Religion fails to stem the class

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It is a sign of the total bankruptcy of those seeking a solution to the Northern Ireland "problem" that they place such desperate hopes in the pronouncements of the world's leading exponent of mediaeval thought.

But if centuries of Catholic bigotry could not prevent the nationalist population from taking up a struggle against oppression, then the events of last weekend will have no chance of materially affecting the continuation of the war.

Struggle goes on A few days after the Pope's plea to reject violence, the Provisional IRA made it clear that their struggle will continue and that they regard the Church leaders as incapable of solving the material problems which gave rise the conflict.

Though their talk of seeking to discuss with the Pope showed the visible impact on the republicans of the political climate consciously created around the Papal visit, the IRA has clearly continued with the war.

Minute details

The pages of Irish newspapers in the period before the visit were littered with the most minute details of the preparations being made -from the food the Pope would eat at each meal, to the excited report in the Irish Press that the Italian papers taking great interest in the forthcoming visit had reported the collapse of one of the tents in Phoenix Park.

The preparations were however marred by the class struggle, which refused to lie down despite the Pope's visit.

Workers in Limerick complained that their employers were insisting that the day off for the visit should be without pay.

And a pay dispute by drivers who were responsible for transporting electric cable to Phoenix Park continued so near the visit that special generators had to be brought in.

Their dispute with the electricity supply board was only settled after pressure on the workers by the union bureaucrats.

Whatever the capitalist papers say about the Pope's message of anti-violence, the fact that he was unable to specify who he was talking about shows how thin are the lies about "small groups of gunmen".

If the republican movement really had no popular support, and if indeed there was not a full scale war going on in Ireland today, there would have been no difficulty in the Pope spelling out that the enemy was the IRA.

The fact that his speech attacked all violence and blamed politicians for allowing the condition to develop which brought about violence was not lost on Enoch Powell, who said that drawing • the connection between violence and social conditions was "dangerous"

Indeed it is dangerous for the capitalists, whose decaying, brutal system of oppression is the root of violence.

The Pope, the Labour Party conference and Ireland have taken out a virtual monopoly on what passes for news and opinion pages in the press for the past three weeks.

The orgy of idolatry which filled the pages of the newspapers and turned 'hardened cynics' among reporters into stumbling Pope flatterers was not just an interlude in the day to day cacophony.

35:

Lynch crete calls for action that can involve the mass support of parents, teachers, and other local trade unionists in the fight against the cuts.

As the mass movement grows against the Tories, Labour leaders must be judged by what they do, not by what they say.

Yours fraternally Accrington