Book Review: The Politics of Irish Primary Education: Reform in an Era of Secularisation

Abstract

liturgical celebration exclusively to the texts used; there is no mention to the prayers at the presentation of the gifts, but also no mention that the elements used in the Eucharist itself are bread and wine, and in other sacramental celebrations water, oil, and other gifts of the earth. McDonagh goes onto state that ‘. . . [in] the Eucharist prayer found in the Apostolic Tradition, which dates from 215 CE, God is thanked for the gift of creation’ (p. 9); the support for this assertion given in the endnotes on p. 153 is the 1945 edition of ‘The Shape of the Liturgy’ by Gregory Dix. Current research works, notably by Paul Bradshaw and others, have shown that the Apostolic Tradition is a piece of living literature reflecting traditions of different eras and probably different places, which did not reach its final state until much later. This is especially true for the anaphora found in it; no serious liturgist would today use this edition of Dix without the many corrections made to it by many scholars over the last 30 years. This little book is an important contribution to what is now a crucial debate on the future of this planet and indeed of creation. It clearly outlines how theology is challenged and indeed changed by ecology, and Dermot Lane bravely sets out possible avenues of responding to these crucial questions.