> I don't deny that it's one-sided to have been shown such videos but I think you're underestimating the doctine of free will. Are you a Protestant, perchance? I jest, but seriously, people are not automatons.
No, I'm Catholic in the same way you are (although most of my education was in American public schools). And I haven't argued that people can't shake off the Church's teachings WRT abortion if they want to. The point is just the pervasiveness of those teachings and the fact that they have had such a great influence that they are still accepted even by many people whose other political views are solidly left.
> Obviously a Northern issue.
There's a similar one raging in Scotland at the moment, FWIW.
> however my main point in, er, presenting you with a reading of the texts is that I think that today's much commented-upon growth in fundamentalist and fundamentalist-lite thinking is overstated and the conclusions drawn about it are often specious.
I wasn't actually aware that there was much growth in fundamentalist thinking. I haven't really encountered much. If anything the trend seems to me to be in the opposite direction. You have your exceptions of course but they tend to be clustered into extremist groups such as Youth Defence and RSF who nobody gives much time to.
> What I mean is that I think their direct political influence is severly waning - Bishop Bob phones up Terry the TD and say 'We'll have none of that, now Terry!" That kind of thing.
Frankly nothing would surprise me with the shower in office right now, but I think to an extent they don't really *need* to make those phone calls. The Government's hardly been challenging them in any important way. I mean look at the recent civil partnerships debate in the Dáil.
Without exception, *every* TD who spoke in the debate said that they support civil partnerships. So why do we still have no civil partnership legislation?
> But I do think there is an opening.
Oh, I think there's an opening too. There have been a number of opinion polls recently that show significant changes in attitudes toward abortion, particularly among young people. But we're still lagging behind other western countries, and I don't see any reason other than the Church's influence why that would be.
> In fact, far from strict morality being a vote-winner, among the chattering classes here in in sunny old south Dublin all I can see as far as politics goes is obsession about stamp duty, whinging about the (admittedly dreadful) health "service", vague environmentalism, fights over car clamping and a good deal of local NIMBYism. I can't speak for other areas of the country, or even other areas of Dublin as I have been living in a bubble consisting of Dun Laoghaire and Belfast for the last nine months.
I'd say you're probably living among the demographic that would be most likely to favour liberalisation of the abortion laws. One interesting thing I've noticed since I've been involved in pro-choice activism here is that the accents of my Irish comrades are all fairly 'neutral' ... there don't seem to be many working class Dubs in the campaign.
> But without faith whither religious morality? It withers, hopefully.
You'd expect it to of course. But the kind of people I've been posting about in this thread - the right-to-life lefties - aren't necessarily religious at all. They mightn't buy the idea of a winged soul coming down from heaven at the moment of conception, but they still accept that sperm + egg = human life with all the rights of the born, they still believe all that garbage about women being pressured into having abortions by greedy babykilling fetishes and suffering psychological trauma for life, etc etc. I mean that's why the Church pushes all that stuff isn't it? They know there's only so much of the population that they can convince on faith alone.