Attempts have been made to convince the legislators that they should vote no. The threat of excommunication has been dangled, with the only result being Enda Kenny stating that he is Catholic and Taoiseach but not a Catholic Taoiseach. The Catholic Church doesn't rule any longer, which must be a difficult concept to grasp after nearly one hundred years. Ah for the good old days, when the word of a bishop could snap the Dail into attention....
Where does the Church go to reach people if they aren't in church and the TDs are too busy watching the polls that indicate the Irish public is very much in favor of liberalizing the abortion laws?
Back to the source, of course. To the captive audience, the ones too young to know they are being used and manipulated.
The chairman of a Catholic primary school board in South Dublin just happens to have experience as a spokesman for retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, who would clearly be very much interested in getting the anti-abortion message to the voting public. Eddie Shaw used his knowledge of public relations and communications to solve the problem.
Imagine the shock of all those mothers who rifled through a child's backpack in search of important notes from the teacher, only to find a leaflet inviting them to attend the Vigil For Life.
Outrage would best describe the feeling of those parents. No one wants their child used like a pawn. Ireland had enough of that, back when the poor were locked away in industrial schools in an attempt to remake Irish society by remaking its most vulnerable children.
It turns out that not all the teachers went along with the marketing campaign, either refusing to insert the leaflets into backpacks or conveniently forgetting to do so.
Now Mr. Shaw is under fire by the parents, who are likely to start a campaign of their own. To get rid of Mr. Shaw. And then to get the Catholic Church out of the public school system in Ireland.
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