Michael Adams, Censorship and Catholic Activism

Abstract

Studies • volume 106 • number 421 49 Michael Adams, Censorship and Catholic Activism1 Patrick Maume Michael Adams’ career displays some interesting exceptions to received generalisations about the cultural-religious divisions of post-1960s Ireland. The fact that Adams was both a leading critic of the pre-1967 Irish system of literary censorship (and the author of a classic text on its workings) and a celibate member of Opus Dei has often been seen as incongruous and, when I began research, I assumed that while his career as a publisher would be welldocumented , it would be difficult to find much about his Opus Dei activities. In fact, his occasional writings, notably reported speeches and letters to the papers from the 1960s and 1970s, mid-1960s columns for the magazine Hibernia, and late-1970s and early-1980s book reviews on Catholic topics in The Irish Press, make it possible to say a good deal about how Adams related his activities to Opus Dei spirituality. These writings also show that he was not a simple pre-Vatican II traditionalist. He was an example of a phenomenon more conspicuous in Britain and the United States than in Ireland – someone critical of aspects of pre-conciliar Catholicism and regarded as a ‘liberal’ in pre-conciliar terms, who saw the Council as a Catholic evangelisation project, which stemmed from the mid-century Catholic cultural revival, rather than as an assimilation of Catholicism to secular modernity. In this way, without having changed his underlying beliefs and attitudes, he was regarded as ‘conservative’ in the post-conciliar era.2 This paper falls into two parts. The first outlines Michael Adams’ life and career, relating his expressed beliefs and actions to the Opus Dei project of developing a Catholic lay spirituality of work and the everyday. The second discusses his comments on literary censorship, not so much in his book Censorship: The Irish Experience (1968), as in occasional journalistic writings before and after the 1967 censorship reform. Extensive quotations from some of these lesser-known writings give an indication of his mindset. There are three preliminary points I would like to make. The first is that I was slightly acquainted with Michael Adams, but never discussed these Michael Adams, Censorship and Catholic Activism 50 Studies • volume 106 • number 421 topics with him. The second is that I have not been in any sense a member of Opus Dei, though I have friends who are members; this paper’s primary focus in discussing Opus Dei is on relating the actions and published reflections of one individual to his vision of its spirituality, rather than an overview of the organisation as a whole. For a survey by a relatively sympathetic outsider I suggest the study of Opus Dei by theAmerican religious journalist JohnAllen Jr.3 The third point is methodological: published statements, often made with an apologetic purpose, do not tell the whole story of a person’s attitudes. Furthermore, Adams’ contributions to the secular press tail off after the early 1980s, possibly because of changes in reporting attitudes, possibly because he was more preoccupied with his publishing activities, so it is harder to trace his reactions to later developments. MICHAELADAMS’ LIFE AND CAREER Michael Adams was born in Dublin on 22 June 1937, the eldest child of Francis Adams, Enniskillen cattle-dealer, victualler and Justice of the Peace for Fermanagh (from a Catholic landowning family), and his wife Mary or Maud (néeAtteridge), born a Protestant, whose father was a County Inspector in the RUC.4 Francis Adams was a member of the hunt and yacht club and had customers in both communities. Adams recalled: [I] was brought up among Protestants whom I treated as well and as badly as I treated Catholics long before the word ‘ecumenism’ became de rigueur for all non-controversial contacts between people of different faiths. Now, instead of that natural, obvious relationship I find that there is a risk that my relationship with non-Catholics will be understood as ‘official’ or smacking of ‘ecumenical activity’… like the parish priest who used to often attend Christening parties of his Protestant neighbours and now finds that such attendance is expected or official or something other than the...