Religion
Central to their lives and culture to the Irish was their religious faith; institutional religion served as the pivot for a great deal of Irish life in Newfoundland. Several of the leading Irish merchants and propertied men were Protestants and brought the traditions of the Orange Order to their new home. However, the majority of the Irish were Roman Catholics and many sought to recreate in Newfoundland the institutional Roman Catholicism which they had known in Ireland. As a result, the institutional church which emerged over the next 50 years became the single most important ethnic, social and cultural institution for the Irish in Newfoundland, and its various clergy and leaders were the de facto leaders of the Irish community in Newfoundland.
Read more about this topic: Irish Newfoundlanders
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.”
—Thomas Hobbes (15791688)
“Not thou nor thy religion dost controule,
The amorousnesse of an harmonious Soule,
But thou wouldst have that love thy selfe: As thou
Art jealous, Lord, so I am jealous now,
Thou lovst not, till from loving more, thou free
My soule: Who ever gives, takes libertie:
O, if thou carst not whom I love
Alas, thou lovst not mee.”
—John Donne (15721631)
“The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassadors chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)