Sean O Conaill, Voice of the Faithful IrelandNo. There is certainly a problem with the governing institution of the church. That institution has totally run out of credibility.
But the church is in its essence honest people who listen to the gospel and put it into practice.
And there are people like that within the church, some of whom are bishops.
This whole problem of protecting the clerical institution as if it was the church, that has to stop, and I think I see this is happening.
Cardinal Brady's homily [on St Patrick's Day] was almost as if he has woken up to the fact that keeping things hidden is the wrong thing to do.
So I think what has happened could be a positive thing.
A whole new conversation has to begin between the summit of the church and the people in the pews.
Since 1965 we have not had the process of dialogue and collegiality which we were supposed to have.
Everything is colliding to bring about change. It is a time of hope and promise.
I think a lot will depend on what happens next.
I would feel the bishops have to start some kind of conversation with others.
I think people who feel this is the last straw for their Catholic faith should wait and see what the outcome of this conversation is – and seek an opportunity to participate.
Gary O'Sullivan, Editor of 'The Irish Catholic'When we look back on this in 50 years' time, I do think at least in North America and Europe, in terms of child abuse, it will be seen as having been morally bankrupt.
But at different times throughout its history, the Catholic church has been morally bankrupt: when it sold indulgences or there were corrupt Popes.
So the church as we know it has been morally bankrupt many times in its history.
People have kept their faith in the past and the church has lived on.
While at this time in our history the church is going through this terrible crisis, which it brought on itself, you don't have to go back very far to a time when people in Ireland were being persecuted because of their faith in the church, and priests were risking their own lives to protect them.
So times can change.
But the only role it can have is the role of the early church founded by Jesus Christ. It has to renew itself to go back to its beginnings.
There are plenty of people who maybe feel like they have to leave the church, and who can blame them?
But they need to hold their nerve.
What we're having now is a clearing out of everything that was bad about the church in the past.
The pride, the arrogance.
The hierarchy is being dragged kicking and screaming into a new church.
Marie Collins, Abuse survivor and campaignerI'm still a Catholic because I do believe the Catholic church is the church that was founded by Jesus Christ.
But I think at this present moment the Catholic church is morally bankrupt.
It certainly no longer has any moral authority in Ireland.
Its leadership has shown itself to be totally inadequate and so many of the leadership have been involved in the secrecy of the past.
Being too involved and too faithful to church law and canon law, they have lost sight of the ordinary people. Too much power has led to arrogance.
We're told all the time the laity is the church, but the actions of the hierarchy don't show that they really believe this.
Among ordinary lay people, everyone wants to know what they can do; there is a great feeling of frustration.
I think the only hope for the future is that the laity are part of the governance of the church.
I've been struggling for the last few years to try and hold on to my faith and to be honest, I'm just holding on by my fingertips, in the hope we'll get change.
I'm doing my best but when you have no respect for the leadership and no trust in them, when you see that they see themselves as the church, that's the hardest part.
My biggest struggle, my reason for staying in, is I don't want to let these men take my faith from me.
Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Féin vice president and mother of twoI wouldn't use the term morally bankrupt. If you were to say the church is morally bankrupt then you are saying all of its components are morally bankrupt. But the church is about more than its leadership.
An awful lot of clergy and priests are doing really outstanding work.
For a very long time they have been real champions of the people, those who are homeless or confronted with real difficulties.
But in terms of the leadership in the church, the institution within the church, it is in deep, deep crisis.
The hierarchy has not handled the matter of abuse perpetrated by priests in any acceptable way.
As someone who brings her children to mass on Sunday, I believe the church needs to reform.
The highest standards of child protection need to apply.
In all likelihood I imagine that the church and the hierarchy have to be aware of the kind of challenge that confronts them.
Notwithstanding all of the awfulness that is now being told and the stories around abuse, I think people also know the clergy and Catholic schools did a lot of good.
But I think people are deeply, deeply troubled. I think what people want to see is that change will happen.
Alice Leahy, Co-founder of the homeless organisation TrustI do think the church is in a terrible state. Older people who had huge respect for the church all their lives, they feel so sad, because everything they believed in has been shattered.
I'm hearing this pain from older people who would never have criticised or questioned the church, and they are kind of apologising for this. But nobody is listening to them.
Out of all this has to come some good. The church isn't the only institution where people do not speak out. We're not looking at the care of children, foster homes, for example.
In my work with homeless people, I've come across people in the health service who know of terrible things, and won't speak out because of the need to protect the institution, and the fear of isolation.
I would have come across some nuns in recent times, and very fine priests, who are suffering.
They don't need fancy titles to do their work, they are not going to rise through the ranks, they are the people who, really, we should be supporting,
The church was never meant to be about this pomposity. The pomp and ceremony – grown men kissing the Pope's ring.
There is a need for a whole new conversation.
But I don't know if there is any bishop who can get that conversation going.
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