Tomás Ó Flatharta

Very few leading personalities of the Catholic Church in Ireland actively supported left-wing causes. Father Michael O’Flanagan was one of them, and this is a very interesting biography. This is the source :

‘Ireland’s Father Michael O’Flanagan’ by Cora MacAlbert from The New Masses. Vol. 28 No. 9. August 23, 1938.

There is an very comprehensive account of Michael O’Flanagan’s life on Wikipedia, which concludes “A memorial was placed on his grave by the National Graves Association in 1992 to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. A memorial commemoration organised by the National Graves Association was held at O’Flanagan’s grave in Glasnevin cemetery on August 25, 2019. After an oration delivered by Tommy McKearney a new Celtic cross headstone was unveiled.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Flanagan

1928Spanish Civil WarIrish RevolutionFather Michael O’flanaganCora MacAlbert

A valuable biography of Ireland’s storied, radical priest, and one-time President of Sinn Fein, Father Michael O’Flanagan written on around his work for Spain. The rare priest who supported the Republicans, Father O’Flanagan worked closely with the International Brigade’s Connolly Column.

‘Ireland’s Father Michael O’Flanagan’ by Cora MacAlbert from The New Masses. Vol. 28 No. 9. August 23, 1938.

“The Most Faithful Priest That Ever Lived in Ireland”

WHEN you hear Father O’Flanagan speak you think of all the grand singing phrases you have ever known. His voice is the big, manly voice, the voice of the sea and of the mountains, the voice of him who crieth in the wilderness. For besides the deep sincerity shining in his words, besides the authentic conviction ringing in them of the long-time fighter for freedom who says, “I have been there, I have seen it myself,” there is the beautiful poetry of his words and voice.

His poetry, his fire, his I-have-been-in-it-myself conviction always completely captures his audience. When twenty thousand people at the tremendous July 19 Madison Square Garden meeting stood to give Father O’Flanagan an ovation which they would willingly have kept up all night, chairman Roger Baldwin voiced the sentiments of us all when he said, “Father, if that’s religion, you’ll have us all joining the Church.” When at the luncheon given to him by the Medical Bureau on July 18, Father O’Flanagan said to an audience composed largely of Irish Catholic folk, “Such bad things have been said about me, that I have been afraid I might do you more har-rum than good,” his hearers rushed to deny this with, “Oh, Father, you could do us no har-rum!”

It is very difficult to understand how anyone can hear him and not believe in the cause to which he has devoted his life, the fight for democratic ideals, and the right and duty of Catholics, as Catholics, to participate in that fight. When you read in the Catholic press in the United States, the abuse and calumnies heaped on Father O’Flanagan for his support of the Spanish government, you can think only of, “They have ears, but they hear not.”

While it may have come as a surprise to some in the United States last year, and again this year, to see a member of the Roman Catholic priesthood speaking at open meetings in behalf of Spain, it is no surprise turn in the life of Father O’Flanagan. His history is the rich one of a man who has seen the right thing to do, and done it boldly and ably, unmindful of the penalties to be exacted, in the fields of personal preferment and success.

Father O’Flanagan’s first fourteen years in the priesthood show him an outstandingly proficient and respected servant of the Church. Upon receiving the sacrament of ordination on Assumption Day, 1900, in the Cathedral Church of Elphin, County Sligo, he was appointed a parish priest of the Elphin diocese and a faculty member of the ecclesiastical college of Summerhill. He held these posts until 1904, when at the request of his bishop he made his first visit to the United States to collect funds for the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary at Loughlynn. His appeals here, through a series of demonstrations of Irish lace making, one of the works of the convent, were met with great success.

He was again in the United States in 1910, this time as a delegate of the Gaelic League, which favored revival of the Irish language as part of the program in the Irish people’s fight for independence. He is the author of a standard text on Irish phonetics.

While serving his parish in Ireland, he was invited to Rome to preach in the Church of San Silvestro, and was received by the Pope. He went first in 1912, to give the Advent sermons, and then again in 1914 to preach the more important Lenten sermons. The preaching of the Lenten sermons in Rome is the highest honor that can be bestowed on a priest in his function of preacher.

With the outbreak of the World War, Father O’Flanagan’s difficulties with the Catholic hierarchy began. He advocated the old Irish doctrine that “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity.” He disbelieved England’s recruiting appeal to Ireland, that England’s fight was Ireland’s fight because England was on the side of Christianity, civilization, and small minorities. He attempted to dissuade Irishmen from joining the British army. And in this he came into personal conflict with his bishop, who though an Irishman, maintained the traditional pro-British position of the Irish Catholic hierarchy, even lending the episcopal automobile for recruiting purposes.

Father O’Flanagan, believing the Irish people’s interests were not with England’s fight, stated his belief. Having stated it, he maintained it. During the war years he was speaker at every important Irish patriot rally in Cork and Belfast.

And now he was making himself conspicuous in a way not to the liking of his bishop. He headed his fuel-hungry parishioners in their seizure of a bag of fuel intended for them but not distributed. He opposed a crown representative sent to Sligo to encourage farmers to increase production, with the demand that the government restore to the people the arable lands wrested from them to make cattle and sheep ranches for the landlords.

His bishop retaliated by transferring him from Sligo to Roscommon. So indignant were his parishioners at the transfer that they closed the parish church, refusing admission to the new incumbent. Only at the request of Father O’Flanagan himself did they open it two months later.

In 1916, after the tragic failure of the Easter Week Rebellion, the people of Ireland existed under an English reign of terror comparable only, Father O’Flanagan says, to that of Germany and Italy today. Father O’Flanagan made the first move in fighting the terror in 1917, when he sponsored the election of Count Plunkett. For at an election, things can be said from the platform that can’t be said at other times. And the people knew what Count Plunkett stood for. Three of his sons had been in the Easter Rebellion, one of them hanged, and two of them condemned to penal servitude.

At this time the English tactics in Ireland changed. England was wanting United States support, and her savage treatment of the Irish patriots had not endeared her to Irish-Americans. Those of the Easter Week patriots still alive were liberated.

Together with Count Plunkett, now elected from North Roscommon, Father O’Flanagan initiated the Sinn Fein organization, whose independence program was contained in its name, which means literally, “We Ourselves.” At Sinn Fein’s first annual election, Father O’Flanagan became one of the two national vice-presidents along with Arthur Griffith, under the presidency of Eamon De Valera.

Now Father O’Flanagan’s bishop ordered him to abstain from political activity without written diocesan permission. Father O’Flanagan did not then, as he does not now, concede the Church’s jurisdiction in his activities as a citizen. But for the nonce, he thought it more politic to avoid, or at least postpone, an overt break with the Church, and for some months he remained in the background of the leadership.

But when he was needed he came to the fore. After Sinn Fein had been defeated in three successive by-elections in hostile counties, Prime Minister Lloyd George decided the organization was on the run. He had imprisoned in England De Valera, Griffith, and hundreds of other leading Irish patriots. The day following the mass arrests, Father O’Flanagan stepped into the breach. He had escaped the arrests because England had relied on the Church to restrain him by threat of suspension.

For centuries the hierarchy of the Church in Ireland had used the sacraments against its people and its priests. Irish bishops had refused confession and extreme unction to Irishmen dying in the fight for Irish independence. While when the Black and Tans infested Ireland, those among them who were Catholics were allowed the sacraments. In the same way, the sacrament of ordination had been used as a weapon against Ireland’s many patriotic priests. For the priests of Ireland were with the people’s cause, even as the Basque priests in Spain today. The priests came from the people; there was no middle class to speak of; and it was natural that they should identify themselves with the people’s cause. As Father O’Flanagan says, “Most of the priests were always with the people at heart; the leaders of the great insurrection of 1779 were priests. But, whenever priests made themselves heard they were threatened with suspension. Then they either kept quiet or went on talking until they were suspended, or ‘silenced,’ as we say in Ireland. And once they were ‘silenced,’ they were snowed under. You never heard of them again. There is no more forlorn a figure than a suspended priest pursued by the long arm of the Church. It is a very difficult position for a man, because as a suspended priest he may do his friends more harm than good.”

When in 1918, Father O’Flanagan openly assumed leadership of Sinn Fein, two weeks passed before his bishop decided to suspend him, and another two weeks before the suspension was generally known. And in the meantime, Father O’Flanagan had rallied the movement. The victory of the previous year in North Roscommon was repeated in East Cavan. This time the Church’s suspension was no “silencing.” In the eyes of the people, suspension under such circumstances was an honor, and not even political enemies ever dared refer to him as a suspended priest.

For a year Father O’Flanagan remained acting-president of Sinn Fein. Being suspended, he had no parochial duties, and he was able to devote his entire time to the organization. During the general election of 1918, in which Sinn Fein won, he spoke daily at half a dozen meetings and traveled from one hundred to two hundred miles in between. A master of oratory in a country of orators, he reached every interest of the Irish people, and tarried over 70 percent of Ireland, North and South, in favor of an independent Irish republic. He refused a candidacy himself, because as he says, he did not wish to attempt solution of too many of Ireland’s problems simultaneously. When he had played so major a role in creating the first Dail Eireann, he was content to be attached to it in the capacity of chaplain.

In this position he attended Dail Eireann’s inaugural meeting. Although still officially a suspended priest, he was requested by chairman Cathal Bruga to recite the opening prayer, with the words, “I call upon Father Michael O’Flanagan, the most faithful priest that ever lived in Ireland.”

In 1919 the Church authorities, now listening to the voice of the Irish people’s opinion, removed the suspension, and restored Father O’Flanagan to his Roscommon curacy. But in 1920, at the height of the Black and Tan terror, his bishop sent an additional curate to Roscommon without explanation. The parish priest informed Father O’Flanagan that the new curate was replacing him. Thus, Father O’Flanagan was in the anomalous position of a priest on an indefinite compulsory vacation, but not under ban of suspension or other ecclesiastical penalty. To a man who had been for months in constant danger of assassination by the Black and Tans, freedom to leave a country town of two thousand was, as Father O’Flanagan says, “a blessing in disguise.” So he went to Dublin.

As a representative of the Irish republic, Father O’Flanagan was sent to the United States again in 1921. At the valedictory to him at the national convention of Sinn Fein, President De Valera said, “Father O’Flanagan is more responsible for the present strong position of Ireland than any other living man.”

The Catholic hierarchy in the United States was eager to welcome Father O’Flanagan on his 1921 visit. The Irish cause was now respectable here. In Boston, Cardinal O’Connell made the front page by having himself photographed shaking hands with Father O’Flanagan. In Chicago, Archbishop, now Cardinal, Mundelein was, with Father O’Flanagan, one of the two principal speakers to a meeting of twenty thousand. Will the American Catholic hierarchy feel embarrassed when soon they will have to shake hands with Father O’Flanagan in congratulation over republican Spain?

Father O’Flanagan remained in the United States until 1923, addressing great crowds all over the country in behalf of independent Ireland. Then with J. T. O’Kelly, present chairman of republican Dail Eireann, he was sent to Australia to continue his campaign. The Australian tour was so successful, the Catholic hierarchy complained so persistently of the effect he was having on the Catholic masses that the reactionary government of Australia deported him. When he returned to Ireland in 1925, he was again suspended.

This suspension detracted from his influence with the Irish people as little as the earlier one. He continued his political course, and now embarked on a new undertaking which he had long had in mind. This was to edit and publish the work of the great Irish scholar, John O’Donovan, which had lain hidden for nearly a century. John O’Donovan had collected historical material on every county in Ireland while employed by the British Ordnance Department. His findings were not to the liking of the English authorities and were never published. Father O’Flanagan set to work on these studies and brought them out in twenty-seven volumes.

When his father died in 1927, Father O’Flanagan appealed for his suspension to be lifted. It was his dearest wish to be able to say the requiem mass. His bishop was then in Rome, and the Right Reverend Michael Hart, Vicar-General of Elphin, having the same powers as the bishop, was acting in his place. He removed the suspension. It has never been reimposed.

Last year when Father O’Flanagan was in the United States, the Medical Bureau cabled the Bishop of Elphin several times for his official statement on Father O’Flanagan’s suspension as answer to the scurrilous charges made in the unofficial Catholic press. After two weeks, the Bishop of Elphin answered with this equivocation, “the suspension was not removed by me.” Who said it was? Father O’Flanagan says, “He lied like any small boy pushed into a corner.” When Father O’Flanagan is asked why he hasn’t been suspended again, he says, “What’s the use of silencing a man when he won’t stay silenced? It makes them look too foolish! And you can’t keep punishing’ a man for the same crime!”

If the Catholic hierarchy in the United States is so certain that Father O’Flanagan is a suspended priest now, why doesn’t it come out once and for all with an official statement over an official signature, instead of resorting to the back:-door method of printing its accusations in its non-official press?

When the fascist rebellion broke out in Spain, it was natural that Father O’Flanagan, who has so long fought for democratic ideas, should take a definite stand with the Spanish government. Since the beginning of the Civil War, he has worked in cooperation with Frank Ryan, commandant of the Irish Brigade, which has done such splendid work in Spain. Forming the Irish Friends of Spanish Democracy, he has conducted scores of successful meetings in Ireland for Spain, and it has been largely through his influence that the Free State has not recognized the Burgos government. The wide appeal of his influence in the United States on behalf of Spain is well known to us.

Father O’Flanagan sees danger in the failure of American Catholics to organize themselves to fight fascism, as the Spanish and French Catholics have already done. He reminds American Catholics that fascism was spawned in the mother city of the Church, grew up in the Catholic city of Munich, and is now showing its medals in the Catholic country of Austria.

Is the Church helping fascism, and does fascism help the Church in return? Father O’Flanagan sees that the Church is helping fascism and getting a very bad bargain by doing it. He thinks that the Pope is beginning to realize that it is not good sense to be on the side of Franco when it throws him into the same camp with Hitler and Mussolini, who are out to destroy the Church. He says, “Catholics will get themselves and their Church very badly damaged if they do not organize to fight fascism.”

Commenting on the memorable casuistry of our American Cardinal O’Connell after Franco’s bombing of Barcelona, “It is a lie. General Franco would not do such a thing.

It must have been a military maneuver,” Father O’Flanagan says, “It was hardly a surprise to me to see this eminent churchman make such a fool of himself. His thinking, if you can call it thinking, followed true to the form of a popular story we have in Ireland about a bootmaker and his dead-beat customer. The bootmaker went after the customer and said, ‘Pay me for those boots you ordered.’ And the dead-beat answered, ‘I never ordered those boots from you, and if I ordered them, I never took them, and if I took them I paid for them. So begone with you! I’ll not be paying you!’ “

But the position of the masses of the American Catholics to Spain, Father O’Flanagan feels, ” … is not as disheartening as most of the news would have us believe. All over the country, after every meeting, Catholic communicants come up to me and say, ‘Father, I’m with you, even though my pastor isn’t.’ And very many times American priests tell me, ‘I am against Franco’s fascism. I wish I could come out with it, but if I did I’d lose my job.’”

To such Catholic laymen and priests Father O’Flanagan says, “A Catholic does not owe his political conscience to his priest, the priest not to his bishop, the bishop not to his cardinal, and the cardinal not to the Pope. And it is well to remember that we, as Catholics, do not believe the Pope to be infallible in anything but matters of faith. He is not even impeccable. The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that many of the Popes were very bad eggs. Each and every Catholic layman and priest must answer only to his own conscience in his duties as a citizen. And it must be a very nasty thing indeed, to examine your conscience, if you support Franco’s fascist terror in Spain. And I say to all men, that a man’s manhood, the right to follow his own conscience, is more important than his job!”

The New Masses was the continuation of Workers Monthly which began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Communist Party publication, but drawing in a wide range of contributors and sympathizers. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and The New Masses began. A major left cultural magazine of the late 1920s and early 1940s, the early editors of The New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, and Joseph Freeman. Writers included William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. Artists included Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Boardman Robinson, Wanda Gag, William Gropper and Otto Soglow. Over time, the New Masses became narrower politically and the articles more commentary than comment. However, particularly in it first years, New Masses was the epitome of the era’s finest revolutionary cultural and artistic traditions.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1938/v28n09-aug-23-1938-NM.pdf