The Globalization of God

- Roman Catholicism was the first multinational corporation - Preaching was the forerunner of advertising - Roman Catholicism created the template for the spread of commercial globalisation through multinational corporations - For global Christianity to succeed all local expressions of Christianity had to be suppressed. These included Celtic Christianity. For 800 years the Roman church tried to break the independent spirit of Celtic Christianity - Despite being defeated in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf, the Irish Vikings, through their urban bishops, were key actors in the imposition of Roman episcopal structures of church throughout Ireland in the 12th century - There was an 'invasion' of Norman monks to Ireland which began in 1142, twenty-five years before the military invasion in 1167 - The ecclesiastical colonisation of Ireland meant that: - a Roman episcopal and diocesan structure replaced the Celtic monastic structure - Norman colonisers destroyed Celtic monasteries and replaced them with imported European religious orders - Cistercian monasteries in Ireland were required to have French abbots and sometimes these were imposed by force - no Irishman was allowed to become a bishop or attain any ecclesiastical high office - St Malachy of Armagh betrayed his own Celtic heritage and was a key figure in bringing about the ecclesiastical colonisation of Ireland - Monotheism is the mythical container for globalization - Humans will fail to return to a sustainable way of living on this planet until the mythological container of monotheism is replaced by new bioregional spiritualities that go beyond both monotheism and polytheism