Maria Duce

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Maria Duce (Latin for With Mary as our Leader) was a small Catholic Integrist group active in Ireland, founded in 1942 by Fr Denis Fahey.[1][2]

History[edit]

Like its founder, Maria Duce was avowedly anti-communist. Through their front organisation, 'Catholic Cinema and Theatre Patrons Association' (CCTPA), they picketed a visit by film star Danny Kaye and campaigned against visits by actor Gregory Peck and writer/director Orson Welles, all of whom they accused of being communists.[3][4] Also, like its founder, the group espoused antisemitic views.[5][6]

The group's principal aim was to embed Catholic doctrine in the legal structure of the Irish state, including recognition of the Catholic Church as the established church of Ireland, as it had been in Spain until 1931.[7] This latter step had been contemplated during the drafting of Éamon de Valera's 1937 Constitution of Ireland, but it was ultimately rejected in recognition of the obstacle posed by Ireland's relatively large Protestant minority and due to aspirations for Irish unity and the detrimental effects such a clause would have on the unionist population in Northern Ireland.[7][8] It did emphasise the "special position" of the church, with no specific legal entitlements.[9]

Though Maria Duce's membership probably did not much exceed one hundred,[7] its monthly journal Fiat enjoyed a fairly wide circulation in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[citation needed] The movement was not encouraged by the Irish bishops, who viewed its extremism with suspicion and desired not to become associated with Fr. Fahey's writings and statements. It was ordered to change its name by the Church authorities in 1955, a year after Fahey's death, by the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid (a former pupil of Fahey's and a fellow member of the Holy Ghost Fathers), in order to make it clear that it did not have official Church approval.[7][10] As Fírinne [Irish for "truth"] it remained in existence until the early 1970s, publishing FIAT and organising pilgrimages to Fr. Fahey's grave in the belief that he would one day be canonised as a saint.[citation needed]

John Ryan, the long time editor of The Irish Catholic Newspaper, was secretary of Maria Duce for a time.[11] The IRA member Sean South (killed in the 1950s border campaign) founded a local branch of Maria Duce in Limerick.[12]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Powell, Fred (2017). "Five - The welfare state debate". The Political Economy of the Irish Welfare State: Church, State and Capital. Policy Press. p. 137. doi:10.1332/policypress/9781447332916.001.0001. ISBN 9781447332930. The most notable exception was Fr Denis Fahey who founded an extreme right-wing social movement known as Maria Duce ('under Mary's leadership') in the mid-1940s. Maria Duce contained only a small cadres of members (though it was able to attract large crowds to its public meetings) and its appeal was mainly limited to the discontented lower middle classes.
  2. ^ Bevant, Yann (2014). "The Aggiornamento of the Irish Catholic Church in the 1960s and 1970s". Études irlandaises (39–2). Presses universitaires de Rennes: 39–49. doi:10.4000/etudesirlandaises.3902. ISBN 9782753535596 – via OpenJournal. Maria Duce was probably the most integralist movement in Ireland in that period. At this stage a definition of what is meant by integralism. Whereas Christian Fundamentalism is defined as "the belief that everything in the Bible is completely true" (Collins Dictionary), integralism is the belief that faith can only be lived out in an integral way, which means that the Church is expected to teach its precepts integrally and does not depart from them under any circumstance, and the faithful have to respect those precepts fully. À la carte Catholicism, in other words, is not an option.
  3. ^ Gannon, Sean (2010). "'Schools of Corruption:' The Contexts for Seán South's Antisemitism" (PDF). The Old Limerick Journal. p. 17. Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  4. ^ Mathews, Arthur (2024-03-06). "Arthur Mathews reviews 'Red Stars over Hollywood' pamphlet from 1949 regarding perceived Communist propaganda in movies". RTÉ (in Irish). Retrieved 2024-04-21.
  5. ^ Athans, Mary Christine (1991). The Coughlin-Fahey Connection: Father Charles E. Coughlin, Father Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., and Religious Anti-Semitism in the United States, 1938–1954. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 9780820415345.
  6. ^ McCausland, Nelson (2017-01-05). "Why no public outcry at Gerry Adams paying homage to the notorious fascist thug Sean South?". BelfastTelegraph.co.uk. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2024-04-21. The founder of Maria Duce taught that communism was an international conspiracy organised by Jews and Freemasons, and in March 1950 the secretary of Maria Duce called for Ireland, as "a Catholic state", to "suppress non-Catholic sects as inimical to the common good". He added that "such intolerance is the privilege of truth".
  7. ^ a b c d Delaney, Enda (2001). "Political Catholicism in Post-War Ireland: The Revd Denis Fahey and Maria Duce, 1945–54" (PDF). The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 52 (3): 497, 510, 511. doi:10.1017/S0022046901004213.
  8. ^ Mohr, Thomas (2021-11-08). "Religious Minorities under the Constitution of the Irish Free State, 1922–1937". American Journal of Legal History. 61 (2). University College Dublin: 271–272. doi:10.1093/ajlh/njab002.
  9. ^ Meehan, Niall (2019). "Article 44 Reconsidered". History Ireland. 27 (1): 45–46. JSTOR 26566005.
  10. ^ Dermot Keogh: The Vatican, the Bishops and Irish Politics 1919-39, p. 278
  11. ^ d’Alton, Ian (2010). "A Protestant Paper for a Protestant People: The Irish Times and the Southern Irish Minority". Irish Communication Review. 12 (1): 68–69. doi:10.21427/D7TT5T. It spoke to the Times's ethic of state unbiased towards any one religious viewpoint as evidenced by the vigorous debate, also early in 1950, on what became known as 'The Liberal Ethic', in which it and its correspondents took on such well-known champions of Roman Catholic hegemony as J.P. Ryan, secretary of Maria Duce, and Westmeath County Council (O'Brien, 2008: 133–6).
  12. ^ A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, D.J. Hickey & J.E. Doherty, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin 2003, ISBN 0-7171-2520-3 Pg.452
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