Fee's statement: 'The death of Raymond McCreesh exemplifies the cruel dilemma in which Catholics here are caught. McCreesh was born in a comunity which had always openly proclaimed it was Irish and not British. When the troubles began, Raymond McCreesh was barely 12. Before he was 15 he saw those who protested peacefully against discrimination being harassed and intimidated Who is entitled to pronounce him a murderer or suicide? I leave his judgment to a merciful judge.'
The answer to the Cardinal's question, of course, is that everyone who understands the English language understands the meaning of the words 'murderer' and 'suicide'. Neither meaning is influenced by whether or not the person concerned was previously harassed or intimidated for protesting peacefully. In the case of McCreesh, nobody had accused him of murder, since he was convicted of attempted murder, and there is even some doubt as to whether he genuinely committed suicide or whether he was murdered by his family, including his brother Father Brian McCreesh, a point I will come to later.
Perhaps 'murder' and 'suicide' have some different meanings in Celtic — Fee or O'Fiaich is a former chairman of the government commission on restoration of the Irish language — but it is not on any linguistic point that I wish to address him so much as on the murderous Irishness of his argument, which boils down to the proposition that murder and suicide may be justified and pardoned before God in a just cause.
This is not only wrong, but every Catholic knows it is wrong. If we leave McCreesh for a moment and return to last week's funeral of Francis Hughes, who was unquestionably both a murderer and a suicide, and almost unquestionably unrepentant in both activities, and who was also granted a joint Roman Catholic-IRA military funeral, one sees the Catholic Church's posture in Northern Ireland not so much as a scandal or obstacle to faith as an open encouragement to both murder and suicide, There can be no possible doubt that an enormous part of popular support for the IRA's campaign of murder and terrorism comes from its association with the Catholic cause against the Protestant majority. To anyone familiar with Catholic doctrine, the more urgent question is not whether Raymond McCreesh or Francis Hughes can be pronounced murderers or suicides in the eyes of the Church, but whether the wretched Cardinal Fee or O'Fiaich might not himself be so described. Since he has plainly never as much as thrown a petrol bomb, let alone once denied himself a proper meal, I had better explain the point. Questions 328 and 329 of the Catechism of Christian Doctrine — every Catholic layman's handbook — read as follows: 328 When are we answerable for the sins of others?
We are answerable for the sins of others whenever we either cause them, or share in them, through our own fault.
329 In how many ways may we either cause or share the guilt of another's sin? We may either cause or share the guilt of another's sin in nine ways: 1) By counsel 2) By command 3) By consent 4) By provocation 5) By praise or flattery 6) By concealment 7) By being a partner in the sin 8) By silence 9) By defending the ill done.
But even if Cardinal Fee, by some extraordinary Irish twist of logic, can exonerate himself from sharing the guilt of these men — and that of future murderers and suicides — either by consent, by praise or flattery, by silence or by defending the ill done, no conceivable twist or turn can excuse the behaviour of Father Brian McCreesh who not only supervised the apparent suicide of his brother, instructing doctors to give him no food, but also, by some accounts, overrode his brother's last' minute request to end the hunger strike. Obviously it would be a waste of time for the Government or anyone else to look to Cardinal Fee for a clear statement of Catholic doctrine. As I suggested last week, the only hope is the Pope himself, and I simply do not know whether our representation at the Holy See is up to the task of persuading him where his duty lies. If that fails, an alternative would be to arrest Father Brian McCreesh and charge him, if not with the murder of his brother, at least with aiding and abetting his suicide. This would be the simplest and most effective way to confront the Catholics of the Nort.I1 with the extent to which their Catholicism is being betrayed. If only the Government had the courage to do it — and make sure the case was tried by a Catholic judge.
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