That’s why, when I heard about the Blessed Tree Stump, I immediately imagined a town hall meeting.

‘Now, lads, what are we going to do about this recession? Sure the visitors are hardly stopping in the village, and when they do they’re tight with their cash.’

‘What about the moving statue lark we pulled last time?’

‘Come on now, this is a new century. The modern age. Nobody’s going to want to hear about moving statues in this day and age.’

‘Apparition in a tree stump?’

‘I’ll get the saw.’

Which just goes to show why people like me are never allowed near Community Halls.

The Catholic version seems to have a weakness to appearing to children looking after sheep on mountain sides in the Iberian peninsula and giving them cryptic messages to be announced by the unfortunate kids to the whole world. I feel that if she really means business she should appear to the G8 Sunmmit and give them what for…

Brendan Behan one raised an interesting theological question: if the BVM is the Mother of God, does that make her mother St Anne God’s granny?

As for the tree trunk, I seem to remember reading somewhere during the past few weeks that that Michael Jackson’s image has been seen in a tree trunk somewhere in America, so maybe it’s the season for miraculous tree trunks … or perhaps it’s just that it’s the silly season…

I’m still waiting to read the first piece that engages with this on a cultural/social level and tries to “unpack” its meaning – because (like it or not) it does mean something. Perhaps something interesting. If you’d prefer, of course, you can just roll your eyes and chuckle at the thicko culchies.

you think people that literally believe that bread turns 3,00 yr old dead person should be in charge of school system?

I presume (though it’s hard to be sure) that you’re talking about transubstantiation. Well a) I can’t see how it’s any more/less ridiculous than any other item of religious belief, and b) I can’t see how it’s remotely relevant to the specifics I’m talking about above.

I’m not trying to make any wider point about Catholicism as a social force, so I don’t know why you’re dragging the education issue into it. I wouldn’t, for what it matters, send my daughter to a Catholic school in a million years. But that’s neither here nor there. Merely a personal choice.

The Rathkeale “apparition” is (among other things) an example of a spontaneous, folk-Catholicism doing a bit of self-organising and celebration. I can’t see what it has to do with debates about how the Church, as an institution, has woven itself into the fabric of Irish social, political and educational life.

Care to explain?

superstition ain’t dangerous
you think people that literally believe that bread turns 3,00 yr old dead person should be in charge of school system?

It isn’t. It’s harmless and (without wanting to sound patronising myself) colourful, and it demonstrates that there’ll always be a market for hands-on, tactile religious experiences. Ones you can rub your hands over and take pictures of. I’ve about as much religious conviction as a piece of cling-film, but this is a total soft target and, really, none of my business.

I’d rather stand with stump-lovers than those who think stump-lovers deserve an intellectual ass-whupping.

In a way, Jesus is almost a slightly peripheral figure in Irish Catholicism (or he’s at least part of a sizable team). He certainly shares the stage with Padre Pio, Mary (of course), and a host of popular and useful Saints (St. Anthony being one of the handiest when you’ve misplaced your glasses). This kind of thing probably drives the more intellectual/sober forces in the church to distraction. Reason enough to enjoy and celebrate it.

Speaking of Mary, I particularly enjoy those “our Lady of such and such” cards that feature the BVM on the front and what amounts to a “spell” on the back. Say these lines 5 times after dark, bury the card under a full moon, and your wish will be granted. Completely inconsistent with official church dogma no doubt, but wildly popular all the same. There’s a disconnect between “Catholicism as practice” and “Catholicism as theory” that helps juicy things like this to survive and thrive.

Catholicism repeatedy proves itself amenable to the folk-religion remnants of paganism, druidism and what have you. The garish tat favoured by south and central american adherents is not unlike the gear being sold in Rathkeale, albeit slightly more brightly coloured. In Haiti and Brazil, elements of voodoo and simple superstition have been incorporated into the faith as practiced, if not as preached. The Church there are no happier about it than Fr. Willie Russell, but they presumably know by now that there’s not much they can do about it. Its not so much that people don’t like being told what to believe (thats what relgion is all about, after all) as that they don’t like being told how to believe.

Still, you’ve got to wonder, what is it with Protestantism that leaves it largely free of this kind of unapproved worship? Did it, perhaps, purge all such colourful irrationality from its ranks by burning the shit out of any woman who looked “a bit odd” back in the old witch-finding days?