Thomas Cahill: Civilizations Then and Now

Fifteen years ago in March 1995, historian and author Thomas Cahill published How The Irish Saved Civilization, the first of his seven-volume Hinges of History series. Kara Rota spoke to Cahill about his book's legacy.

I think the disinterest in censorship is linked to the idea of the tolerance of sin, and the acceptance of the cycle of sin and repentance that became the confession, which became the autobiography and then became fiction. I think there’s really a link between the kind of Christianity that Catholicism became to the Irish and the power of literacy there.
Yes. Well, literacy gave them the world and they embraced it.

And now a lot of Catholics are struggling with their relationship with the church.
I think they’re doing more than struggling with their relationship with the church at this point. I think a lot of them want to just close the door on it, and for very good reason. There’s very little hope there, unfortunately. I think that the last two popes have pretty much destroyed the church that Pope John XXIII tried to build in the early 1960s, and I don’t see any chance of its coming back. I think you end up with a very dry and puritanical form of Christianity.

Do you think that that opens the door for a different, more personal kind of Christianity to emerge?
I’d like to think so. I’m not sure that it will. I think it’s hanging by a thread in a way. In Ireland and in the United States, the scandal of – not so much just the pedophilia but the cover-up of the pedophilia, which went on for generations, and was completely supported by the bishops, has left everybody feeling that they’re unable to continue. It’s pretty much coming to an end and there’s nothing to replace it. You can go elsewhere, you can go to a different kind of church, you can interiorize or internalize, but you’re not going to find a countrywide or culture-wide influence anymore, it’s just not there. I don’t see any way of it being brought back.

What are you working on now?
Right now I’m working on Volume Six of the Hinges of History series, which will be about the Renaissance and Reformation.

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