Not in everything, thank God.
While the United States looks forward to beatifying Donald Trump as president in a few weeks’ time, the Taoiseach-elect, Micheál Martin, cut from a very different cloth, will assume political leadership here at home.
Thank God for that too.
The wisdom of the more sophisticated Irish electorate was clear in that Trump-alikes, invariably wandering in the foothills of the recent election, failed spectacularly to register any serious vote. The perceived immigrant threat hovering on the verge of racism thankfully disappeared from sight in Ireland.
But that said the Irish Catholic Church seems set to follow a recent trend in the Catholic Church in America – the closing of churches and its inevitable consequence, offering them for sale.
The US, with its short history coupled with an unapologetic business ethic takes change very much in its path. That go-to culture was exemplified some years ago when a returned Yank was asked for a contribution to an ambitious church refurbishment and replied: ‘In the States when things are not working, we close them down!’
Ireland, with longer memories, isn’t quite that lethal in its reactions, particularly in regard to religion, wrapped as we are in a lively heritage of social and family memories. But inevitably, in regard to a clear reality that many churches are becoming surplus to requirements, there’s a gathering sense that we have little or no hope of avoiding the particular path America is taking.
Someone told me recently that there are eight Catholic churches in Achill. As with many places in rural Ireland, the number of churches was directly connected with a lack of transport which once made other churches effectively inaccessible particularly to the elderly. The result was a campaign to build churches within walking distance and thus, parishes like Achill, finds itself with more churches than is necessary at a time when almost everyone has adequate transport.
It’s a dilemma now facing most Irish parishes. How to decide what church (or churches) remain open and what churches remain closed. It’s a dilemma too facing – though not in the immediate future – town parishes as well. In Ballina, for example, there are two churches (St Muredach’s Cathedral and St Patrick’s Church) either of which could cater on its own for the total congregations at weekend Masses.
Even the decision to build St Patrick’s almost 50 years ago was based on the perception of the inaccessibility of the cathedral to people at the other end of Ballina town.
While clearly we live in different times, ‘transitioning’ (as the Americans call it) to a more realistic downsizing of church numbers will demand not just a recognition of the financial imperative of closing churches but the difficulty of taking decisions that will bring considerable grief to everyone involved – those charged with proposing possible solutions and those who simply can’t even begin to contemplate the reality of selling a building that has been for generations a sacred space that acted as a repository of treasured memories of Baptisms, First Communions, Confirmations, weddings and funerals.
This is not a road that church authorities are anxious to embrace. Or that the church faithful want to face. It is clearly divisive in that while most congregations would be agreeable if other congregations were to join their church, most practising Catholics want to remain in their own church. This predictable dilemma was clear in a comment some years ago of a priest who was given responsibility for rationalising the number of Masses in neighbouring parishes: ‘Nobody is objecting’, he said, ‘if everyone could have Mass at 11 am in their own parish church every Sunday.’
Clearly, however, despite the almost universal reluctance to bell this particular cat, this is a situation that isn’t going to go away and will be exacerbated with time. Priest numbers are not just declining but disappearing over a cliff-face. Numbers attending church and paying for its upkeep have declined significantly and are expected to decline even further as the age level of worshippers increase with a growing percentage among what Americans call ‘the sunset years of life’.
The clear and unavoidable consequence is that the resources available in the future won’t measure up to present demands, not least the excessive numbers of churches that have to be insured, heated, lit and maintained.
The difficult and unavoidable truth is that unless the number of churches is rationalised, our churches will gradually become more and more neglected. Spreading a progressively smaller budget will end inevitably in more decrepit churches.
In America church buildings deemed surplus to requirements are being shut down and sold for business or residential use; in some cases for luxury real estate development; for others, as in one sale that will lead to the building of 3,000 square foot condominiums; in another to build hundreds of apartments in a high-rent city – most of which will become affordable housing.
There is no simple solution to the problem that emptying churches represents and the multiple challenges involved for church and people. Irish people have a great loyalty to their church building and, as is expected, will fight to retain a place with so many memories and associations over the decades and even the centuries.
There is a huge price to be paid for the kind of sensible rationalisation that is becoming more and more obvious and necessary. But there’s a price to be paid too for not doing anything. ‘No’ can be the easier word to say but saying it won’t solve the problem.