I get a knot of anxiety in my stomach when I hear news of another documentary about religion or, rather, about Catholicism in Ireland. It isn’t because I am squeamish and don’t want to face up to the scandals the Church has faced and been part of in Ireland, or because I can’t deal with a good debate.
It is because I know I am going to be gaslit, as modern parlance has it. I am going to encounter half the story, with half-truths and half-lies, and subtle sub-currents of dismissal and disdain.
I should add that I don’t particularly like these modern terms that have entered our lexicon: gaslighting, dog-whistling, stove-piping. They are often a lazy shortcut to dismiss the arguments of another and to try to end an argument, or to establish something as an objective truth while bypassing deeper understanding and the fact that something is more complex. That said, they can be used back at those who wield them so readily in order to push their dubious agendas – as happens all too often with documentaries about Catholicism in Ireland.
