This article was triggered by some interesting occasional reading about the Irish Catholic Church,
the prolonged state of the deepening decline in practice and
enthusiasm, along with the seemingly inept and ineffective efforts to
stem the determined and ubiquitous tide.
Three quotations have been
selected for their relevance and challenge, coupled with their potential
to see into the heart of the matter, provide food for thought and
action.
“It is only when it is purified
and transformed that the church will be able to devise a strategy to
respond to the spiritual needs of the age,” wrote Noel Barber SJ in Christianity in Ireland: Revisiting the Story.
What is unknown here is where on
the scale of one to 10 the crisis currently exists. Clearly major work
is required to fashion a new and renewed church.
Purifying
How to purify and transform the
church? At a minimum, these processes necessitate a root-and-branch
application, energised by a vision for the quotidian and the morrow.
The work of purifying and
transforming ranks among the most challenging and elusive objectives in
any enterprise.
Given the nature, configuration, scope and multi-layered
nature of the church – inner city, remote rural, large urban parish,
episcopate, papal nuncio and Rome – achieving those objectives would be a
daunting exercise.
Still, the task, however burdensome, is to be
undertaken and completed.
In some instances the guiding
light might not be shining from Rome. If the church is truly universal,
new strategies can emerge and be devised from any corner of its
multi-faceted arena.
Unseat clericalism
“Indeed, a thorough-going
repudiation of clericalism in its various non-spiritual dimensions would
seem to be a necessary requirement for an effective re-positioning of
the institutional Catholic Church in Ireland at the beginning of the new
millennium,” James S Donnelly Jr in Christianity in Ireland: Revisiting the Story.
Single-mindedly, with candid
equipoise, Donnelly sets out his stall and courageously names a glaring
problem, all in a single sentence. No doubt he is aided by his
international standing as a historian, coupled with his well-honed
specialisation in Irish history.
The goal as stated is to unseat
and erase clericalism and, as a consequence, facilitate the emergence of
a revitalised institution.
In any organisation, if a core
group takes over decision-making, dominates all discussion and
appropriates to itself the final word, their hold becomes too tight and
can strangle the organisation.
Liberal attitudes
“What distinguishes ‘new’
Catholics is that they do not feel bound by tenets of Catholicism as
laid down by the official Church teaching. They have re-defined
Catholicism to meet their needs and accommodate their life situations,”
writes Louise Fuller in Irish and Catholic? Towards an understanding of identity.
“It is high time for the Catholic
Church to re-interpret its role in modern Ireland. But engaging with
this has been highly problematical for the universal Church over
centuries,” she writes.
“At the local level, it represents
the central challenge for the Irish Catholic Church if Catholicism is
to reclaim its historic place in Irish identity.”
These are clear, unequivocal
statements grounded in research findings, underlining the “new”
Catholics who have “a liberal attitude to sexual matters. They question
the Church’s right to speak with absolute authority in matters of
personal morality.”
It will be interesting to see how
the church will deal with the “new Catholics” in any new configuration
of church life, religious practice and moral code.
The views of these three writers
are interlaced and speak to a large body of research, thinking and
writing. If a new vision of church is to emerge, these voices must be
heard, discussed and understood by laity, priests and bishops.
And too, among the many people who
have left the Catholic church, there quite possibly could be those who
went out of sheer frustration, disappointment, burn-out and
dissatisfaction.
Their voices, and those of the
theologians, thinkers and writers who articulate and inform their
understanding, have not been heard. Instead Rome is known to silence and
issue bans.
When all voices in “the troubled,
contemporary Irish Catholic Church” (as one writer put it) are
represented at the forum, then and only then will we find the beginnings
of a new paradigm and praxis.
Dr Mícheál W Ó Murchú has
lectured in education at UCC, TCD and the University of Missouri, Kansas
City. His writings have been published in Ireland and by Unesco.