Johnny Panic

As an American of Irish descent whose (recent) ancestors were driven out of Ireland by policy, economic exploitation, legal oppression, and other criminal conduct done in that family's name, I find the existence of the British monarchy in the 21st century outdated and beyond absurd, roll my eyes at it, and could care less about its troubles (though on a personal level I do truly like the queen and some of the royals, it's just their jobs that are illegitimate), and sort of like the thought of witnessing its downfall. Memory of trauma is inherited and that was passed down to at least my parents' generation (I can't judge for what impact, if any, it has had on me), the trauma of that migration and its reasons still weigh on many Irish-Americans (the Irish in Ireland tend to have a more diplomatic take, and it's from a different perspective, as Irish and Irish-American communities are distinct but related cultures and based on different experiences (and Marky Mark or Affleck/Damon movies set in Boston are not really representative of most of the Irish-American experience, or even the Boston Irish-American community)), but venerating the royals on St. Patrick's week is in sort of poor taste. Anyhow, that's not really why I'm writing. I renounced catholicism in my early twenties, and I agree mostly with what Bryan and Erin said about the Catholic Church (speaking about inherited trauma, amirite?!), and it's important to point out the Curia and especially the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith for what it is: a bunch of clueless out of touch wannabe drag queens with zero moral authority, however if one takes a more expansive view of the church to include its members beyond the curia and hierarchy, the Church's recent statement on gay unions has garnered a lot of pushback. Here are two articles from the Irish Times (Ireland's newspaper of record, and an excellently written one at that) that you may find interesting, one very critical of it from a Cork priest who more or less says he can't in good conscious follow or agree with the CDF's , and one extremely critical of the Pope from the former President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, who even cited pushback from Ireland's Association of Catholic Priests: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/co-cork-priest-says-he-would-bless-marriages-of-same-sex-couples-1.4514578 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/mcaleese-criticises-pope-as-populist-who-raises-then-dashes-hopes-1.4513913