“Nothing has for the past two hundred years played a more important part in the religious history of the Anglo-Saxon world than the Irish connection, in both its purely Catholic and its ecumenical aspects.

Regarding the former, Paul Blanchard has in The Irish and Catholic power presented a startling analysis. Especially his chapter on ‘The Irish Catholic Empire in America’ shows how in 1953 the Roman Church of this country- and for that matter, of the entire English- speaking world was dominated by people from the Emerald Isle. Every cardinal in the United states was of Irish extraction-Spellman in New York, Mooney in Detroit, Stritch in Chicago, and McIntyre in Los Angeles. (Moreover, every other cardinal in the English- speaking world was of Irish stock-McGuigan in Toronto, Griffin in London, and Gilroy in Sydney.)

But in another way, too, the ecclestical impact of Ireland has been immense and possibly even more dangerous to the Protestant world. In the later nineteenth century, Futurism- particularly through its espousal by Irish Catholic Anglicans- largely neutralized the first angels message in the British Isles. More than that, it did much to Catholicize the Church of England and also to prepare the way for the ecumenical movement of the 20th century.” (Edwin de Kock, Use and Abuse of Prophecy, 2007, 43-44)