c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _ The fictional Irish saloonkeeper Mr. Dooley once remarked that nothing is ever officially true until the”Raypublicans”admit it is so. These days it’s The New York Times: Nothing is officially true until it appears in the newspaper of record.

So it is now definitive that Ireland is an increasingly prosperous country because the Times recently reported it on the front page. Ireland, it turns out, has caught up and slightly passed Great Britain in per capita GNP (Gross National Product). That means the standard of living in Ireland is higher than that of Great Britain.

Ireland, according to the Times, is now the Emerald Tiger, which is something I’ve been trumpeting for several years. Still, it’s nice to have one’s observations made official.

Ireland has _ and has had for the past several years _ the highest GNP growth rate in Europe, an astonishing 7 percent last year. It also has the lowest inflation rate and the highest favorable balance of payment rate.

London _ which still regards the Irish as superstitious peasants _ will undoubtedly not acknowledge this. But that does not matter. For The New York Times to reveal the economic triumph of Ireland over England is proof enough, and cause for rejoicing by Irish on both sides of the Atlantic.

According to Garret Fitzgerald, an economics professor and former primer minister of Ireland, it is virtually certain that within five years Ireland’s standard of living will surpass Britain’s. Go Emerald Tiger!

How did this happen?

Ireland put an enormous proportion of its money into education. Irish youth are more than twice as likely to seek some form of higher education than are British youth. Moreover, the Irish educational system is rigorous and demanding. Their universities are much tougher than most American universities. The Irish work hard, putting in longer hours than anyone else in Europe.

They are also _ the opinion of much of the world notwithstanding _ a very clever people. They dominate the business software market in Europe. Moreover, the government has nearly eliminated strikes in Ireland by presiding over negotiations between labor and management. (Strikes in Ireland used to be among the most frequent in Europe).

They have also cut taxes, yet their social safety net _ while not as strong as Britain’s _ is still stronger than the United State’s.

All in all, the Irish government seems to have made the right economic decisions. Indeed, Ireland may soon find itself in the role of a donor nation instead of a receiver nation in the European Union.

Of course, the Irish unemployment rate is still a tremendous problem. Ireland must continue to absorb those who might have worked on farms not so long ago. Yet its unemployment rate is no higher than that of Germany and is roughly comparable to that of other EU nations.

All this was reported by the Times. But it was in assessing the nature of Ireland today that the Times went awry when it spoke about the nation’s current relationship with Catholicism.

The Times said the Irish have thrown off the domination of the Catholic Church and are now”post-Catholic.”At best this is a half-truth. Ireland is still the most devoutly Catholic country in the North Atlantic. A recent referendum permitting divorce barely passed.

What is true is that the Irish are Catholics on their own terms, which makes them no different from Catholics everywhere _ even in Poland. It is also true that in the National Opinion Research Center’s recent six-nation study of what kind of pope Catholics hope for, the Irish and the Spaniards are the most radical (the United States is third).

Finally it is certainly true that the Irish are profoundly angry at the institutional church and their own bishops _ the Vatican being especially inclined to appoint incompetents to Irish dioceses.

Nonetheless, the Celtic Catholic worldview permeates the country and is not likely to diminish much over the next millennium. The Irish are Catholic in a different way than they have been for the last century or so, but they are still Catholic in the way their remote ancestors were: Their imaginations are profoundly Catholic.

Imagine how wealthy the Irish might be today if it were not for seven centuries of foreign oppression and the continued British domination of a substantial part of their country.

MJP END GREELEY