IRELAND'S CATHOLIC CHURCH IN RUINS?

 
Burrishoole Abbey, Co. Mayo (photo, E. Barr, 2008)

An Article in Britain's fine Catholic Paper, The Catholic Herald, warns that Cardinal Sean O'Malley, from Boston, one of the visitators appointed by the Pope to investigate the Irish Church, will say that the Catholic Church in that fair land is near collapse and has less than a decade to right itself.  You can check the full article here. 

Is the Church, in fact, near ruin?  Yes and no.  Ireland is now a secular land, but the secularization of the populace proceeds at a slower pace than elsewhere in the western world.  My many trips to Ireland show me an urban population like everywhere else where religion is less significant.  But in the rural areas, the faith seems strong despite scandal from within and criticism from without.  There is a renewal of ancient Catholic life--i.e., the Gaelic traditions of faith associated with pilgrimage and the focus of imbuing ordinary life with Catholic spirituality.  Yet, I think, inexorably, Ireland's deep Catholicism is being eroded.  The episcopacy seems out of touch, consumed by the sexual abuse crisis, and local clergy get by as best they can.  Mass attendance in rural areas is still robust, but without a renewal of priestly life and a more evangelical attitude from the episcopacy, the Catholic faith seems headed to go gently into that night of secular despair.

Can it be saved?  Of course.  The faith will not be destroyed, it will be renewed, the only question is, how soon?  Catholicism as practiced by Ireland for the past two centuries is dead.  And that might not be a bad thing.  It always seemed a continental bandage put on the essential Catholic Gaelic conscience.  The rather sterile formal religion is just not going to appeal to the modern Irish.  But recovering their ancient Catholic roots might be just the thing to regalvanize this wonderful culture.  I'm only Irish in spirit and genetics so my voice doesn't matter so much.  The people will have to do what's right.  And what might that be?  Not liberalism, not trashing the essence of Catholicism, not diminishing the priesthood and the sacraments.  Rather, what's right consists in listening to the wisdom of Patrick, Brigid, Columba and Brendan and that whole host of Celtic saints that gave vigor to the faith in this land in the first place.  The Catholic Church in Ireland will survive, but that's not enough for me.  I want it to flourish, for when I traveled the back roads of that land and found the shrines and ancient places so well tended and visited, it renewed my faith.  God be with the Irish, so that they can re-inspire us.

Comments

[Rev. Robert Lee Bennight]

When I was in seminary, one of my jobs was to drive the president of the seminary, the late Rev. Dr. Timothy Lull, to and from the airport as needed. Given that it was the Bay Area, he and I had many conversations. This was back in the 1990's when we, much like today, seemed obsessed by the implosion of Lutheran faith in America and in Europe. With the bleak future before us, I said during one of these trips and discussions, off-handedly, "There probably won't be a Lutheran denomination left in the Church, at least in America, in fifty years." He scoffed, and said with all the confidence in the world, "Of course their will be. There will always be Lutherans."

What I did not pick-up on at the time was they he did not say there would always be an ELCA, or even a functioning denominational Lutheran body; rather, he was reminding me that faith in Christ will be sustained, his Church will continue and that the core essence of Lutheran doctrine, faith in Christ and Christ alone, would never be forsaken.

Probably the greatest fundamental difference between Lutherans and Roman Catholics that I feel leads to all the other secondary differences is the different understanding of ecclesiology. I think this is the point of contention where there is the least common ground. Still, when I read your blog it reminded me about that conversation I had with Dr. Lull.

Of course the Church is going to survive in Ireland and in America because it is Christ's Church. It may not be what we want or think it should be, and we may disagree about where it can be found, but it has the very presence of Christ itself through the Holy Spirit to sustain it. How can it fail, even if we do?

Thanks for the good read.

Lee

[Michael Kleissler]

It has always been my impression that the evangelical vigor of the golden age of the Celtic Saints was kept alive by their perseverance through centuries of being conquered and persecuted for their faith and culture. I thought of this last weekend when we visited a Vietnamese Catholic center in Carthage, MO. The stories of the Vietnamese martyrs had an impact on us. A faith rooted in martyrdom, white or red, is a beautiful and enduring faith.

I sometimes worry that the secularization of culture tends to paint Christianity as the persecutor or oppressor, and the recent crisis fits the story well and that Catholics will be led astray by this impression. In fact they are led astray. Here is where Robert Lee's words ring true. We need to accept the cross that comes from our sins, and that of the leaders, as well as outside attacks upon her. Perhaps then Christ in his Mystical Body will become evident in ways perhaps hidden by the recent Catholic culture that heed been partly secularized.

I'll pray that a resurgence of interest in the Celtic saints become a seed for true renewal.